The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot

@Kevin F. Kiley I didn’t call you any of these things. I described not owning responsibility for our choice of quoting as gutless, because it is. We cannot wheedle our way out, and i hold myself to that as we should each other, we are all responsible for our postings. We should either stand by our choices or not make them. We cannot offload that to the original author, who was operating under different conditions in a different era. I stand by that statement 100%. The “put up or shut up” comment was when I was explaining the scientific method. Experimental data has to be accepted, until you either repeat the experiment with different results or prove a different hypothesis to replace it. In a nutshell that is how the scientific approach works. If you want to refute it, you repeat the work (aka “put up or shut up”). As Carl Sagan put it, that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed freely. That which is supported by experimental data requires you to do the work. I stand by that explanation 100% You are dealing with an empiricist. Reputation and quoting secondary opinions mean absolutely nothing to me. Make a rational argument and I’ll concede. Fail and I will say so. If I ask for clarification or question the internal logic of an argument, I’m not being insulting or sarcastic, and I’m not scoring points. I genuinely believe that we all have a part to play in advancing our collective knowledge and understanding through feedback and enquiry. I respect that everyone holds their own opinion. In turn I ask them to respect my right to hold a contrary one. I treat everyone else as my intellectual equal, and funnily enough demand the same from them. I am the first to apologise if I misunderstand or get things wrong, as I know I often do. Try and intimidate, bully or patronise me, and hell will cease to be exothermic before I’ll give one nanometre. Such ‘stubbornness’ for me is not a character flaw, it is diagnostic. I am not neurotypical, it is hard coded in my DNA to have these thinking patterns. I suspect I will not be the only neurodiverse person you will encounter on here. Whether I’m allowed to stay here is @Zack White ‘s call. But I refuse to be something different to accommodate anybody’s vanity. And yes @Kevin F. Kiley , “anybody” includes you, as it does everybody else. I’m done apologising for being me. This is what inclusivity and diversity looks like. I thank you for your redaction, which because of the mobile app I wasn’t aware of. I will alter my post objecting to it as soon as I can get to a normal screen and keyboard.

But why did you raise it when you were looking to discredit his work? The memoirs were written before his period of illness, indeed you contend they weren’t written by him at all. To receive it can only be to use mental health as ‘mud’ which is unacceptable to me or anyone else in the modern era. The days when prejudice and bigotry can go unchallenged in ‘polite’ society is long since over. The ‘it says that in the book’ defence is a essentially a gutless one, as it seeks to absolve oneself of the responsibility for the quotes we select. Older historical works abound with misogyny, jingoism and casual racism. Are we to be absolved by repeating them because ‘that’s what it said in the book’. I think not. Individuals, even historical ones, with mental health issues should be treated with respect, or we risk perpetuating historical prejudices. If Bourrienne’s mental state or condition at the time was material then let’s have a mature and sympathetic discussion. If not, let’s refrain from repeating mere irrelevant mud-slinging. There will be uses of this forum who have experienced periods of mental health issues. There may even be some that have received institutional care. The message you are sending them is that their word can never be credible, and therefore their opinions invalid. That is very wrong, and I invited you to step back from that. You have not. Today, in another thread I have asked you to withdraw personal comments, refrain from trolling over old debates and issues, and have now asked you to moderate the inappropriate use of mental health issues on this thread. Having given you ample opportunity I now call on @Zack White to apply the rules of the forum or mediate as he sees fit. All I have done is respectfully disagree with you or invite you to clarify what you were saying.

@david Tomlinson The discredit belongs to the book itself as it isn't credible.

@Kevin F. Kiley then the mental health comment is irrelevant, which is my point.

But are you going to withdraw or amend your mental health comment?

Using a ghost-writer who does not use his name is basically dishonest. Bourrienne did little work on the memoirs that use his name, and it is a dishonest work, that is not by Bourrienne in the first place. And the 'memoirs' are grossly dishonest which prompted Comte Boulay de La Meurthe and the co-writers he assembled to take Bourrienne's alleged memoirs to task in a 720 page book, Bourrienne et ses erreurs. That is why the book is unreliable, mendacious, and a great 'waste of paper and printer's ink.' And basing any argument on Bourrienne is just plain nonsense. Because of those myriad problems, Bourrienne should not be used as a source.

Marbot was a distinguished combat commander, serving as such in 1813, 1814, 1815. He, unlike Bourrienne, was not fired twice for embezzlement, nor did he die in an insane asylum in 1834. Marbot can be used with some caution, as has been pointed out. Bourrienne cannot.