Napoleon: Life & Reputation

I disagree with the vast majority of what you have to say about the Black Lives Matter movement - the Islamic State comparison is frankly tone deaf, but this is not the place either for your comments on it, or my rebuttals.

There is a deeper truth though to what you say about consideration of standards of the time. In this sense, I don't feel that Napoleon was vastly different from many of his contemporaries, and that, as I emphasised with what was probably tedious frequency, is rather my point - he was far less forward thinking than is often acknowledged. I also think it is worth us recognising that there were steps back for women and slaves. The revolution was remarkable for its moves for both groups, and shedding a light on that isn't about modern agendas, its a recognition of historical fact.

@Zack White This is precisely the trap you are falling into. Groups like BLM try to push their own agendas and versions of histories, just like extreme N worshippers, before running into contradictions that are either ignored or blamed on someone else. However, their particular issue becomes a totem against which anyone’s value to society or whether they deserve a statue is measured. So, you say that, because N rolled back the changes made by the revolutionaries on women and slavery, he was not forward thinking nor (to use a term hijacked by left wingers) progressive. That is is trendy current thinking, which ends in the demands that statues of Churchill or US Founding Fathers be pulled down, but more put up of Mandela, who was caught with explosives.

These approaches do not deal with the question from the contemporary standpoint - they are an agenda, not a question of imposing modern views. They also more importantly deflect from the real point. Every new regime, democratic or otherwise, is inherently unstable until it is legitimised by reelection in a democracy or succession in a dynastic one. Thatcher came to power in 79 determined to sweep away the economic consensus of mixed economies (big role for the state), but she had to act in the short-term in her first Parliament and only really became radical after reelection in 83, while her reforms arguably did not take effect until the mid-90s. So, the question of how Napoleon thought has to acknowledge the extent to which he had to use short-term thinking to appease certain power groups and stabilise his regime, compared with what he could do with his own free will, not what his actions were in relation to a particular subject now trendy 200 years later. If N had thought that enfranchising women would benefit his regime, he would have done it - it is nothing to do with his feminist sympathies or lack of them. On slavery he changed policy a few times, but for reasons unconnected to his views on black people and actually to try to curry support for his regime. It is no different from his actions in relation to the Jews, which have become more of a totemic issue since the mid-1930s, when N’s relations with that group were primarily about cash for his regime. Indeed, in relation to slavery, I came across the tale of an Austrian soldier captured at Montebello, who finished up on the slave market at Antwerp and thence at the court of the Arab Bey of Tunis. Becoming the Bey’s military adviser, he was chased up a minaret by an angry crowd and died when he jumped off the top. No black people involved at any stage.

So, it is not just a case of having to consider Napoleon in terms of the standards of his time, including that his reforms were very similar to those attempted by Joseph II, which do tell us a lot about his thinking in terms of contemporary society. We also need to avoid trendy current thinking, where certain issues become totemic to the exclusion of others. Napoleon’s views on women and slavery do not tell us whether he was forward thinking. They merely confirm that he thought and acted in a certain way to stabilise his regime and appease certain powerful groups. Those are problems that most career political leaders have to contend with.