"Should Napoleons Tomb be Honored?" Topic

Au pas de Charge

Good post. But sadly, hypocrites will ignore it. The same hypocrites who like to throw the slavery aspect at Napoleon, as if his enemies were saints who had abolished slavery. They also like to boast that Britain abolished slavery but even after the Napoleonic period, Britain (and other nations) were still profiting from slavery. In 1834 Britain outlawed slavery in Britain but not in it's Asian colonies. And it appears British taxpayers were still paying off the dept for the vast amount the British government gave to the slave owners for loss of their 'property'.

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This was the point of my earlier post here. Napoleon had only to look to Britain and America Re slavery in action.

Au Pas DevCharge

Context is not a fiction, we cannot judge past societies by present values. We do not judge tribal societies. When John Chau was killed on North Sentinel Island by Sentinelese tribes people, no action was taken as it was judged they acted within their values, otherwise if we used present values we would have arrested the ‘murderers'. Time is as much a contextual separation as geography.

We get sniffy as we are talking about our ancestors who lived in our countries, not understanding the cultural difference.

Context is not a fiction, we cannot judge past societies by present values.

Not sure I follow this but sure, sometimes context can make a difference. However, even among platitudes, this is a towering platitude.

I dont recall ever saying otherwise about context. In fact, I think I did say that Napoleon in a museum is different than General Lee in front of a government building.

We do not judge tribal societies.

We dont? If you say so. We also dont make statues of them in our society and place them on taxpayer property, nor do we ask our children and our citizens to look up to them.

When John Chau was killed on North Sentinel Island by Sentinelese tribes people, no action was taken as it was judged they acted within their values, otherwise if we used present values we would have arrested the ‘murderers'. Time is as much a contextual separation as geography.

I don't understand what your point is. What do our values have to do with their values? Frankly it isnt even a matter of their values because the Indian government set up laws to protect the islanders' desire for privacy and protect them from outside pathogens. The policy to not convict for murder predates Chau's case and was public knowledge.

No one asked Chau to go there and he had ample warnings that the natives were…well, hostile.

In any case, the islanders have written no code for us to live by and have never had any authority over ours or really anyone else's lives.

That geography equals time is your construct and you seem to have twisted the point. Are you arguing that we should or should not judge the islanders? Ive never heard that time and geographical distance are the same except to the extent that it might take some time to travel further distances.

It seems that a certain segment of traditionally minded people believe that:

1. The Past can run both the present and the future

2. That the Past can judge the more distant past

3. That the current can judge the current

4. That the current can indeed judge the past, until it strikes one of their sacred cows, and then all bets are off and it is taboo.

And how past does something need to be not to be judged by current standards? 50 years?; 100, 200, 500?

Are all of you OK with not judging all the people who died in The Napoleonic Wars, all the Colonial wars, WW1 and WW2? Or only until you need to invoke them to gain advantage in an argument?

Did people not know in 1943 not to put people in ovens? Should we not judge them by 2022 standards?

Ordinarily I would say that the amount of irrelevancy and confusion built into your paragraph is nothing short of cosmic, but, it is an interesting story.

We get sniffy as we are talking about our ancestors who lived in our countries, not understanding the cultural difference.

Except that the argument is that glorification of those persons continues and legitimizes unequal and unjust mindsets.

Like the man posted above, don't worry about the dead, worry about the living. If we did that, then no one would worry about statue and memorial removal because it wouldn't matter. Symbols don't matter, right?

You mentioned that the concept of "not judging people by todays morals" was a fiction was my point.

The distance v time is that modern society is very forgiving of tribal societies whose actions do not meet modern laws or morals yet are highly critical of societies of 300 years ago. Yet culturally those societies are as alien to us as tribal societies. Possibly a hangover from the concept of the "noble savage".

On that basis we should not judge historical figures by modern values, although this does not mean that we would agree with those values. Hence it is not for us to judge Napoleon.

My main beef with Napoleon is that in his will, he left 10,000 francs to a man who had been accused, and acquitted, of attempting to assassinate Wellington in Paris in 1818. This diminishes him.

4th Cuirassier

Yes, shame on Napoleon. 10,000 francs! Should have been twice as much! LOL

Interestingly, he was, as you stated, acquitted. Can't blame Napoleon for that, although some will obviously try, even though he had no say in it.

There were a few assassination attempts made against Napoleon, so I'm sure you will agree that the people and nations funding and involved in them deserve the same?