The “golden legend” and the “black legend” are mirror opposites, but they ultimately reinforce one another. The first sees the dictator as the epitome of power and grandeur. The latter sees the dictator as fragile, insecure, and compensatory. Both focus on the dictator’s personality. Together, they lead us back to that certain kind of military history buff and the obsession with “great man” history. Gillray’s cartoons are hilarious, but they imply that dictatorship is a therapist’s problem, to be explained by attention to the Napoleonic psyche. Scott’s Napoleon is more of the same, only less funny. But what of the social and cultural forces that led millions of French men and women to accept, and often enthusiastically celebrate, Napoleonic rule?
Mutatis mutandis and whatnot. Speaking of which, I think this tracks incredibly well with Jonah Goldberg’s recent piece, Bloodbaths, Blunders, and Blowback. As Nick Cotaggio put it, “‘Fake but accurate’ is not a thing.”
This may matter more than anything else this year.