
Napoleon Had His Own American Dream - Vigier
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/06/15/napoleon-had-his-own-american-dream/
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exelius
This makes absolute sense -- Napoleon's conquest of Europe wasn't so much out
of disdain for the other countries in Europe as much as it was out of disdain
for their aristocracies. America had an aristocracy itself, to be sure, but it
was more of a self-made meritocracy than Europe since wealthy American
families had only had a generation or two to accumulate wealth. So it only
seems natural that he would want to live in a place without a noble caste.

I think the British were nervous about Napoleon setting up shop in America and
building a war machine that he would use to dismantle the British Empire.
Though honestly, I don't think Americans would have listened to him: his pitch
to Europeans was basically that he would give them freedom from the yoke of
the nobility. He wasn't offering anything that Americans didn't have already.
Many Americans fled Europe and its problems for a reason, and at the time the
US had very little interest in getting dragged in to the wars of continental
Europe.

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Htsthbjig
Talking about meritocracy and the US sounds strange to me. If we agree with
use the term "meritocracy" it should be noted the distinction in the meaning
with today's.

Today merit means working and generating value for others. In the past,
specially in the US it meant killing other people and stealing what they had.

"I think the British were nervous about Napoleon setting up shop in America
and building a war machine that he would use to dismantle the British Empire."

The British were not nervous. They knew that Napoleon could not be trusted if
left alive, because he could go back to France in order to take the power,
like he actually did.

"his pitch to Europeans was basically that he would give them freedom from the
yoke of the nobility."

While proclaiming himself emperor and putting all his family in charge as the
new nobility, including his son as his heir ...

~~~
exelius
> Talking about meritocracy and the US sounds strange to me. If we agree with
> use the term "meritocracy" it should be noted the distinction in the meaning
> with today's.

> Today merit means working and generating value for others. In the past,
> specially in the US it meant killing other people and stealing what they
> had.

Right, and I don't mean to claim that the US was equitable by any means. But
in the US, if you had money, that money gave you a certain amount of power
over your own destiny. In Europe, being wealthy was not enough; you had to be
born into the right family, or be wealthy enough to marry the daughter of a
lesser noble family that had fallen on hard times so that maybe your children
would have access to some form of power. But there was no social mobility; for
the most part, you would die in the same social station you were born into.

> The British were not nervous. They knew that Napoleon could not be trusted
> if left alive, because he could go back to France in order to take the
> power, like he actually did.

Yeah, this much is true. But IMO Napoleon gets too much credit -- these ideas
had been stewing in the populace since the beginning of the Reformation, and
they needed to come to a head before the Industrial Revolution could really
take off. The British never really addressed this underlying issue either
before or after deposing Napoleon, and IMO this led to a century of war in
Europe culminating in WW2 -- where the ghosts of the old kingdoms of Europe
were finally laid to rest.

> While proclaiming himself emperor and putting all his family in charge as
> the new nobility, including his son as his heir ...

Yeah, there is no doubt that he was a dictator. I would argue that he couldn't
bring law and order to France without declaring himself Emperor, simply
because European political culture was structured around a single ruler. He
was able to use his simple origins to build a cult of personality around
himself. He saw himself as a self-made man -- and he believed he would be a
better emperor because he seized the position for himself. While he predates
Nietzsche, he is the perfect embodiment of the "ubermensch" that Nietzsche
espouses in "The Will to Power".

His goal may have been to merely "reset" the European monarchy with men of
quality who rose to power through their own abilities. There is no doubt he
did this within his military officer corps. The main key to his success in
Europe was that his officers were smart, motivated and well-trained -- which
he ensured by promoting men based off their actions rather than their
heritage. His officers (and their men) were literally fighting for a better
life for themselves and their families; which motivates a little better than
fighting for king and country. But there's little doubt that the core of his
motivation in conquering Europe was to destroy the peerage system as it
existed in Europe at the time.

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pluma
The title's wording first reminded me of Last Week Tonight's segment called
"Other Countries' Presidents of the United States of America" (playing a joke
on the perceived ignorance of Americans about the rest of the world). Glad to
see the title is actually correct.

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stefantalpalaru
> diminutive Corsican

He wasn't short at all. His height was about 1.68m - above average at the
time.

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DominikR
Yes, he had his American Dream. Conquering Europe and eventually Russia. Went
in with 600.000 men and returned with 26.000.

By the way it's funny how western media writes fluff pieces about mass
murdering barbarians like Napoleon who were as popular as Adolf Hitler back
then and especially in the aftermath for many decades.

I guess we'll see in 50 years from now articles about the unfulfilled American
Dream of Adolf Hitler and everybody in the West will be clapping.

~~~
_petronius
Napoleon was a far more complex figure than you give him credit for, and
reducto ad Hitleram is a very poor rhetorical tactic anyway. While I wouldn't
hold him up as some kind of perfect hero, his legacy in a lot of parts of
Europe, from east to west, was one of a progressive reformer who brought a
powerful civil law code with him[0].

[0]: [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n24/edward-luttwak/a-damned-nice-
th...](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n24/edward-luttwak/a-damned-nice-thing)

