Who was Napoleon Bonaparte and what were the main events of his early life? Entry 26

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), later Emperor Napoleon I of France, was one of the pivotal figures in the history of modern Europe. A product of the French Revolution, he consolidated many of its reforms while simultaneously establishing an increasingly authoritarian state and eventually an imperial dynasty. His armies spread French political and legal institutions across much of continental Europe, while also stimulating powerful reactions in the form of nationalism and resistance to French domination.

Some historians have portrayed Napoleon as an ambitious authoritarian or even a megalomaniac; others have emphasized his role in spreading the principles of legal equality, secular government and meritocratic advancement associated with the Revolution. Both interpretations contain elements of truth. What is beyond dispute is that Napoleon dominated European affairs from his seizure of power in 1799 until his final defeat in 1815, helping to shape the political landscape of nineteenth-century Europe.

Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, only a year after the island had been transferred from the Republic of Genoa to France. His family belonged to the minor Corsican nobility. The Bonapartes were of Italian origin, having roots in Tuscany before settling in Corsica. Napoleon was the second of eight surviving children, with five brothers and three sisters: Joseph, Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jérôme.

His Corsican upbringing remained an important part of his identity, particularly during his early years. In 1779, at the age of nine, he was sent to the military school at Brienne-le-Château in mainland France. He was reportedly teased by some of his fellow students for his Corsican accent and background. He nevertheless distinguished himself academically, particularly in mathematics, a subject that would serve him well in his chosen branch of the military.

In 1784 he was admitted to the École Militaire in Paris, where he specialized in artillery. He graduated in 1785 after an accelerated course of study following the death of his father, Carlo Bonaparte. Napoleon received his commission as a second lieutenant of artillery in the French army at the remarkably young age of sixteen.

The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 transformed Napoleon's career. Initially, he remained deeply attached to Corsica and supported the Corsican revolutionary movement. His political allegiance eventually brought him into conflict with Pasquale Paoli, the prominent Corsican nationalist leader. As relations between France and Paoli deteriorated, the Bonaparte family was forced to leave Corsica in 1793 and settled in mainland France.

Napoleon's first major military opportunity came at the Siege of Toulon in 1793. Toulon had rebelled against the revolutionary government and had been occupied with the assistance of British and other allied forces. Napoleon, then only twenty-four, served as an artillery officer and played an important role in developing the strategy that enabled Republican forces to capture the key forts overlooking the harbour. Toulon fell in December 1793, and Napoleon's performance earned him promotion to brigadier general.

His rapid rise was interrupted by the political upheavals of the Reign of Terror. Following the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, Napoleon was briefly arrested and investigated because of his previous association with the Jacobins and his connections to figures who had supported Robespierre. He was released without being charged, but his career temporarily stalled.

His fortunes changed dramatically in October 1795. A Royalist uprising threatened the revolutionary government in Paris, and Napoleon was appointed to help defend the government. On 13 Vendémiaire Year IV in the Revolutionary calendar—5 October 1795—his forces used artillery and concentrated fire to disperse the insurgents. The episode became famous for the phrase “a whiff of grapeshot.” His successful defence of the government established him as an important military figure and brought him into the political orbit of the Directory.

In 1796, Napoleon married Joséphine de Beauharnais, a well-connected widow whose social and political connections helped introduce him into influential circles in Paris. That same year he was appointed commander of the French Army of Italy, marking the beginning of the military career that would make him famous throughout Europe.

The Italian Campaign of 1796–1797 was the decisive turning point in Napoleon's early career. Despite being poorly supplied and initially regarded as a secondary French army, his forces defeated the Austrians and their allies in a series of brilliant operations. Among the most important victories were Montenotte, Lodi, Castiglione, Arcole and Rivoli. Napoleon demonstrated an ability to move armies rapidly, concentrate forces against vulnerable points and exploit victories before his opponents could reorganize.

His successes forced Austria to negotiate. On 17 October 1797, France and Austria signed the Treaty of Campo Formio, which effectively ended the War of the First Coalition. France gained significant territories, including the Austrian Netherlands and substantial influence in Italy, while Austria received compensation elsewhere. Napoleon also agreed to the transfer of Venice and its territories to Austria. The ancient Venetian Republic, which had existed for more than a millennium, thereby came to an end. French forces had occupied and looted Venice before the transfer.

Napoleon returned to Paris in December 1797 as a national hero. His victories had dramatically strengthened French influence in continental Europe and had established him as perhaps the most celebrated military commander of revolutionary France.

Yet Napoleon's ambitions were only beginning. Within two years he would embark on the Egyptian Campaign, return to France amid political crisis, and overthrow the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. That coup would transform him from a celebrated general into the dominant political figure in France and eventually lead to his coronation as Emperor of the French in 1804.

Napoleon's early life therefore illustrates the extraordinary opportunities created by the French Revolution. A minor nobleman from Corsica, initially an outsider in French society, was able to rise through the military hierarchy largely on the basis of talent and opportunity. By the end of the 1790s, the young artillery officer had become one of the most powerful figures in Europe, setting the stage for the Napoleonic era.

Why do people dislike centrists?

At first glance, the question seems somewhat puzzling. If centrists occupy the political middle, one might expect them to be the people most capable of finding common ground. Yet in an increasingly polarized political environment, centrists are often disliked by both sides. The reason, I suspect, has less to do with any particular policy position than with the fact that centrists are difficult to pigeonhole. They resist the tribal expectation that people must belong unequivocally to one political camp or another. More importantly, they invoke one of the most dreaded words in ideological politics: compromise.

Before going further, however, it is necessary to define what is meant by "centrist." Political labels are inherently relative. A centrist in the former Soviet Union would not necessarily occupy the same political position as a centrist in contemporary Saudi Arabia, the United States, or Britain. The same problem applies to labels such as left, right, liberal, conservative, progressive, and libertarian. Their meaning depends upon the political and cultural environment in which they are used. For the purposes of this discussion, I will therefore use the American political system as the principal reference point, although much of the argument can be applied more broadly to other countries within the Anglosphere.

Centrism is not a precise ideology, nor is it a single point on a political spectrum. Centrists generally occupy some portion of the middle ground between the left and right, but their positions can vary considerably depending upon the issue. Someone may be economically conservative but socially liberal, or fiscally cautious while supporting significant social reform. Others may be generally right-of-center while nevertheless agreeing with the left on particular issues. I would place myself in this broad right-of-center category. What unites centrists, therefore, is not a fixed collection of policy positions so much as a disposition toward politics: a preference for pragmatism over ideological purity, for evidence over political fashion, and for workable solutions over theoretical perfection.

This helps explain why centrists often see the political world differently from ideological partisans. They tend to be more comfortable with ambiguity and less inclined to divide political questions into neat categories of good and evil. Rather than viewing every issue through a binary lens, they are inclined to see shades of grey and to ask what might actually work. This does not mean that centrists lack principles. On the contrary, many hold quite strong principles but recognize that translating principles into public policy involves competing interests, unintended consequences, imperfect information, and practical constraints.

That disposition inevitably irritates the ideologue. The committed partisan wants to know where you stand. Are you with us or against us? Do you support the cause or oppose it? A centrist's response is often more complicated: "It depends." That answer can be intellectually honest, but politically it can sound evasive. The centrist may support part of a proposal while rejecting another part, agree with the underlying objective but disagree with the proposed means, or acknowledge the legitimacy of an opposing argument without accepting its conclusion. To someone operating within a rigid ideological framework, this can look like weakness or even betrayal.

Consequently, centrists are often attacked by the party faithful as insufficiently loyal. On the American right they may be dismissed as RINOs—"Republicans in Name Only"—while on the left similar accusations can be directed at Democrats considered insufficiently progressive. The precise vocabulary changes, but the underlying accusation is the same: you are not sufficiently committed to the tribe. The irony is that this criticism often reveals more about the critic than the centrist. If political identity requires complete agreement with one's political faction, then independence itself becomes evidence of disloyalty.

There are nevertheless some recurring tendencies among centrists. They often share the conservative instinct for empiricism: the belief that policies should be judged partly by their consequences and not simply by their intentions. At the same time, they may share with progressives a willingness to embrace innovation and change when existing institutions are no longer working. This combination can produce a distinctive political temperament. Centrists may be skeptical of revolutionary change without being opposed to reform, and respectful of tradition without assuming that everything inherited from the past deserves preservation.

Most centrists also appear to have a strong attachment to liberal democracy, despite recognizing its considerable flaws. They understand that democratic government can be inefficient, frustrating, partisan, and vulnerable to corruption. Elections can produce poor choices, legislatures can become dysfunctional, and institutions can protect entrenched interests. Yet the centrist generally remains unconvinced that the alternatives are better. Liberal democracy contains mechanisms for correcting its own mistakes: elections, courts, constitutional limitations, free speech, institutional checks and balances, and the peaceful transfer of power. Its imperfections are therefore not necessarily evidence that the system itself should be discarded.

This may help explain why centrists are often disproportionately represented among political independents. In the United States, many voters do not identify strongly with either major party, and in closely contested states these voters can become electorally decisive. Their importance is not necessarily that they occupy some mathematically precise midpoint between Democrats and Republicans, but that they are less attached to party identity and therefore potentially more responsive to individual candidates, policies, circumstances, and evidence.

Another characteristic of centrism is a relative resistance to political tribalism. This does not mean that centrists are immune from tribal instincts; no one is. But the centrist is generally more willing to recognize that political opponents can occasionally be correct. This can be deeply frustrating to partisans because it weakens the psychological distinction between "us" and "them." If someone on the opposing side makes a valid argument, the centrist is inclined to acknowledge it rather than reject it simply because of its source.

This leads to one of the most common misunderstandings about centrism: the assumption that centrists simply occupy the midpoint between two extremes. That is not necessarily the case. The center is not automatically halfway between two competing positions, nor does centrism imply that truth must always lie somewhere between opposing arguments. Sometimes one side is simply wrong. Sometimes a policy requires a clear moral position rather than compromise. A centrist should not be defined by an obligation to split the difference. Rather, centrism is better understood as a willingness to examine competing arguments and then arrive at a position based upon evidence, principle, and practical judgment.

This brings us to the question of why the left can dislike centrists.

For the far left, the answer is relatively straightforward: anyone who is not prepared to support the revolution is part of the problem. But mainstream progressives can have a different and more practical objection. Centrists can act as a braking force on ambitious reform. They may agree with the desired destination but question the speed, cost, or method of getting there. From a progressive perspective, this can be deeply frustrating. The centrist becomes an obstacle to forward movement.

This tension becomes particularly important because centrists often occupy influential positions within the institutions through which political change must actually occur. Within the Democratic Party, the educational system, the judiciary, business, and other major institutions, there are individuals whose political positions are more moderate than those of the activist wing. Progressives seeking significant structural change therefore need some degree of centrist cooperation. Yet cooperation necessarily introduces compromise, and compromise can look like surrender to people who believe that history is moving inexorably in one direction.

Progressives may also regard centrists as too accommodating toward markets, private enterprise, or existing institutions. From this perspective, centrism can appear to protect the status quo rather than challenge structural inequalities. The centrist's response is usually that institutions can be imperfect without being worthless and that reform does not necessarily require dismantling the system in which the reform is to take place.

The right has its own reasons for disliking centrists.

The fundamental conservative instinct is, in its traditional formulation, to conserve what works. Yet contemporary conservatism also contains activist elements, particularly around social and cultural issues. When conservatives seek to reverse or prevent progressive changes, centrists can once again become an impediment. Their willingness to accommodate some progressive ideas can be interpreted as weakness, surrender, or even complicity. A conservative may therefore view the centrist as someone who is too willing to compromise with ideas that the conservative believes are harmful to the country.

This is where accusations that centrists are "water-carriers" for the left can emerge. The argument is that by refusing to oppose progressive policies outright, centrists ultimately facilitate their advance. From the centrist perspective, however, this criticism confuses disagreement with opposition. One can believe that a policy is imperfect without believing that it must be defeated at all costs. One can accept the legitimacy of a progressive objective while questioning the means proposed to achieve it.

The far left and far right share another criticism of centrists: that they are defenders of the establishment. To revolutionaries on the left and populists on the right, the political establishment represents entrenched elites who benefit from the existing system. Centrists, because they are often institutionally minded and suspicious of radical disruption, can therefore be portrayed as foot soldiers of the very establishment that both extremes oppose.

There is some truth in this criticism, but it is incomplete. Centrism does not necessarily mean blind support for existing institutions. Many centrists are acutely aware of institutional failures, corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, political dysfunction, and entrenched interests. Their difference lies primarily in how they respond to those problems. Where the revolutionary sees the failure of an institution as evidence that it should be dismantled, the centrist may see it as evidence that it needs reform. The distinction is one of method and temperament: radical transformation versus incremental and sustainable change.

Centrists do, however, have weaknesses of their own. Their preference for analysis and caution can sometimes become paralysis. The desire to consider every side of an argument can turn into an inability to make a decision. What begins as intellectual humility can become fence-sitting, and the refusal to become emotionally invested in political causes can sometimes come across as a lack of conviction.

This is where the centrist can appear particularly vulnerable during periods of political upheaval. Movements thrive on emotion, identity, urgency, and moral certainty. Centrists tend to offer analysis, qualifications, and caveats. When people are demanding action, "on the other hand" can sound like "do nothing." When a political movement is energized by a sense of crisis, a cautious appeal to unintended consequences can appear almost insulting.

Donald Trump understood this dynamic exceptionally well during the 2016 Republican primaries. He was able to portray several of his more traditional right-of-center opponents as establishment figures who lacked the passion necessary to confront the problems confronting the country. Whatever one's opinion of Trump, his success demonstrated the political power of emotional clarity over cautious moderation. In an environment where voters believed the system itself was failing, restraint could be portrayed as weakness.

Yet this is precisely why centrism matters.

Government is ultimately the art of converting competing interests into decisions that can actually be implemented. Every functioning democracy requires compromise because no large and diverse society can operate indefinitely according to the preferences of a single faction. Ronald Reagan compromised. Barack Obama compromised. Donald Trump compromised. Whatever their ideological differences, each discovered the same practical reality: governing is different from campaigning.

Campaigns reward purity; governing requires negotiation.

This is why centrism can be understood as one of the mechanisms through which liberal democracy maintains equilibrium. The political center is not necessarily a fixed location on a spectrum. It is a zone in which competing interests meet, negotiate, modify their demands, and sometimes discover that they have more in common than they initially believed. In that sense, centrism has an affinity with the constitutional principle of checks and balances. Neither side is permitted to exercise unlimited power, and political outcomes emerge through a process of competing institutions and interests.

There is an interesting parallel here with an idea found in Kabbalistic thought: the balance between Gevurah, often associated with judgment, restraint, or severity, and Chesed, associated with kindness, generosity, or expansive benevolence. Either quality taken to an extreme can become destructive. Excessive judgment can become cruelty; excessive generosity can become indulgence. The wisdom lies not in eliminating either force but in finding an appropriate balance between them.

Centrism, at its best, operates according to a similar principle. It recognizes that societies require both change and continuity, compassion and responsibility, individual freedom and social obligation, innovation and caution. The objective is not to split every difference mechanically, but to find the point at which competing principles can coexist without allowing any one of them to become absolute.

This is why centrists are so often misunderstood. They are not necessarily people without convictions. They may simply recognize that political problems rarely arrive in the form of perfectly polarized choices. They understand that a policy can have both benefits and costs, that an opponent can possess legitimate concerns, and that today's political victory can become tomorrow's unintended problem.

In an age of increasing polarization, that disposition may be more important than ever. The political extremes are often the loudest voices because certainty is easier to communicate than nuance and outrage is more mobilizing than compromise. But a democracy cannot be governed indefinitely by outrage. Eventually someone has to negotiate, someone has to count the votes, someone has to write the legislation, someone has to administer it, and someone has to live with its consequences.

That is where the center becomes important. The center is not necessarily where truth resides, nor should centrism become an excuse for avoiding difficult moral choices. But it is often where competing truths, interests, and principles have to confront one another. Its great contribution is not ideological purity but political functionality: the ability to transform disagreement into something that a pluralistic society can actually live with.

It could be that the reason people dislike centrists is also the reason democracies need them. Centrists are difficult to pigeonhole because they refuse to surrender their judgment entirely to a political tribe. They are frustrating because they insist upon asking whether a proposed solution will actually work. They are accused of lacking passion because they are reluctant to turn every disagreement into a moral crusade. And they are criticized for compromising because they recognize that compromise is not necessarily surrender; sometimes it is the mechanism by which freedom survives disagreement.

At a time when politics increasingly rewards certainty, tribal loyalty, and ideological purity, the centrist's willingness to remain intellectually independent may look less like weakness and more like courage. A healthy democracy does not require everyone to occupy the same political position. It requires enough people to remain capable of talking across the divide.

The political center, properly understood, is not simply the space between two extremes. It is the space in which extremes are forced to negotiate with reality.

The Tyranny of the Permissible: Political Correctness and the Independent Mind

Does political correctness affect a person's ability to think for themselves? I believe it can for the most troubling aspect of political correctness is not what it prevents us from saying, but the way it impacts our frame of thought.

However there is an important clarification to make at the outset. Civility is not the enemy of freedom. Treating people with dignity, avoiding unnecessary cruelty, and recognizing the power of language are characteristics of a civilized society. There is nothing intellectually virtuous about being deliberately offensive. Political correctness becomes something quite different, however, when it moves beyond courtesy and begins establishing the boundaries of permissible thought. At that point, the question is no longer simply, "How should I express this idea?" but rather, "Am I permitted to have this idea at all?"

A free society depends upon the ability of individuals to examine propositions without first obtaining permission from an ideological authority. The moment certain conclusions become unacceptable independently of the evidence supporting them, intellectual inquiry has already been compromised. The irony is that this problem can arise precisely among people who believe themselves to be defending tolerance.

Political correctness is a relatively modern term, but the phenomenon it describes is ancient. Human beings have always created orthodoxies. Every society develops assumptions about what is respectable, what is shameful, what is sacred, and what constitutes heresy. The Enlightenment challenged precisely this kind of intellectual authority. Its great achievement was not that philosophers suddenly discovered the truth, but that they increasingly challenged the assumption that truth should be determined by tradition, status, religious authority, or political power. Reason, evidence, debate, and individual judgment became increasingly important means by which claims could be evaluated.

John Stuart Mill understood this danger particularly well. In On Liberty, he warned not only against the coercion of governments but against the "tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling." His insight remains remarkably relevant. A society does not require an official censor to suppress thought; social pressure can accomplish much the same thing. If people become sufficiently concerned about ridicule, ostracism, professional consequences, or accusations of moral depravity, they will often censor themselves. The state does not have to silence them because their anticipation of social consequences does it for them. This is a subtler form of control because the individual can continue believing that he is free.

Nietzsche approached the question from a different direction. His concept of the Will to Power reminds us that human beings are not motivated exclusively by the search for truth. We also seek influence, status, recognition, and control. The power to define what constitutes legitimate discourse is itself a form of power.

Who determines which words are acceptable and which historical interpretations are permissible? Who establishes which grievances deserve recognition and which are considered offensive merely for being raised? These are not trivial questions, because the person or institution that controls the boundaries of legitimate discourse inevitably influences the conclusions that can emerge from that discourse.

This does not mean that every social norm is an illegitimate exercise of power. Civilization itself depends upon norms. The important distinction is between norms that facilitate respectful disagreement and norms that prevent disagreement from occurring. The first makes discussion possible; the second makes discussion unnecessary.

It would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that ideological conformity belongs exclusively to one political camp. The American right demonstrated its capacity for this during the McCarthy era. Fear of communism was understandable in the context of the Cold War, and communist regimes had already demonstrated their capacity for repression. Legitimate concern became something more dangerous when accusation and suspicion began substituting for evidence. To be labeled "Un-American" could become a means of ending an argument rather than engaging with one.

The lesson should not be that opposition to communism was wrong. The message is that even a legitimate political concern can become intellectually corrupt when it is transformed into an instrument for policing ideological conformity. The same principle must apply to the contemporary left.

Over the past several decades, critics have argued that progressive assumptions have become increasingly influential within universities, the media, the arts, corporations, government institutions, and other cultural organizations. Some describe this development through Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony and the later idea of a "march through the institutions." One need not accept every version of this argument to recognize the broader principle: institutions shape the intellectual environment in which people think.

Influence over institutions can therefore become influence over the vocabulary through which reality is interpreted. This is why the battle over language is rarely merely about language. Words determine categories; categories determine what becomes visible; what becomes visible determines what can be debated; and what can be debated influences what society eventually considers legitimate policy.

George Orwell understood this relationship between language and political power with extraordinary clarity. In 1984, the creation of Newspeak was not simply an attempt to make people speak differently. It was an attempt to reduce the range of thoughts that could be expressed. The deeper Orwellian warning is therefore not merely about censorship but about the relationship between vocabulary and consciousness. If the vocabulary necessary to formulate an idea disappears, the idea itself becomes increasingly difficult to articulate.

This brings us back to one of the most common defenses of political correctness: "It's simply about being respectful." Sometimes it is but that explanation becomes inadequate when offense itself is used as an argument against inquiry.

There is an enormous difference between saying, "I disagree with what you have said," and saying, "You should not be permitted to say it." There is also a difference between saying, "That language is unnecessarily cruel," and saying, "The proposition itself must not be examined." A liberal society has to preserve these distinctions. Otherwise, controversial propositions can be defeated without ever being refuted. Instead of answering an argument, we attack the person who made it; instead of examining evidence, we investigate the moral character of the speaker.

The result is intellectually disastrous. A proposition does not become false because its author is unpleasant, nor does it become true because its author is virtuous. Truth does not recognize our preferred political affiliations.

This matters because the major political questions confronting Western democracies are extraordinarily complicated. Immigration involves economic, humanitarian, demographic, cultural, and national-security considerations. The debate over individual versus group rights involves competing conceptions of equality and justice. Freedom of speech inevitably raises questions about harm, responsibility, social stability, and the limits of state power. The judiciary raises questions about constitutionalism, democratic accountability, and the separation of powers. Questions of race, gender, inequality, national identity, and historical injustice are similarly complex.

Yet political movements have an incentive to simplify complexity. The culture war rewards certainty. It divides the world into victims and perpetrators, enlightened people and ignorant people, good people and bad people. It gives individuals a moral identity and provides them with an enemy against whom that identity can be defined. This is politically powerful, but it is intellectually dangerous because reality rarely conforms to the categories of political activism.

People can simultaneously be privileged in one respect and disadvantaged in another. A policy can produce benefits as well as costs. A historical institution can contain both admirable and reprehensible elements. An individual can experience genuine discrimination without every social disparity being attributable to discrimination. The real world is messy, while ideology prefers clarity.

The most revealing characteristic of political correctness is the creation of intellectual sacred spaces. Some propositions become effectively untouchable. Once an idea acquires this status, questioning it can be interpreted not as an attempt to discover whether it is true, but as evidence of moral deficiency. The person asking the question becomes the problem.

This is structurally similar to religious dogmatism, although the comparison should not be misunderstood. Religion itself is not synonymous with fanaticism, nor is political progressivism synonymous with religious belief. The point is that a dogmatic system establishes propositions that are not merely considered true but are treated as morally protected from serious challenge. There are orthodoxies, heresies, approved interpretations, recognized authorities, and consequences for violating established boundaries.

The secularization of Western society has not eliminated the human desire for sacred beliefs. It may simply have transferred some of that desire into politics. The political arena increasingly becomes a place where people seek meaning, identity, belonging, moral purpose, and even redemption. Politics becomes more than politics; it becomes existential.

This brings us to the deepest question: what happens to the individual? The greatest danger of ideological conformity may not be censorship imposed from above, but the gradual replacement of independent judgment with socially approved judgment.

Instead of asking, "What do I think?" we begin asking, "What am I supposed to think?" We refrain from examining evidence and now search for the approved interpretation. Our own assumptions are no longer challenged as we now resort to arguments that confirm them. Political opponents no longer seem worthy of engagement, we caricature them instead,. Gradually, we replace an internal dialogue with an internal censor.

This is where the problem becomes psychological. Søren Kierkegaard warned about the dangers of losing oneself in "the crowd." The individual who simply adopts the opinions of his surrounding culture can experience the comfort of belonging without ever confronting the difficult responsibility of becoming an independent self. The crowd provides certainty; independent thought provides uncertainty, and human beings often prefer clarity.

Genuine intellectual independence is therefore difficult. It requires a willingness to entertain the possibility that we are wrong, to expose our cherished beliefs to criticism, and to listen to people whom we may dislike. In other words, it requires humility.

This is where the contemporary discussion surrounding Jordan Peterson touches on an older philosophical tradition. The willingness to risk being offended is not an endorsement of cruelty. It is an acknowledgement that intellectual growth frequently begins where psychological comfort ends.

If every uncomfortable proposition is excluded because somebody might be offended, the range of permissible inquiry becomes progressively narrower. A university should therefore be a place where difficult and even dangerous ideas can be examined. A newspaper should be able to publish unpopular opinions. A classroom should allow difficult questions. A democracy should tolerate disagreement. An individual should be able to say, "I don't know."

That last statement may be among the most important of all. Once we become convinced that our political tribe possesses all the answers, curiosity begins to die. Intellectual confidence is useful; intellectual certainty can be dangerous.

There is an interesting paradox here. Liberal democracy depends upon tolerance, but tolerance cannot mean that every proposition must be treated as equally valid. It means that people must retain the freedom to argue about which propositions are valid.

The objective should therefore not be to create a society in which nobody is offended. That is impossible. The objective should be to create a society in which people are free to disagree without requiring ideological permission to do so.

A mature democracy does not eliminate conflict; it creates institutions through which conflict can be managed without destroying the society itself. It does not eliminate disagreement; it makes peaceful disagreement possible. That requires intellectual pluralism, recognition that one's political opponents may occasionally be right, and the courage to distinguish between an argument that is genuinely false and one that is merely unpopular.

The defense of independent thought cannot itself become another partisan weapon. If we condemn censorship when the political right practices it but celebrate it when the political left practices it, we have learned nothing. If we demand freedom of speech only for opinions we like, we do not actually believe in freedom of speech. If we insist that our opponents listen to us while refusing to listen to them, we are not defending dialogue; we are demanding submission.

Our fundamental challenge is therefore not simply to resist political correctness but to resist intellectual dependency. We should be suspicious whenever someone tells us what we are permitted to think, and equally suspicious when someone on our own side tells us the same thing. The independent mind must remain capable of stepping outside the tribe. It must be able to say, "This is what I believe—but here is why I might be wrong."

That is a profound form of intellectual freedom. The Enlightenment did not liberate humanity by giving us a new set of unquestionable doctrines. It gave us permission to question. Mill reminded us that prevailing opinion could become tyrannical. Nietzsche argued that the search for truth is entangled with power. Gramsci made the case that institutions and culture shape consciousness. Orwell showed controlling language can constrain thought. Kierkegaard warned us of the danger of losing ourselves in the crowd. Together, these insights point toward a common concern: political identity can become a substitute for individual judgment.

So the greatest threat posed by political correctness is not that it makes us more polite. It is that, when taken to its ideological extreme, it can make us less curious, less skeptical, less courageous, and ultimately less capable of thinking for ourselves.

What were the causes of the French Revolution? Entry 25

 In brief, the French Revolution was a period of radical political and social transformation that ended the Ancien Régime, contributed to the development of our contemporary understanding of political philosophy, and established the French Republic. It is often regarded as a starting point in the transition to modern Europe and, in one respect, represents a fulfilment—although not always a positive one—of the ideals of the Enlightenment. The events that followed had far-reaching consequences during the Napoleonic era and contributed to the development of the nation-state system that would come to define Europe throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

So what were its causes?

Several interconnected factors contributed to the outbreak of the French Revolution.

One of the most important was the financial crisis of the French state. France had accumulated enormous debts as a result of costly wars, most notably the Seven Years’ War and France’s involvement in the American War of Independence. By the late eighteenth century, the government was struggling to service this debt, while a large portion of its revenue was already committed to paying interest. France was, in effect, drowning in debt, and attempts to reform the financial system repeatedly encountered resistance.

At the same time, the ideas of the Enlightenment were increasingly challenging the foundations of the existing political and social order. Enlightenment thinkers criticized aspects of absolute monarchy, arbitrary authority, religious intolerance, and the privileges enjoyed by established institutions. Philosophers such as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Baron de Montesquieu, and Denis Diderot promoted ideas concerning reason, individual liberty, political representation, constitutional government, and the reform of society. Rousseau, particularly through The Social Contract, questioned traditional political authority and argued that legitimate government should be based on the will of the people. Montesquieu advocated the separation of powers and admired aspects of the English constitutional system, while Diderot played a central role in the publication of the Encyclopédie, a monumental project that sought to collect and disseminate knowledge. The American Revolution also demonstrated that Enlightenment principles could be translated into a new political order, further encouraging demands for reform in France.

The inequities of the French tax system deepened the crisis. French society was formally divided into three Estates: the First Estate, consisting of the clergy; the Second Estate, consisting of the nobility; and the Third Estate, which included everyone else, from the bourgeoisie to peasants and urban workers. Although the Third Estate represented the overwhelming majority of the population, it carried a disproportionate share of the tax burden. The privileged Estates enjoyed important exemptions and privileges, while attempts to introduce broader tax reforms faced resistance from groups determined to protect their traditional advantages. This system created not only economic inequality but also profound resentment toward the privileged orders.

There was also an increasingly important social conflict between the rising bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. Members of the bourgeoisie—merchants, professionals, lawyers, financiers, and other prosperous members of the Third Estate—were becoming wealthier and more educated. Yet their growing economic importance was not matched by equivalent political or social privileges. Many resented a system in which birth and inherited status could determine access to offices, influence, and prestige. The bourgeoisie therefore developed increasingly strong demands for political representation, equality before the law, and an end to aristocratic privilege.

The monarchy itself contributed to the crisis through political weakness and ineffective leadership. Louis XVI faced the difficult task of reforming a deeply entrenched political and social system while confronting opposition from privileged groups and institutions, including the provincial parlements, which could obstruct or resist royal attempts to implement reforms. The king's inability to resolve the financial crisis or build sufficient political support for reform gradually weakened confidence in the monarchy.

Finally, food shortages and economic hardship intensified popular discontent. A series of poor harvests contributed to rising grain and bread prices, placing enormous pressure on ordinary people, for whom bread was a basic necessity. The resulting hardship was particularly severe among the urban poor and peasants. The monarchy and political elites proved unable to adequately address the growing economic crisis, further undermining their legitimacy.

These factors did not operate independently. Financial crisis, social inequality, Enlightenment ideas, political weakness, aristocratic privilege, and food insecurity reinforced one another, creating a situation in which demands for reform increasingly became demands for fundamental political and social transformation. By 1789, the existing system was no longer able to contain these pressures, setting the stage for the outbreak of the French Revolution.

Star Wars is Evil... Yes I said it.

I grew up in the generation that Star Wars was custom-made for. At the age of eight, I remember sitting with my jaw at ground level, mouth agape, completely fixated on a universe that was simply unbelievable. If I had been transported to a utopia, this was it. That was then.

My enthusiasm continued as I immersed myself in The Empire Strikes Back and the trilogy’s concluding episode, Return of the Jedi.

Years later, when Lucas re-released the three films with a few modifications, I sat through them again, this time with a healthy dose of nostalgia. Jedi had replaced A New Hope as my personal favourite, and Empire seemed slightly less disjointed than I remembered from childhood. Yet something had changed. The series had fallen remarkably in my overall estimation. The magic was tarnished, and I couldn’t believe how insipid both the plot lines and the acting seemed.

Of course, I was older. One cannot dismiss that variable. But when compared with the science fiction of the British comic-book world—Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper—not to mention the alternative science fiction of Blade Runner and other dystopian films, Star Wars looked remarkably inferior, at least by a parsec or two. In fact, it was downright awful.

I watched the prequels, hoping for some form of broader salvation, but loathed all three. The second was particularly bad, and I cursed the fact that I had been duped, even at a young age, by Lucas’s space odyssey of junk.

Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi, was famously dismissive of Star Wars in his personal writings, and I can understand why. The series was, in many respects, a gigantic con job: the brilliance of its special effects served to conceal glaring weaknesses in its writing, characterization, and acting.

Very little substance emerges from Star Wars. It is a massive collection of clichés, but worse than that, I would argue is that its moral universe is deeply questionable—something that the masses who bathe in its subculture almost never acknowledge.

Consider A New Hope. Darth Vader participates in the destruction of Alderaan, an act that amounts to planetary genocide. I remember being shocked by it even as a child. Let’s put this in context for a moment.

History is replete with evil despots—Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot—and all of them were responsible for mass murder and genocide. But none of them destroyed an entire planet and everyone living on it. Vader does precisely that, and he does it in a matter of minutes. We are exposed to the event almost matter-of-factly because, of course, it is simply part of the story.

Here is the part I find difficult to swallow. Once Vader is redeemed, the hold of the Dark Side is broken, and he saves his son in Return of the Jedi, we are expected to cheer for him. We are encouraged to sympathize with him as he takes his place alongside Obi-Wan and Yoda in the pantheon of Jedi.

Luke Skywalker even ceremonially honours this genocidal lunatic with a funeral. Talk about turning your back on evil. What about his victims?

Was this monster not responsible for the destruction of billions of lives, at least potentially, given the population of an entire planet? Yet Lucas wants us to forget all of this because Vader ultimately did the honourable thing: he saved his son.

Frikkin' hell. Story or no story. Fiction or not. Does this not reveal something morally peculiar about Lucas’s universe?

One could argue that I am wasting far too many bytes on this line of thought—ink is so twentieth century—but unfortunately the Star Wars super-meme has infected our collective consciousness in a remarkably pervasive way. 

Children know more about asinine lines such as “I am your father” and “Use the Force” than they know about the words or ideas of Churchill, Schweitzer, or Martin Luther King Jr. Adults dress up in Vader costumes. When questioned about it, they may retort with something along the lines of, “Vader is the ultimate badass.”

Which begs the next question: where does that leave Genghis Khan, who only redrew the face of Eurasia?

A third-tier badass, perhaps. The point is not that children should not enjoy Star Wars. Of course they should. Imagination, spectacle, and myth have their place. Nor am I suggesting that watching a fictional villain somehow makes a person morally deficient.

The problem is more subtle. Ideas drive action.Stories provide us with archetypes, heroes, villains, virtues, and definitions of what is admirable. We absorb these ideas long before we are old enough to critically examine them. Lucas created a moral calculus in which redemption can apparently erase almost any prior transgression, provided the villain eventually performs the right act for the right person.

That is a troubling idea. The  Star Wars machine has become vastly larger than Lucas himself. Disney, Lego, merchandise, streaming, games, costumes, conventions, and an enormous commercial ecosystem will continue to entrench the mythology in the minds of successive generations.

We have become extraordinarily adept  at amusing ourselves. We consume stories, characters, spectacles, franchises, and fictional universes on an almost industrial scale. Meanwhile, the ideas embedded within those stories can pass into the culture largely unexamined.

It is a further statement on a sad reality—a truism we routinely overlook as we amuse ourselves to oblivion: What we repeatedly celebrate eventually becomes part of what we value.

Who were some of the most noteworthy Anglo-Saxon kings? Entry 24

The various English kingdoms were ruled from the 5th to the 11th century by monarchs of Anglo-Saxon origin. England was not a unified land for much of this period; rather, it was composed of several separate kingdoms, including East Anglia, Essex, Mercia, Northumbria, Kent, Wessex, and Sussex, collectively known as the Heptarchy. Minor kingdoms, such as Lindsey and Ynys Weith, also existed, while many regions were controlled by tribal chiefs and petty warlords.

Danish invaders began making incursions into the northern kingdoms, eventually conquering territory that became known as the Danelaw. In response to the continuing threat from the Danes, English kings frequently paid Danegeld, a form of tribute or tax intended to raise funds either to defend against the invaders or, at times, to secure their withdrawal.

Several Saxon kings stand out for their influence on the development of England. Aethelbald of Mercia (d. 757) was an important Mercian king during a period when Mercia expanded its influence and came to dominate many of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. His successor, Offa of Mercia (d. 796), further consolidated Mercian control over the Midlands and strengthened the Christian tradition within his realm. Offa was one of the most powerful rulers of Anglo-Saxon England before the eventual rise of Wessex.

The emergence of Wessex as the dominant Anglo-Saxon kingdom was associated with Egbert of Wessex (d. 839). His victory over the Mercians helped establish the growing superiority of Wessex and laid the foundations for the later unification of England.

Perhaps the most celebrated of the Saxon monarchs was Alfred the Great (c. 849–899), who became King of Wessex in 871. Alfred played a crucial role in defending England against Viking invasion, most notably defeating the Vikings at the Battle of Edington. He also strengthened the legal system, developed England's naval capabilities, promoted education, and encouraged intellectual and cultural activity. His reign is therefore often regarded as a major turning point in the development and consolidation of the English kingdom.

Aethelstan (d. 939), Alfred's grandson, continued the expansion of Wessex and is generally regarded as the first king to rule a united Kingdom of England. His victory at the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, where he defeated an alliance of Norse and Scottish forces, further secured his position and demonstrated the growing strength of the English kingdom.

The later Saxon period was marked by renewed Viking attacks. Aethelred II, known as Aethelred the Unready (d. 1016), was king during the English defeat at the Battle of Maldon in 991. The increasing Viking threat led to renewed payments of Danegeld in an attempt to prevent further attacks. These measures ultimately failed to halt the Danish conquest, and the Danish king Cnut became king of England in 1016, bringing a period of Danish rule to the English throne.

The final significant Saxon monarch was Edward the Confessor (d. 1066), the last king of the House of Wessex. Edward ruled from 1042 until his death in 1066. His death without a clear heir created a succession crisis that led to competing claims to the English throne. The resulting conflict culminated in the Norman Conquest of 1066, bringing Saxon rule to an end and ushering in the era of Norman power in England.

The Dark Side of Adolescence

 Identification with group units forms a vital part of human psychological development—we are social animals, after all. During adolescence, an external group is often sought as an adjunct to the immediate family. In many cases, this external group can begin to supersede the family as the adolescent’s primary source of influence and belonging, and it therefore plays a critical role in shaping the young adult’s worldview.

Whether this drive is primarily genetic—hard-wired into the human brain—or environmentally determined is debatable. What seems less debatable is the power of the need to belong to something larger than oneself. This is a phenomenon I have observed repeatedly in the students I have taught.

It can be argued that human beings pass through several stages of social interaction, with the field of significant relationships expanding at each stage. As infants, our relationships are directed primarily toward our parents, usually the mother as the initial source of nourishment and security. As children, siblings and close friends become increasingly important. During adolescence, the circle expands further to encompass the broader peer group.

The emergence of the peer group often brings with it a questioning of parental values. This can lead to a rejection of the values of the home, commonly described as teenage rebellion. But rebellion may be only part of the story. The adolescent is not simply rejecting the family; they are searching for something to replace it—a larger framework within which to understand themselves and the world.

When that search for meaning is not satisfied within the peer group, the adolescent may expand their horizons again, exploring the various external groups and institutions available to them. These may include sports teams, clubs, political organizations, religious communities, or social causes. Some provide a positive sense of identity and purpose. Others may lack the philosophical or spiritual dimension necessary to replace the solidity and meaning previously provided by the family.

This can leave the adolescent particularly receptive to idealism in its many forms. That transition can be profoundly positive, leading a young person toward humanitarianism, service, creativity, or social responsibility. But it can also take a darker direction, particularly when the idealism is built around an us-against-them worldview.

The phenomenon of the homegrown terrorist—sometimes someone raised with many of the material benefits of Western society, and often from a relatively comfortable or affluent background—illustrates the extreme end of this process. How can an individual who appears to have so much be willing to kill or die for an abstract belief?

One possible answer lies in the extraordinary power of identification. The individual is no longer acting primarily as an isolated person. They have become part of something larger: a cause, a movement, a religious or political identity, or a perceived struggle between opposing worlds.

This is one reason extremist movements have historically placed such importance on young people. The Nazis understood the power of youth organizations to shape identity and loyalty. Revolutionary regimes have similarly sought to mobilize children and adolescents around political causes. In authoritarian societies, the pressure to demonstrate loyalty to the cause can even become strong enough to override traditional family bonds.

The lesson is not that adolescence inevitably leads toward extremism. Quite the opposite: adolescence is a period of extraordinary possibility. The same psychological drive that can make a young person susceptible to extremist ideology can also propel them toward compassion, creativity, courage, and service.

Adolescents need to feel that they belong to something larger than themselves. They need meaning, identity, purpose, and a sense that their existence matters.

If constructive outlets exist—communities that can engage young people intellectually, philosophically, socially, and spiritually—the search can become one of the great engines of human development. If those outlets are absent, however, the vacuum can be filled by movements offering certainty, belonging, and purpose at almost any cost.

It could be that  the darker side of adolescence: the very capacity that allows a young person to transcend the self can also make them vulnerable to those who offer them a cause worth sacrificing the self for.

The drive is extraordinarily powerful. In its most extreme form, it can become so powerful that even the instinct for survival can appear secondary to the need for meaning and belonging.