Heresy

In Middle Ages, Christian theologians postulated that heresy is even worse than heathenism. Because when someone is a heathen, he is openly a non-Christian, and thus no Christian can be confused and ensnared by him. A heretic, however, while being the enemy of the Church and its little god, pretends to be a Christian and espouses some of the doctrines of Christianity — thus, he is dangerous to an average Christian who may not be able to tell a difference between a heretic and a true believer. (And that is why the Church oppressed Jews and, lehavdil, Muslim, but burned the Christian heretics.)

Following this logic of thinking, this is the most dangerous political philosophy:

Napoleon gained support by appealing to some common concerns of French people. These included dislike of the emigrant nobility who had escaped persecution, fear by some of a restoration of the ancien régime, a dislike and suspicion of foreign countries had tried to reverse the Revolution — and a wish by Jacobins to extend France's revolutionary ideals.

Bonaparte attracted power and imperial status and gathered support for his changes of French institutions, such as the Concordat of 1801 which confirmed the Catholic Church as the majority church of France and restored some of its civil status. Napoleon by this time, however, was not a democrat, nor a republican. He was, he liked to think, an enlightened despot, the sort of man Voltaire might have found appealing. He preserved numerous social gains of the Revolution while suppressing political liberty. He admired efficiency and strength and hated feudalism, religious intolerance, and civil inequality. Enlightened despotism meant political stability. He knew his Roman history well: after 500 years of republicanism, Rome became an empire under Augustus Caesar.

Although a supporter of the radical Jacobins during the early days of the Revolution (more out of pragmatism than any real ideology), Napoleon moved to tyranny as his political career progressed and once in power embraced certain aspects of both liberalism and authoritarianism — for example, public education, a generally liberal restructuring of the French legal system, and the emancipation of the Jews — while rejecting electoral democracy and freedom of the press.

Because open and complete tyranny is obviously evil. And inefficient government is obviously disastrous. But Napoleon’s model — a strong government that provides for most civil liberties, a government that is oppressive but only for the purpose of being “efficient” and resolute — may sound attractive to some. It takes greater intelligence and more time to recognize the problem with this system.

Just like I was an atheist before I became a frum Jew, I was a supporter of a strong centralized government that provided for civil freedoms — a “Conservative” in American terms — before I became a libertarian.

(Alter Rebbe, by the way, also recognized the danger of the attractive lure of Napoleon’s promises of emancipation of the Jews. Better to be confronted by a clear enemy such as the oppresive Russian Tzar who sponsored pogroms than by a hidden one like Napoleon who would give civil freedom with his right hand and assimilation with his left one. Thus, during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, Alter Rebbe opposed Napoleon.)

British are strange

We are now, have always been, and I hope shall always be hated by the French.

— Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

The more British, the stranger.



I remember again the quote from Gettysburg:

Well, if he's an angel, all right then... But he damn well must be a killer angel. Colonel, darling, you're a lovely man. I see a vast great difference between us, yet I admire you, lad. You're an idealist, praise be. 

The truth is, Colonel... There is no "divine spark". There's many a man alive no more of value than a dead dog. Believe me. When you've seen them hang each other the way I have back in the Old Country. Equality? What I'm fighting for is to prove I'm a better man than many of them. 

Where have you seen this "divine spark" in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality? No two things on Earth are equal or have an equal chance. Not a leaf, not a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better... But I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters, Colonel... is justice. 

Which is why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain... and I damn all gentlemen. There is only one aristocracy... and that is right here [points to his head].

Storming the stronghold:



Classic scene with Wellington:

English vs. French

Richard Sharpe: Those men who’ve fought in a big battle before, one pace forward.

[no one moves]

Richard Sharpe: This place is called Talavera. There’s going to be a battle here tomorrow. You’ll fight in it... maybe even die in it. But you won’t see it.

[explosion]

Richard Sharpe: There’s a lot of smoke in a battle. Our cannon, their cannon. Our shot, their shell. Our volleys, their volleys.

[shots]

Richard Sharpe: You don’t see a battle. You hear it.

Black powder blasting by the ton on all sides. Black smoke blinding you and choking you and making you vomit.

Then the French come out of the smoke — not in a line, but in a column. And they march towards our thin line, kettledrums hammering like hell and a golden eagle blazing overhead.

They march slowly, and it takes them a long time to reach you, and you can’t see them in smoke. But you can hear the drums. They march out of the smoke, and you fire a volley. And the front rank of the column falls, and the next rank steps over them, with drums hammering, and the column smashes your line like a hammer breaking glass... and Napoleon has won another battle.

But if you don't run — if you stand until you can smell the garlic, and fire volley after volley, three rounds a minute — then they slow down. They stop. And then they run away. All you’ve got to do is stand and fire three rounds a minute. Now, you and I know you can fire three rounds a minute. But can you stand?

Subclavian, or aorta itself

In the post in which I quoted a passage about Patrick O’Brian’s Stephen Maturin performing a surgery on himself, a couple things should have caught your attention: 1) Dr. Maturin inquired whether the woman whom he asked Jack Aubrey to visit was wearing black, and 2) when he declined the offer of another doctor, he said: “No, sir. I do this with my own hand. If it could undertake the one task, it must undertake the other: that is but justice.”

Putting the two things together, one realizes where Maturin got his wound — at a duel over a woman! (And he was wondering whether she was mourning over the other fellow by wearing black — which she wasn’t.) As any red-blooded male, I like to read about duels (although I prefer swords to pistols), so here it is:

Never you fret, sir

Recently I posted an account of a Russian doctor performing a self-surgery (an appendectomy).

A scene from H.M.S. Surprise, where Dr. Stephen Maturin operates on himself, removing a bullet from his own body: