The Oracle of Delphi was the flip side of the ancient Greek culture that brought us the underpinning genius of modern western thought. The Oracle was the voice of superstition and irrationality. As a result I have always thought it appropriate that the name of the company founded by supporter of the Panopticon surveillance state Larry Ellison was ‘Oracle’.
Over on Matt Welch‘s blog, he reports the inane comments of my pet hate Ellison who, it turns out, is a great fan of Napoleon. Hold on to your tricorn hat for a trip into the history à la Larry:
Napoleon codified the laws for the first time in Europe. He was constantly limiting kings and other tyrants.
Quite right Larry. He constantly limited other tyrants as he insisted on being the only tyrant allowed. Military dictators generally don’t like political competition.
He opened the ghettos and stopped religious discrimination. He was an extraordinary man who wrote a lot of laws himself.
Indeed he did. He used the French Army to impose his own will on most of Europe. I wonder if Larry thinks when this was tried again in 1939, it was necessarily a bad thing?
He was incredibly polite, generous almost to a fault, a remarkable person who was vilified. By whom? The kings that he deposed. The kings of England, and the old king of France, and the kings of Prussia, and the Czar of Russia were all threatened by this man who was bringing democracy. […]
I see. So EMPEROR Napoleon, self-crowned military dictator of the French EMPIRE, conquered much of Europe and caused several million deaths during the Napoleonic Wars because he wanted to bring democracy to everyone? Including democratic Britain (that’s ‘England’ to you Larry)?
He was a liberator, a law-giver, and a man of incredible gifts. He never considered himself a soldier, he considered himself a politician, though he was probably the greatest soldier — the greatest general –perhaps in all history.
For a man who never considered himself a soldier that was quite some military career. Particularly the bits where he went to military school, joined the French army, gave some folks a ‘whiff of grapeshot’, hijacked the French Revolution and then led the French army on a war of aggression against most of Europe. My guess is that Larry Ellison has probably never considered himself a poorly educated jackass either. Other than the fact unlike Mussolini, Napoleon was indeed a great general and he had a more extravagant tailor, there is actually little to differentiate him from any number of brutal collectivist military despots. Today he would have been called a fascist. Of course as many of the political causes Larry Ellison backs are indeed aimed at turning nations into police surveillance states I am hardly surprised he admires Napoleon-the-lawbringer, albeit from the perspective of a historical ignoramus.
I can certainly understand admiring Napoleon-the-General, but to praise him for authoring the world’s first truly global war in order to impose his will, his Code Napoleon on everyone at bayonet point? It is rather like admiring Heinz Guderian not because he was a brilliant general but because he was a Nazi.
