So would it make sense to tell the story of a fantasy world, or any period in history, as if ideology actually made a difference? I don’t think so. ‘I got nothing against this Saddam bloke personally,’ he said, ‘but he’s in Kuwait and we been told to kick him out.’ The same camera crew interviewed a British squaddie, who had not been given any leaflet. ‘Saddam has invaded a sovereign state and that is against international law,’ one GI explained on TV. In the First Gulf War, US troops were given leaflets that explained why their cause was just. The British used to be under no illusions about that.
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Yeah, but did they, though? Was the USSR really a free federation of states based on egalitarian principles? Or was it the Russian Empire under a cloak of socialism? Did Mao whip up the Cultural Revolution to bring about a utopian society, or simply to shore up his own power? Did the average Wehrmacht soldier charge into battle to bring about a thousand-year Nazi reich or because he believed he was doing his duty for his country? Did any major world power ever march into Afghanistan in the interests of the Afghan people themselves? Or just because of their own geopolitical or economic needs?ĭo people today decide disinterestedly which side to take in a dispute, or do they see which side their tribe takes and then find reasons to justify it? So we can see a new era dawning at the start of the 19th century, one in which some men wouldn’t simply fight for tribal symbols like king, country or religion, but instead expected those to be backed up by specific principles chosen of their own free will. I don’t suppose he’d cite the specific revolutionary aims he felt the Emperor stood for, though many at the time (even in England) did find that a reason to praise Napoleon, whereas nobody in the world would have declared support for the Houses of Hanover or Bourbon on the basis of their professed ideology. To return to the Napoleonic period, if we asked Marshal Ney why he considered himself a good guy I’m sure he’d talk about patriotism (admittedly a bit of a grey area for him), honour, and loyalty to the Emperor. (And, yes, in that we must include ourselves.) The best we can say of most human beings is that they are basically good with a lot of blind spots. And "Kill them all God will know His Own" and "Slay the pagans" show that total war and the butchering of civilians began with people who claimed to be fighting on the side of the angels. In the French Revolution, most of the left-wing firebrands (if calling them left-wing means anything *) entirely overlooked equality for women. Freethinkers too Tom Paine argued against slavery, but few of the Founding Fathers listened to him. Throughout the 18th century, most Christian groups other than Quakers were in favour of slavery. They would say they fought for God, but it’s funny how often God just happened to support their own country. Or at any rate we think that’s how we pick a side, but other than William MacAskill and a few monks most of us really only pay lip service to these high ideals of ours, don’t we? ‘I’ve given up meat,’ we plead in our defence, while enjoying a comfortable life that three quarters of the world are denied.Īs hypocrites we’re no worse than our ancestors. We expect to be presented with a manifesto and then pick a side. The thing is, that’s a very modern take on how people justify themselves. ‘Has anybody ever written a novel like Lord of the Rings but instead of being “good” vs “evil” in a generic sense, we actually get to hear the ideologies on each side? It is in effect left vs right, Dems vs GOP, or whatever.’ This interested me because a few days earlier I’d come across a note I made a few years ago:
‘Can anybody play characters in service to Napoleon and think of themselves as the good guys?’Ī gobsmacking comment ( 55 minutes in) from Mr Cule there, I thought - not complaining it’s for those comments that I especially love the show - but presumably millions of people did follow Napoleon and definitely they thought of themselves as good guys.
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