Tea at Trianon: What Happened to Heroes?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

What Happened to Heroes?

From Culturcidal:

Our society has mostly moved on from embracing heroes who are genuinely good people with rock-solid moral codes to violent, “cool” men of action who may not be good people, but who have a few good traits and are on the side of the angels in whatever particular story we may be watching at the moment.
So, what does this reveal about us? What does this transformation of what it means to be a hero tell us about Americans?
Quite a lot actually.
You see, the heroes we want to see up on the big screen have changed because WE’VE CHANGED.
Our culture used to be homogenous. Now it’s fractured. We used to put a high value on morality. We no longer do. We used to have a strong sense of right and wrong that was generally shared across our society. Now, a large part of the population has cobbled together their own personal moral code that usually seems to justify whatever they do. We used to believe that it was important that what went up on the Silver Screen should help make people better. (Read more.)