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Review Essay
Nietzsche’s Napolean
What do “The Joker” and Napolean Bonaparte have in common?
Ridley Scott’s 2023 biopic “Napoleon,” with Joaquin Phoenix in the titular role (perhaps even as the Joker still!), ventures into the tumultuous landscape of one of history’s most enigmatic figures, Napoleon Bonaparte. Yet, the film, with its blend of historical drama and creative liberties, such as the dramatized scene of cannons at the Pyramids of Giza, often flirts with the grandiose at the expense of depth.
It is true that Napolean a man whose impact was extensive –but in what way? In how many ways?
Perhaps there is a philosophical ring to this –each human being is so multifaceted as to be obscure even to themselves, let alone others. Thus, the same applies in the grandest cases of humanity, such as Napolean –how are we to know a man who couldn’t have known himself?
Even the systematic coherence of each history book written on a singular figure falls short of fully conceptualizing them.
We first abolish the idea that to “know thyself” is to do so fully –that is a direct extension of the Socratic dictum that “wisdom knows only nothing,” for the assumption that one knows themselves fully is none other than a state of haughtiness, whose power might be massive…
