Compare & Contrast: Napoleon Bonaparte vs Anus Orange, according to psychiatry

[eppur_se_muova]

Last edited Mon Nov 24, 2025, 08:40 AM - Edit history (1)

OK, it's a slightly misleading title -- we all know what OA is like, so you can just compare these remarks re. NB from Alan Schom's Napoleon Bonaparte ( Appendix B, "Medical Notes" )

3. From a psychiatric viewpoint, all my medical friends confirm that Bonaparte -- like so many dictatorial rulers -- would according to the U.K. Mental Mental Health Act of 1983 be described as a psychopath, a term that includes in its definition:
a. Failure to make loving relationships
b. A propensity toward highly impulsive, irrational actions
c. Lack of sense of guilt or sensitivity for own actions
d. Failure to learn from adverse experiences
The combination of all four traits is reflected by the various kidnappings, murders, lies, and wars he perpetrated to the very end.
***
Bonaparte was of course also sadomasochistic, as is evident time and again throughout this book, for example resulting in his unrelenting "vengeance" against those who "betrayed" him, whether Elizabeth Patterson (whom he vigorously persecuted in her private life, through his agents, till the end of his reign); his outrageous attempt to destroy the Bourriennes; or his attacks on Constant, Pozzo di Borgo, and numerous others down to a humble German bookseller/printer, and even his own brother Lucien.

At the time I first read this, I could at least say "well, he hasn't murdered anyone yet, except by negligent homicide (a few hundred thousand of those from COVID-19) or started a war." But now he's murdering Venezuelans by the boatload, and rattling any sword he can get hold of to push for an invasion. As RM likes to say, "watch this space".