Voltaire and the President

Voltaire was so instrumental in the rise of Rationalism and so much of the intellectual discourse surrounding the French Revolution that he has been hailed as a hero for centuries. His thought processes and arguments have been used for so many so-called "liberal" causes that one can only assume he would hate the administration of Dubya. That is, you would assume that if you never bothered to study Voltaire.
It is illuminating to note what he found important. Writing in an era dominated by a discourse critical of great conquerors such as Alexander and Julius Caesar he stood against the crowd. In one of his letters he argued that kings had a viable method of measurement that was being missed by the detractors of these legendary men of yore.
His argument held that men such as Alexander had only one method of measurement. That was how their kingdom had grown. It was not, he argued, important "how many were massacred" but rather only what success was had in maintaining or expanding borders.
From this standpoint he would absolutely love the actions of George Bush. Under Bush American influence has expanded tremendously. Bush had the stones to do what no other major nation would do...he defied the United Nations and many other countries to go to war for something he believed in.
It is instructive to note that many nations have no problem with denying the United Nations. Coincidentally, they are primarily smaller nations that are not considered players on the world stage if not for this open defiance. Iraq, Korea, these both come to mind. Iraw repeatedly expelled or impeded the weapons inspectors, turning their "search" into a tour guided by the Iraquis. No matter how many WMD may or may not have been there, they would never have been found.
Regardless of your personal feelings towards Kim or Hussein, you should recognize their willingness to laugh at the commands (okay, strongly worded but ultimately weak suggestions) of that travesty called the United Nations. That was something no major nation was willing to do...until Bush stepped in.
Voltaire would have praised him as a strong leader, a worthy Louis, an accomplisher who strengthened his nation. Arguments over whether the military is spread to far, moral justification, innocent suffering, and other such concerns would have been swept under by Voltaire. Rationality taught him that leaders who led effectively, regardless of cost, were great leaders.
It is interesting to note an internal consistency in the writings of Voltaire, however. In the preface to one of his books about the Louis, he stated he had no intention to write about cities being taken and retaken, battles, and treaties because they were unimportant.
His argument was that borders might change but those changes had no lasting impact. A village, town or city might be English today, Italian tomorrow, then English again, then perhaps French or German...but that status was not permanent.
Instead, what was important was the arts and sciences. Advances in art by men such as Michaelangelo made a society great and moved it forward. Unlike borders, he argued these artistic (and, more subtly, scientific) advances were permanent and ongoing. Later artists could stand on the back of these accomplishments and move even further forward.
The real irony here is he was both right...and wrong. Those border changes, temporary though they often if not always are, still have a lasting impact.
For instance, art is heavily impacted by the nature of national status at any given moment. Iconography, subject matter, and even the styles of art are impacted by nations being at war. Consider U.S. art for a moment. Go here:
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Exhibits/Track16.html
and see how the war affected art. Nor has that effect gone. Movies like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and others became more bloody and violent in an attempt to capture the pain of war.
Will movies ever go back to the perceived innocence of a John Wayne Western where the person being shot would clasp both hands over their chest and collapse? I think it is far more likely they will instead grow ever more graphic and realistic.
Border changes, wars, treaties, and art are all interrelated. Artists encounter one another after a border change who might never previously have impacted one another. What would Russian art be like if first Ivan the Terrible and later Peter the Great had not actively imported artists, often forcibly, from outside their boundaries to shake up Russian art?
Voltaire was certainly smarter than I will ever be, but his legacy is being abused by many people who do not understand him and this was an issue he missed.