On speaking ill of the dead
Pointless iconoclasm, or valuable practice?
Until recently, it was seen as a nearly unbreakable taboo to speak ill of the recently deceased in respectable media, whatever the opinions of them held while they lived. The taboo has been eroding - but the recent death of Henry Kissinger has exposed its inconsistent application more than ever. The Washington Post headline emphasized his role as someone who ‘shaped world affairs’ while referring to his flouting of international law and involvement in numerous war crimes only obliquely, putting the critique in the mouths of his ‘relentless critics who deemed him unprincipled.’ The New York Times similarly gave a neutral main headline about ‘shaping Cold War policy’, only adding in a subheading that he was ‘revered and reviled’. However, other media have smashed the taboo. Rolling Stone referred to him directly as a ‘war criminal’; Huffington Post as specified that he was the ‘most notorious’ such criminal.
Which direction is appropriate? When a human being dies, what is the proper approach to addressing their crimes? Obviously opinions will differ on the appropriate tone, a respectful delay on behalf of the family of the deceased, and other details of etiquette. But one thing stands out in the humanistic tradition: criticism of the dead is absolutely necessary when they have exercised great power.
As far back as French renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne this has been explored. In his essay “Our Affections Carry Themselves Beyond Us”, he notes that in his own day it was frequently impossible to adequately critic monarchs and other powerful people openly for fear of repercussions, making such discussions all the more important once the subject was deceased. The purpose was twofold - both as a learning opportunity and also a form of deterrent. By dragging the names of the dead through the literary mud, society manages to punish them after their power has gone: “what justice could not inflict upon their persons, ’tis but reason should be executed upon their reputations and the estates of their successors—things that we often value above life itself.” In liberal societies today, it is not nearly so dangerous to critique the powerful as they live, and it is probably more productive to do so. But as a society we still commonly share the desire to leave a positive legacy, and so there is some chance that the possibility for harsh critique in posterity to serve a deterrent function. Montaigne saw this function as a public good and the failure to do so as a sort of selfishness - “such as, out of respect to some private obligation, unjustly espouse and vindicate the memory of a faulty prince, do private right at the expense of public justice.
And perhaps the strongest single analog to Mr. Kissinger exiting in any Anglophone liberal society gives a good example of how to structure such a critique. Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive , an anonymous essay (sometimes ascribed to Thomas Paine) written a few months of the death of its subject, addresses many of the same themes as a good retrospective on Kissinger should - Clive’s cataclysmic effect on India rivals Kissinger’s on Southeast Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. And the piece details precisely the sins of its subject, describing both the wars - “Fear and terror march like pioneers before his camp, murder and rapine accompany it, famine and wretchedness follow in the rear” and the ‘peace’ - “The wretched inhabitants.. purchase at any rate the privilege to breathe”. Clive had of course, from one perspective, done England a great service in subjugating India, as many have argued Kissinger did for the US with his amoral Realpolitik. With attention drawn to these acts with the death of their author, it is important to show the ugly side of ‘accomplishment’, lest it all be lost behind accolades.
But the writer of the Reflections also clearly has Montaigne’s purpose in mind, as well - to illustrate for up and coming imperialists that fame and fortune made in the way Clive made it them is ephemeral and not worth the selling of one’s soul:
AH! The tale is told-The scene is ended-and the curtain falls. As an emblem of the vanity of all earthly pomp, let his monument be a globe, but be that globe a bubble; let his effigy be a man walking round it in his sleep; and let fame, in the character of a shadow, inscribe his honors on the air.