18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

[cahn]

In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

Comments

Re: Zweig - first bit

[mildred_of_midgard]

Honestly, I'm *not* convinced that the boring diary, which was specifically a hunting diary, is a symptom of ASD. I mean, I'm a very verbal person, so I put all sorts of walls of text and emotions in my blog, but I've also kept purpose-oriented diaries, like German progress and medication side effects. And if I weren't a super verbal person, I could easily end up putting "nothing" in a German-progress or side effect diary, because the diary isn't about political developments.

I have read at least one historian, I forget who, who made a convincing--to me, at least--case that too much has been made of that journal entry. It's trotted out every time anyone talks about Louis XVI (I had certainly encountered it a million times), but since it was in effect a hunting diary, it makes sense that it only reports hunting developments.

He also wasn't the only prince to keep a hunting diary, though I'm not going to remember who the others are. Yes, maybe they were all on the spectrum, but on the other hand, if hunting is your passion and you're not a big writer, you might just keep a hunting diary because you've heard other people in your class who are into hunting keep hunting diaries.

[Like I said when you read Goldstone, nothing I know about Louis makes an ASD diagnosis feels wrong, but I don't consider the diary strong evidence. There's too much cultural context for hunting diaries.]

Re: Zweig - first bit

[cahn]

Heh, fair enough, as selenak pointed out, one's not supposed to layman-diagnose people in real life, much less separated by hundreds of years! Still, I assert that his being on the spectrum is more likely than his impotence causing everything, even if neither of those things is true ;) I didn't know that about hunting diaries, though (though Goldstone isn't basing it just on the hunting diary) -- I guess for obvious reasons I've been more exposed to the Lehndorffs who are writing voluminious memoirs and the Fritzes and Voltaires who are writing... everything. (Which reminds me, I was also going to mention that I laughed when I saw Goethe namechecked as having had opinions on MA's wedding. That guy got everywhere!)

...And I also see what you're both saying about how it could itself be a thing; if Louis was a person, not necessarily on the spectrum, but whose strengths were in e.g. building things, or hunting, rather than really being into all this verbalization stuff, well, as far as I can tell those don't seem to be qualities that were greatly valued as an 18th-C dauphin. (D isn't on the spectrum, and has successfully fathered biological children, and doesn't even have an inferiority complex, buuuuut I can see him having done really not so well in Louis's place in the pre-Revolutionary days, because he frankly does not care about the act of getting things done that involve writing or politics or complex interpersonal relations.) (Though since he's very good in a crisis, I suspect he would've done better than Louis once things came to a head.)