The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

anachronistic courage in the bourgeoisie 217about the sloop Asp: “I knew that we should either go to the bottom together,or that she would be the making of me.” And then about his frigate: “Thosewere pleasant days when I had the Laconia! How fast I made money in her!” 11But England expected its sailors, whether of bourgeois origin or not, todo their duty, which was defined peasant-wise for the men and aristocraticallyfor the officers. Not bourgeois-ly. Admiral Lord Nelson died at Trafalgarbecause he chose, as was his nouveau-noble duty, to stand on thequarterdeck in full view of French snipers, with medals flashing in thesmoke. Those are the traditions of brave men at sea, as a postaristocraticLord Jim ruefully apprehended. Jane Austen’s ideal potential husband,acknowledged to be in want of a wife, is a naval officer, honorable offstagedoubtless in a very gallant way, though never so lofty as an actual aristocrat.Two of Jane’s much-beloved brothers ended as admirals; another was for atime in the army. Even bourgeois Carthage would literally crucify admiralsand generals who came home empty-handed. The Dutch behavior at Srebrenicawould have earned a British admiral in the nation of shopkeepers acourt martial and speedy execution—“to encourage the others,” as Voltairedescribed the execution in 1757 of a British admiral for not doing hisutmost.The army of the Duke of Wellington was even more rigidly tied to aristocraticmyth, and unlike the navy was sociologically speaking an aristocraticpreserve. The echt-aristocratic officers at Waterloo were expected tosit nobly on their horses and face decapitating cannon fire while their peasantor proletarian soldiers were permitted—no, ordered—to lie down.John Keegan points out that by the time of the Napoleonic Wars thearmy officers, unlike their Homeric or medieval models, were not supposedto engage directly in slaughter. The sailors still did, with cutlasses issued ina crisis indifferently to seamen and admirals. An English captain at Waterloo,doubtless a crack shot of deer and grouse, spotted a French commonsoldier climbing into the farmyard he was under orders to defend, and“instantly desired Sergeant Graham, whose musket [the captain] was holding,...to drop the wood [that the sergeant himself was carrying], take[back] his [musket from the very captain] . . . and shoot the intruder.” Yet thecaptain would gladly have dueled to the death man-to-man with a Frenchfellow officer. “The only feats of arms worth the name were those conductedbetween men of gentle birth, either one on one or in nearly (ideally exactly)matched numbers,” like cricket teams. 12