Voltaire with Dr. Eleanor Janega

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Voltaire with Dr. Eleanor Janega"

Podcast Title: This Guy Sucked
Host: Dr. Claire Aubin
Episode: Voltaire with Dr. Eleanor Janega
Release Date: March 20, 2025

Overview:
In the premiere episode of "This Guy Sucked," hosted by historian Dr. Claire Aubin and featuring medieval historian Dr. Eleanor Janega, the duo delves into the controversial legacy of the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. This in-depth discussion challenges the traditional reverence accorded to Voltaire, exposing his myriad flaws and hypocrisies that undermine his contributions to civil liberties and rational thought.

---

Setting the Stage: Voltaire's Traditional Legacy

Dr. Janega begins by outlining Voltaire's standing in history. As one of the leading figures of the French Enlightenment, Voltaire is celebrated for his prolific output—writing 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. He is renowned for advocating civil liberties, his satirical works like "Candide," and his vehement criticism of the Catholic Church. His famous quote, “I do not agree with a word you’re saying, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” exemplifies his stance on freedom of speech and has cemented his reputation as a champion of liberal thought.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [03:25]: “He is a proponent of the concept of civil liberties... he just hates Catholicism.”

---

Unmasking Voltaire: A Critique of His Actions and Beliefs

Superficial Opposition to Slavery

While Voltaire is often lauded for his criticisms of slavery, Dr. Janega argues that his stance is largely superficial. Although he condemned the physical brutality inflicted upon enslaved individuals, his advocacy fell short of a genuine abolitionist position. Instead of calling for the end of slavery, Voltaire proposed "slightly better conditions," effectively dehumanizing enslaved people by comparing them to livestock.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [07:27]: “It's the human rights thing... it is way too far to go down. Like, it's not as though this man was an abolitionist.”

Sexism and Misogyny

Voltaire's treatment of women reveals deep-seated sexism. Despite his intellectual prowess, he consistently denigrated women within intellectual circles and personal relationships. His numerous affairs and mistresses, coupled with his inability to advocate for women's rights genuinely, highlight a hypocritical side that contradicts his professed Enlightenment ideals.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [26:48]: “He doesn’t say, man, I really hope that a peasant girl... but he is specifically advocating for a bourgeois philosophical movement that places him at the top.”

Racist and Anti-Semitic Views

One of the most damning aspects of Voltaire's legacy, as discussed by Dr. Janega, is his overt anti-Semitism. Voltaire expressed racialized hatred towards Jews, referring to them as "ignorant and barbarous" and predicting their downfall akin to other stereotyped groups. This blatant racism undermines any moral authority he might hold and starkly contradicts his advocacy for civil liberties.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [44:15]: “He says Jews are born bad the way Germans are born blonde. So he's saying there is a racial animus that exists.”

Hypocrisy and Self-Aggrandizement

Voltaire's personal conduct further tarnishes his legacy. His incestuous relationship with his adult niece, resulting in imprisonment, showcases a blatant disregard for moral and ethical standards—contrary to his critiques of societal norms. Additionally, his self-promotion and manipulation of his legacy reveal a man more concerned with personal aggrandizement than genuine intellectual or moral advancement.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [40:54]: “He told Catherine the Great that he’s not a proponent of democracy... he is saying individual, smart, great men are the leaders.”

---

Voltaire’s Impact on Historical Narrative

Dr. Janega critiques how Voltaire has shaped the modern perception of the Middle Ages. By labeling it as an "Age of Superstition," Voltaire contributed to the "Dark Ages" myth, which oversimplifies and diminishes the complexities and achievements of medieval societies. This dichotomy of the "Enlightened" modern era versus a "Dark" medieval past perpetuates a flawed understanding of history, hindering a nuanced appreciation of different historical periods.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [20:19]: “It totally underlines the idea of this mythic progress... everything before is worse just by virtue of having happened in the past.”

---

The "Great Man" Theory and Its Pitfalls

Voltaire exemplifies the "Great Man" theory of history, where individual brilliance is overemphasized at the expense of collective societal developments. This perspective, as Dr. Janega argues, fosters a biased and incomplete historical record, prioritizing the achievements of a select few while neglecting the contributions and complexities of broader social movements and groups.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [32:43]: “Voltaire is responsible for spreading the conception of the Middle Ages as a particularly stupid and backwards time... allowing us to say this is the best things have ever been.”

---

Conclusion: Voltaire’s True Legacy

Dr. Janega wraps up the discussion by asserting that Voltaire's numerous flaws—his superficial stance on slavery, blatant sexism, anti-Semitism, and hypocritical behaviors—decisively overshadow any positive contributions he might have made. Rather than being a paragon of Enlightenment ideals, Voltaire emerges as a deeply flawed figure whose legacy is marred by prejudice and self-interest.

Notable Quote:
Dr. Eleanor Janega [56:53]: “He actively positioned himself this way... a person who goes around trying all the time to ensure that everyone who is below him remains below him just so that he can be smart and remembered is someone who sucks.”

---

Final Thoughts:
This episode of "This Guy Sucked" offers a compelling and critical examination of Voltaire, challenging listeners to reconsider the unquestioned reverence often granted to celebrated historical figures. Through meticulous analysis and sharp critique, Dr. Eleanor Janega effectively dismantles the myth of Voltaire as an unblemished champion of reason and civil liberties, revealing a man rife with hypocrisy, prejudice, and self-serving motives.

---

Notable Quotes Summary:

• Dr. Eleanor Janega [01:02]: “I am praying to St. Kenrick Lamar to give me the hateration power that I wish to bring to this podcast.”
• Dr. Eleanor Janega [07:27]: “It's the human rights thing... it is way too far to go down. Like, it's not as though this man was an abolitionist.”
• Dr. Eleanor Janega [26:48]: “He doesn’t say, man, I really hope that a peasant girl... but he is specifically advocating for a bourgeois philosophical movement that places him at the top.”
• Dr. Eleanor Janega [44:15]: “He says Jews are born bad the way Germans are born blonde. So he's saying there is a racial animus that exists.”
• Dr. Eleanor Janega [40:54]: “He told Catherine the Great that he’s not a proponent of democracy... he is saying individual, smart, great men are the leaders.”
• Dr. Eleanor Janega [20:19]: “It totally underlines the idea of this mythic progress... everything before is worse just by virtue of having happened in the past.”
• Dr. Eleanor Janega [32:43]: “Voltaire is responsible for spreading the conception of the Middle Ages as a particularly stupid and backwards time... allowing us to say this is the best things have ever been.”
• Dr. Eleanor Janega [56:53]: “He actively positioned himself this way... a person who goes around trying all the time to ensure that everyone who is below him remains below him just so that he can be smart and remembered is someone who sucks.”

Transcript

[Dr. Claire Aubin]

A list of sensitive themes and topics covered in this episode can be found in the episode description.

[Dr. Eleanor Janega]

Welcome to this Guy Suck, the show, where we prove that it's never too late to have haters and you can't lie about the dead. I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified haters. On this show, we talk about people from throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar every week to tell us why. With me today is the illustrious Dr. Eleanor Jaenega, a medieval historian who you might know from her podcast Gone Medieval and We're not so different, as well as her book, the Once and Future Sex. Welcome to the show, Dr. Janneke.

Thank you so much for having me, Claire. I am praying to St. Kenrick Lamar to give me the hateration power that I wish to bring to this podcast.

Yeah, it's a good day. I think this is a good week for hating. This is a good time. And for anyone listening, we're starting this literally the day after the super bowl, which was, like, kind of a peak moment in hating. So we're like. We come into this with an energy that's sort of like, been gifted to us by Professor Lamar.

Yeah. So, like, last year, my new Year's resolution was to be a more specific hater. Worked out great. Did a great job.

We're already off to a good start in 2025. It only took you a month.

I am taking all of my skills that I've learned, and I'm going to apply them today to my worst enemy. Yeah.

All right, so what a perfect segue. Let's get into what we're kind of really all here for. And before we do the hating, who are we talking about today?

I am here to shit talk. Voltaire.

Perfect.

I will see Voltaire in hell. It is him and me dead on. This man has destroyed my life and the lives of most medieval historians, I would argue.

Wonderful. So before we talk a little bit. I mean, wonderful in the sense of, like, I can already feel. I can feel what's going to happen, and I feel really good and really positive about it in terms of, like, really positive about all of the hatred emanating from the screen right now. But before we talk about why he sucked, which we obviously will be talking about as kind of the main thing, we've got to establish what his original sort of popular historical narrative is. So to your mind, why is he famous? Why is he beloved? What contributions to the world is he best known for that we're later going to have to work against?

Well, he is one of the philosophes, so the specific French Enlightenment writers during said enlightenment. And he's also a satirist and according to him, he's a historian. We'll get. We'll get on to that. And he is super, super famous for the quote that was. I don't know, it was printed off in my sophomore year social studies class and on the wall that said, I do not agree with a word you're saying, but I will defend to your death the right to say it. Like, that's, that's the big Voltaire quote.

A classic. A classic.

Obviously, kind of a big proponent for liberality in the debate, me, bro, sense. And he did write plays. He wrote novels and essays. He also thought he was a scientist. It's like real, real enlightenment hours out here. And he's absolutely prolific is what I will give him, is he was cranking out the takes. And one of the things that I would say that I think he was good on is that he is a proponent of the concept of civil liberties, which we had to come up with. Right. You know, we didn't really have them at the time. So I do like that about him. But also one of the things that he is very well known for and indeed celebrated is that he just hates Catholicism. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that. I'm kind of like, you know what, like hater to hater, sir. You know, game recognizes game. Yeah, you hate the church. Go like absolutely go off queen. He did a great job there. So he is oftentimes lionized within atheist circles because basically he is advocating for a movement away from what he sees as religious dogma and towards a secularization of society. And that's good. I'm going to, you know, word, word, like, I'm not saying no. Like I'm just saying, like, slow your roll. That's all.

Sure. I also, when I was looking some of this stuff up in terms of the. For example, the prolific part of this, for those who are sort of uninitiated here, and you will, you all will be. Since this is the first episode, we do a little bit of pre research, but mostly we want sort of the scholars who come on shine because they're the ones who have really specific reasons for not liking the people that we're talking about. But I don't Want to show up and know literally nothing about these people. So I did a little, a little bit of research ahead of time. Voltaire wrote 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. So this guy was like, churning out the takes.

I mean, I do not know when this man slept. And granted, if you were like counting all my posts and called those letters, then I would have a better literary output than I do. But, yeah, he was certainly prolific, that has to be said.

Is it one of these things where somewhere amongst all of this writing we've found some good stuff, some bad stuff? Like, what would you think the sort of ratio of useful to not useful takes he has are?

I mean, a lot of it is nonsense, A lot of it is gossip. I mean, it's a function of being within a historically significant group of people that you're letters than become historically significant. But, you know, like, half of Marx's letters, you know, are like, can I have some money, please? Like, you know, we don't necessarily say, oh, this is part of his, like, ovir. But with Voltaire, every single, you know, grocery list is suddenly like, oh, wow, we love that from him. Now, having said that, there are good things in there. Most notably, I would say his novella Candide, which is great.

Yeah, that's kind of the one he's quite famous for.

Yeah. And it's good. I'm not saying it's not good. Right. And I think that it is one of these pieces of work which I find very useful as a historian. I've certainly, for example, assigned it to students because he is doing satire here and kind of like making fun of everyone who isn't him because obviously he's the cleverest and most specialist boy. And so it is very funny. And to be fair, again, it's a great work of hating. It's a great work of hating. And, you know, if everybody just wanted to say, hey, yeah, isn't Candide good? I'd be like, word. It is very funny to write a tiny novella, like, casting everyone you don't like as an idiot. That's a classic move and I celebrate it, frankly.

And I think there needs to be sort of more of a recognition that sometimes the hater, the people that we're hating on, are haters themselves. And sometimes we're hating on the things that they're hating, which is this. We've created a sort of ecosystem here that I think is really good and certainly healthy for all of us.

Oh, yeah.

But also one of the things that I came across in looking at some of Voltaire's life and thinking, which I am fairly certain we will touch on later, because I think it's more complex than this, is that he's sort of celebrated for being critical of slavery. I think that there are some things that I would like to ask you about later in regards to this, but that is part of the sort of canon or the sort of broader public narrative around why Voltaire is so wonderful, is that he's sort of an early critic of slavery, allegedly, I will say. And in Candide, he does talk about an enslaved person in French Guiana who he sort of casts as being brutalized. And this is seen as this, like, really strong critique of slavery, which I think is not actually that strong of a critique of slavery in which we can get into in a little while. But this is part of the narrative around him, right, that he's. That's part of his belief.

It's the human rights thing. And, you know, the trouble is the bar is subterranean when it comes to 18th century people and the concept of human rights. You know, if you acknowledge even slightly that you think that maybe things could be a little bit better, we're like, wow, top 1% of humanity. Really, really great job there, Voltaire, you know, and. And again, we, though, have to think about the milieu that Voltaire is in, because, like, obviously, ask any enslaved person, and they'd be like, I think slavery is bad. You know, and we don't go, wow, what a bunch of, like, incredible critical thinkers. But then, you know, the minute one white guy is like, well, I don't know if this is strictly above what, you know, we. We throw him a ticker tape parade. So there are really obvious ways that we want to lionize people. And then we also, of course, as people in, you know, the postmodern period, the modern period, whatever you want to call it, we do like to go back and save people from the past and say, oh, no, he's just like, me, for real. And he definitely, definitely opposed slavery when, you know, to be fair, he does, you know, make some arguments for what he sees as universal human rights. But, yeah, I think that it is way too far to go down. Like, it's not as though this man was an abolitionist. Let's just say that. And if you're not an abolitionist, I'm not impressed by you. So sorry about it. No, yeah.

And I think you're totally right to sort of acknowledge the idea that the people who are having their human rights violated when they sort of advocate for themselves in these scenarios. So, like, enslaved People, when they advocate for themselves, we don't often cast them historically as human rights advocates, but rather as sort of like advocates for their own liberty, their own freedom, their own treatment. But then people who are not in the position of this enormous oppression or brutalization or whatever, we will say, well, they're advocating for the rights of others out of their own compassion. And that's somehow better or more important than someone who's advocating for their own rights on an individual basis as well as a collective basis. But we see them, their sort of position as a person who is oppressed, as a sort of like, well, naturally they would care about their own rights. But what's really admirable is if it's not your own rights and you still care about it, which is like a problem throughout the way that we look at major historical figures. And I think Voltaire is a great example of absolutely.

Where it's just kind of like the most bare bones acknowledgements that women are kind of people and maybe non white men are also sort of people. And we all just go, well, how about that?

What a forward thinker.

Like, he thinks there shouldn't be public floggings. Can you believe it? You know, and so, you know, we pick and choose is the thing. And we, we are still very much wedded to the concept of great man history. So we will do anything in order to excuse bad behavior. Really.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think hopefully what we're doing today will at least push back a little bit against that. So before we get into why he sucked, why do you interact with Voltaire? Like, how does Voltaire play into your work and your research and your sort of academic interests?

The thing that Voltaire did to me personally is actually a thing that all of you fucking people are doing to me constantly, which is that I am a Holy Roman imperial expert. You know, this is, this is my jam. I like the biggest contiguous power group in history. And the fucking thing Voltaire did was he said, oh, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. And every moron heard this quote once. And then they say it to me. Did they say it to me? The minute, the minute I do anything about the Holy Roman Empire, they come and they. And I will specifically be like, don't you say that Voltaire quote to me. And then they immediately come and they probably don't even know it's a Voltaire quote. They just heard it one time and they think that they are so clever. They think it's just like such a balma and it's like, cool, but every single thing you just said is incorrect. And it just displays a massive misunderstanding about imperial history, church history, like, everything. Like, what Roman ness is as a concept. And it follows me, it haunts me. It's just. And, like, no one will stop saying this fucking thing to me, even though they don't know anything. And it's like, what. What Voltaire did with that, you know, like, and then. And you know, he was just smirking when he did it and just looked around like, chaps, you see this, lads? You hear that? Right? He just gave everyone an excuse to just never look into what the largest power in medieval Europe was ever. Just like, oh, well, I don't have to do that. Sounds great. Right? So it's just an excuse to be lazy. And also, again, every single thing about that is wrong. And yet, because it's delivered in such a quippy way, everyone thinks that they are just the king of the salon when they've delivered it. And it drives me absolutely bonkers. Like, yeah, thanks, Dave from Indianapolis. Wow, that's like, put me and my entire career and life's work in its place. Like, could he. Could you even tell me, like, where the Holy Roman Empire was? No. Cool, thanks. Thanks for playing.

Right, so it's good because this means that your frustration towards him is both about your research and a sort of personal vendetta, which is what I really need here, which is what I'm really looking for in this conversation. And I also think. I think there's something very funny about being. And I don't know if this is your experience, and it comes back sort of around to this a lot for me, but because I study, like, my research is about Holocaust perpetrators, right? Holocaust perpetrators who moved to the US after the war. Every dude age 40 and up believes that they are an expert on this. And so they will also come back to me with these, like, quippy, well, did you know Hitler Blank or. I've watched world at war 90 times, so I know about World War II. I'm a big World War II buff. And it turns into this thing where there's this need to correct you about something, particularly around something that you know a lot about. So the Holy Roman Empire, all of these things feed into this ecosystem where people like Voltaire say one stupid thing and everyone repeats it forever. And it gets used as a gotcha against you. And it creates this deep and lasting frustration around figures in your own research who somehow, like, are used to undermine you or to sort of, like, work against you a lot yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I kind of. I have sort of, like, the opposite issue, you know, being a medievalist, because no one knows anything about the medieval period. And then, of course, like, you know, the three things that they've, like, made up in their head that they believe is real then becomes the thing that they throw at me all of the time. But I suppose this is. My other issue with Voltaire is it's not just that fucking quote, but it is also that he is super responsible for spreading the conception of the Middle Ages as a particularly stupid and backwards time. That was him. He did that. Right. And so he is an Enlightenment guy, you know, as I've said before. And one of his big things is that he was contrasting the Middle Ages, which he saw himself as coming out of in the 18th century. And I'm like, okay, honey, like, you're sort of like, 200 years past that, but fine, whatever, you know, with the modern period, which he is now in. Right? So he says that we are now in the Age of reason, in post Enlightenment. We're in the Age of Reason. And this is in contrast to the age of superstition, which is the Middle Ages, and which he sees as dominated by the Church, and he hates the Church. So therefore, because the Church is very powerful in the Middle Ages. And again, that is a massive oversimplification. The Church is not always powerful in the Middle Ages. Like, it takes him a good 400 years to really get going on that one, you know? But basically what he says is that this is an entire period of time that you can basically just write off because everyone is a moron. Not like him, a really smart guy. And so just don't even. Don't even worry about it, brah, because they were just suspicious. And I'm like, yeah, as opposed to the 18th century, where everyone is, like, holding a seance to do a treasure hunt. Right? Like, I'm like, sir, there are still active witch trials going on in the 18th century, and they didn't have those in the Middle Ages. So explain to me, like, who is more superstitious? Like, in the 13th century, no one is getting prosecuted as a witch, bro. And yet they're certainly doing it around your area. So, like, who is superstitious and who isn't here? And unfortunately, that follows us. You know, there are very many people who believe, for example, that the term Dark Ages and the term the Middle Ages are synonymous. I will pause and say they are not the term Dark Ages that we, as historians used to use. We had to stop using it because you all keep misusing it. So we had to stop using it because you're wrong and you won't stop. But it used to just relate to the early Middle Ages, which was about 500 to, I don't know, 900, a thousand, it depends on who you're asking. And we used it very specifically to refer to a lack of sources that we have at the time. So it's dark as occluded, not dark as in a pejorative. And before anyone says, ew, why weren't there any sources? Babe, do you know how long ago the year 500 was? It was a very long time ago, as really long. And we don't have them anymore because also everyone then thought Roman sources were more important and they privileged keeping those as opposed to theirs because they had such a hard on for Rome. Okay, so that's what that means. Middle Ages refers to the time between the ancient period and the modern period, which is about 475 with the fall of Rome, quote unquote. And I don't know, like Martin Luther, 1517, if you see Protestants, you've gone too far, right? Like that's, that's modern, right? So it's a thousand years of history where Voltaire with his smarmy little I hate the church nonsense has just completely written off and our society has just gone, yeah, man, for sure. And it's a problem for us as historians because if you just say, oh yeah, you don't need to worry about that 1100 years of history, you could also make it into any story that you want. And it's become this boogeyman because of what Voltaire wanted to do. And he's like, they're stupider and they're worse than us and they don't have any concept of human rights. And it's like, okay, well, honey, well, women had it a lot better in the Middle Ages than they did in the 18th century. Like, there's no chattel slavery of Africans being moved in huge numbers to the Americas in the Middle Ages. But you, but you're the enlightened ones. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, right? And it's incredibly damaging because what it allows us to do as a society is say that this is the best things have ever been and that things are always moving in a better direction. Essentially.

It totally sort of further underlines the idea of this, like, sort of mythic progress that humans are constantly engaging in, that everything gets better all the time. Everything before is worse just by virtue of having happened in the past. And it also allows us to say we as people, like existing humans, are different and better than the people that existed before, which allows us to create a level of space and sort of temporal distance between ourselves and them and say that they're different people, we're better people. Their time is dark, our time is light. Like all of these things that ultimately prevent us from understanding and connecting with and learning from or even being interested in the past as anything other than this construct we've built, we've created Normally.

[Dr. Claire Aubin]

This is the point in the show where we'll have a couple of ads and announcements. However, since this is the first episode, I'm going to take this time to let you all know a bit about how the show is going to work. We are releasing a new episode with a new Scholar every week, but they will only be available to free subscribers every other week because we think accessible, smart public history is worth investing in, and we hope that you do too. We have a one tier Patreon that gives paid subscribers access to every episode ad free, as well as the full episode archive, including all of the paid episodes released before you subscribed, and occasional bonus content. It works out to about $1.75 per episode or less on five week months, which is less than half the price of a cup of coffee at your local coffee shop. And it all goes to me and my producer and editor so that we can afford to keep making good history for you, which is a pretty great deal if you ask me. The Patreon is patreon.com thisguysucked and is also linked in the episode description. My other major announcement is that we are so very excited to be part of the Multitude Collective. Multitude is a podcast company made up of passionate people creating shows that you can count on, several of which I've already been on over the last couple of years, so you might have heard me elsewhere. In some of their other shows, Multitude's podcasts educate, entertain and add to the world in a positive way. Except for us, this is definitely the grumpiest one of their shows. As a part of Multitude, our collective mission is to share things that we love while inviting others in. So I'm so glad to be working with them to bring this guy suck to you. And without further ado, let's get back to it.

[Dr. Eleanor Janega]

I guess this is kind of a perfect time to move towards why he Suck beyond just making it harder for medievalists to do their job. Let's get into that. What part of Voltaire's legacy do you feel is going ignored or downplayed, basically. Why does he suck?

Well, you've already hit on one of the main things, which is we've invented a legacy for him as some kind of moral crusader against very particularly the enslavement of African people. And he was no such thing. Right. And to his credit. Question mark. I don't even really want to give him credit. What he does advocate for are slightly better conditions for enslaved people. So he doesn't think that you should hit them with whips. I agree. You know, he doesn't think that they should face such intense physical torture. And a lot of that has to do with his kind of experiences around seeing the treatment of people. Especially in the Caribbean, all enslaved people are treated horribly. Life expectancy is incredibly low, especially in the French colonies at the time. You know, Haiti has a whole revolution about this, obviously. Famously, famously, go, Haiti. We love Haiti. And he then says, well, I think that this is not very good, but that he's saying it is much in a kind of animal rights activisty kind of way. It's more like, you shouldn't beat your horses than it is saying, these are human beings and they deserve better. Right. He is talking about them still as chattel, and he is talking about them very much as livestock. So it's not as though he was saying, oh, this system needs to be burnt down and these people should be emancipated. And all human beings, beings have the same innate rights. And I think this is really important, not just because it's so racist and disgusting, when he is very specifically advancing it for white men. And I think also within this, it's not like he's great on the treatment of women. It's not like homeboy was like, oh, yeah. And also, guess what? I think women are people as well. Like, no, absolutely not. Like, that is not what's going on for him. He's incredibly sexist. Um, he's very, very denigrating to other women who are within the salon system and the basic philosoph milieu. Now, don't get me wrong, he really does enjoy shagging, which, like, no shade, like, absolutely fine. Like, he. He goes over at one point in time to the Lowlands, like, what is now Netherlands, and he notices that the Dutch have quite a lot of sex. And he's like, oh, well, I think that this is great, you know, and he is a big one for taking mistresses. He doesn't treat them very nicely. You know, he's not like, bigging them up. He's not saying, oh, wow, like, here's a philosopher to watch out for. So, you know, again, what are the limitations here, right? And it seems to me that many of his critiques of the Church, which, again, I have several, many critiques of the Church. One of the big reasons I became a medieval historian was to hate more specifically and correctly on the church, right? Is that they create like a moral cage essentially for people, which they are then the arbiters of. And it's like, bro, are you just like, looking for a way to have consequence free premarital sex or like extramarital sex? Because if so, I respect it. But like, you can't, like, then you can't just like, throw out every single person who does sincerely believe in this or indeed 1100 years of history just because you are trying to shag a young widow.

And you also need to treat the people that you're shagging like humans, not just on an individual level, but on a sort of like, broader social level. If you're someone who's engaging in social critique and views yourself as a person who advocates for the sort of advancement of society and of treatment for all people in society, allegedly, if you see yourself that way, that includes the people you're boning like, and should include those people.

And it just. I don't understand why this is a difficult bar. We'll say, oh, well, he was of his time, yeah. But there were people who respected women who, you know, were advocates, you know, for feminism at the time. And again, there are, you know, dear Mary Wollstonecrafts of the world who are very involved in all of this. And then again, you know, oh, yeah, but of course, women think they're people, you know, I don't find it particularly liberating. And I would also say that there's a huge degree of classism also in his works where, you know, when he's advocating for freedom of the press, you know, mostly he's advocating for his freedom to publish whatever garbage he wants to. Right? He's advocating for himself. He isn't saying, man, I really hope that a peasant girl, like, from the Toulouse area gets educated and writes a pamphlet like that. That's not what he's saying. He's specifically advocating for a bourgeois philosophical movement that places him at the top.

Also going off of what you're saying in terms of the classism, I found a quote from him that is actually from him can confirm it's not one of these social science or social history. Social studies. That's what it's called, social studies class sort of quotes, which I Think is interesting because it also fits with his critique of Christianity, this sort of classist approach to who he thinks should have access to knowledge and what kind of knowledge they should have access to and power as a result of that. So first he calls Christianity the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Go off.

I mean, yeah, come on, King. Fine.

But then he says it was basically fine for the rabble who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke. I say, among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. So he says, I don't actually care if the poors are Christian because they're not smart enough and they don't need to be enlightened. All that matters is that the non poors abandon Christianity.

And that is just it, right? So even when he's doing like the one good thing, which is like talking the church down, which I encourage people to do, it's still because he needs to be above them. So indeed that's almost worse, right? Because either you're saying that Christianity is a dread religion that is all too bloody and it needs to be got rid of entirely or it's acceptable. Right? And I don't, I think that this way saying, yeah, everyone who's clever like me should be able to do whatever they want and take their mistress on holiday to the Netherlands. Right? You know that that's really important, but you pros can keep on believing in it because it's distracting you from, you know, getting too uppity, essentially. And I hate this, you know, it's so eugenicist. It's so believing in the societal classes as like distinct species, which is what we see from him. And again and again, you know, like from what we see in terms of his. The way that he talks about enslaved people and certainly the way that he talks about women. You know, this is just kind of a. Yeah, great, like keep him distracted and out of my way because I have another letter to write. You know, it's nonsense, it's nonsense.

There's also, speaking of letters, there's a letter he wrote to Catherine the Great because he had this like letter relationship with her. I was having so much fun reading some of these letters and being like, oh my God. So he told Catherine the Great that he's not a proponent of democracy, which, I mean, okay, okay, but almost one of the things he says is almost nothing great has ever been done in the world except by the genius and firmness of a single man combating the Prejudices of the multitude. So he's also saying individual, smart, great men, like this guy is all about the great man sort of approach to history. He's saying the only people who are capable of sort of leading the world and of creating goodness in the world are individual men. And that the multitude are the ones who have the prejudices. He doesn't. It's the multitude, it's the everyone else who has the prejudices. He's fine. So it's also like in believing that class is also inherent to almost like a sort of species level or sort of racial level of difference, he also fundamentally believes that intelligence is a byproduct of class and ability and power is a byproduct of class rather than the opposite, rather than class is what prevents people from accessing education, what prevents people from accessing power, all of those things. And so it's a lot of sort of mental gymnastics to moralize and ethicalize the position he's already in and to justify his continued sort of inhabitants of that position and of that position for the people around him, which sucks.

It's a huge problem that we still have now, right? So you see this in like every ridiculous Think piece where it's just like, wow, why are working class white people voting for Trump? And it's like, well, they're not, bro. Those people are all rich. Those are, they're, they're rich. Hello, they're those people. They're rich. And it doesn't matter how many times you point out that like the guy who owns the Jet Ski dealership is like a major funder to Trump, right? Because there's something about our bourgeois sensibilities which is very much informed by Voltaire's take on the world, that if one is indeed enlightened, if one is participating in the liberal intelligentsia, one couldn't possibly hold any prejudices. And the wealthy are the arbiters of what this means. So the proletariat, they're the ones who have all the prejudice. And it's like, well, most working people in America, you know, like, oh, like, well, who, who's working the fields, right? And this is the thing. Who is a worker, right? Who is the person who is able to be seen and reckoned with as an intellectual force. And for Voltaire, it's mostly him. It's like, what are you doing writing to Catherine the Great? Get out.

Leave her alone.

I cannot deal with these people, right? And you know, it's just such a cop out in a way to exonerate oneself basically. What he's saying is, I wish to continue living my vastly privileged life dicking around, writing letters to royalty. And I think that other people should still keep bringing in the potato harvest. Please and thanks. And I'm justifying it through my assumptions about the way that you think.

Yeah. And the idea that sort of one's wealth, one's sort of experience or one's access to intellectual pursuits is what inoculates you from the dangers of anything of any sort of worldly concern or incorrect politics or whatever, if one. If one simply is rich enough and thinks hard enough, you will be inoculated from having bad politics. Is like, do you know how many people in the world who have done, like, what we would say is pretty objectively evil things and went to, like, Ivy League schools or Oxford or Cambridge, like, a lot? Like, these things actually have very little bearing on sort of any moral structure. That's not how this works at all.

Yeah. Let me tell you a little story about Cecil Rhodes. You know, like, come on. It's completely possible to learn rather a lot and still keep acting in what I would say are morally outrageous ways. You know, which Voltaire did and Voltaire does. And it is a kind of learned thing. You know, morality is something that can be taught and brought down. And he's arguing against the church. And like, again, you know, I hate the church bad. Boo. Boo. But one good thing that the medieval church had in particular that we lack today, for example, was it was excellent at scolding rich people into giving money to the poor. They were like, you are going to go to hell. Just so you know, being rich is morally unacceptable and you probably should be helping poor people. So they'd all go, oh, okay, right. And now these days, like, the same billionaires who refuse to pay taxes will all say, you know, stupid Voltaire quotes to you, you know, while, you know, advocating for free speech, absolutism, which, again, is something that Voltaire is responsible for. So, you know, it's this abnegation of the fact that there could be any morality outside of religion. So he's not actually advocating for a more moral society sans religion. What he's saying is, you should let me have sex with a bunch of chicks. And then also everything else should be the same. Thank you very much.

And even going sort of off of some of this, I was. This is one of the things I wanted to bring up about the whole. This whole slavery thing, while being allegedly critical of slavery and above it. Like, to him, morally above it and seeing himself as better because of his wealth, because of his education, all these things. He was also still investing in and making money off of slave trading companies. So he was still, while using his wealth, his power, his intellect, whatever, to place him morally and socially above other people. And to say, I'm opposed to slavery or I'm critical of slavery because I think we should treat our livestock essentially better than that. He was still paying for it to be happening and still enriching himself off of it and gaining wealth off of it at the same time. So creating this cyclical thing which allows him to say, I'm wealthier than you, so I should be in charge of you, and I should be in charge of your morals. And also, the way that I am getting wealthy is through the thing that I'm saying is morally repugnant. So I don't really have that much.

Of a problem with it fundamentally. It's like, you know, you can't be like, oh, I'm opposed to the torture nexus, and think we shouldn't put fewer people in the torture nexus. But am I investing in the torture nexus? Yeah, and its expansion. Yes, I am. And, well. But it is making me very rich. So who's to say, right? Like, you don't get to do both things. And, like, this is basic hypocrisy, right? And he would write a stupid little play about it if literally anyone else did it. But when he does it, it's cute, right? And. And he gets away with it in the historiography, in the way that we speak about him. You know, say one time, oh, I just don't think you should hit them quite so hard. And everyone goes, wow, look at this guy. What a great dude. It's like, he's. But he. I just think that, like, not doing investment in the slave trade is, like, a pretty easy thing to do. It's a pretty. It's not a huge ask, in my opinion. But, you know, hey, what do I know? I'm just peasant stock. So.

Yeah. And in fact, it requires not doing something rather than doing anything. In fact, I would say it's the easiest thing to do because it requires not doing something. You don't have to do anything to do it.

But this is just the Enlightenment all over. You know, it's taking place at a time when Europe is just being the worst. You know, when that. We're like, hey, wait a minute, maybe we could just like, go everywhere and rob people and also enslave huge numbers of people. And, ooh, look, now I have chocolate. Right? Like, it's. It's the worst time to be a European, because they're just doing morally, you know, reprehensible things and then going, but you know what? It really frees me up to write several letters to Catherine the Great. You know, it's ridiculous in terms of what is going on with the moral gymnastics. And we still are very much struggling with that legacy now. And I mean, I think certainly as Americans, we grapple with that every day, you know?

Yeah. I mean, he kind of is giving the vibe of someone who is like, I hate war. War is bad. However, my IRA is doing really well because of my investment in Lockheed Martin. Where you're like, what? Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Like, I just feel like you could just not do that. That. That's all, you know, and you can't even plead ignorance on this one. You know, with an ira, you could just be like, oh, I don't know. I don't look into what they're investing in and then be like, Raytheon. Wait a minute. Whereas this guy's like, hell, yeah, put it all on Raytheon. You know, it's just.

Yeah, it's. And he does this with other things, too, right? One of the things I came across is he got imprisoned in the Bastille in For about a year in his TW because he accused Philippe ii, the Duke of Orleans, of incest. He then starts getting with his own niece. He literally goes to prison because he accuses someone of incest and is willing to, like, have a duel and all kinds of stuff over it. And then he's like, but I can do it, and it's fine if I do it.

It's like, who is shagging their knees? Who? Voltaire. That's who.

Voltaire.

And, like, don't get. And also, this is one of those where it's like, oh, well, you know, things were really complex at the time, dude. It was pretty much universally agreed that you should not hook up with your niece, which is why he was in jail, right? And now he's like, oh, you are such hypocrites. Who amongst us does not wish to have sex with the first six in these? It's like, what are you talking about, dude? And then it's like. And then he then, you know, plays that off as a. Like, wow, you puritans with, like, your morality. Right? Like, come on, bro. And again, everyone is just like, yeah, real, real campaigner for the rights of man. Like, oh, my God.

Yeah. And I mean, I want to be clear, also, this is his adult Niece. So it's not like there's a sort of, like, other thing happening here. But it's just the idea that he's got a very incest is bad for you, great for me thing going on. That seems to be this constant narrative in his life that he thinks other people can't do things that I do, and I can do them because I'm me and because I'm so much smarter and better and whatever. I'm richer, smarter, more well connected, all of that than them. And he could do that with his niece and then be like, oh, but she doesn't deserve rights. No, but she, and along with everyone else in the world shouldn't be voting. And if she does vote, it should be because she owns land. Let's be clear. It shouldn't be because she's a person.

And also, I mean, you can't give this woman the right to vote. She shags her uncle. I mean, no other sound mind would do that. I mean, 100%. It's like, I just don't think it's fair to call someone a civil libertarian if they are quite literally advocating against the votes of women, which he did all the time. And it's just like votes. I mean, granted, he was pretty much advocating against the votes of everyone other than himself, but, you know, and fair play. But it is. Yeah, he's got all of these hardline limitations. So he essentially is wedded to behaving in the worst possible way that he can. He's just an outrage machine. You know, he goes from one thing to another, you know, pointing fingers at everyone else whose lives he sees as not good enough while behaving in, frankly, bizarre ways. I can't. I can't with him. Every time I think about it, it just gives me a tension headache. I'm like, when I was looking into.

Some of his things about religion, because like you said earlier, he really. That's one of the main things is his critique of religion. It is interesting, though, because he has some interesting takes on other religions outside of Christianity. Like, he all for Hinduism, loves the Vedas. He says the Vedas are the best things that have ever been gifted to humanities. Basically. He loves Vedic thinking. He's kind of whatever. I think he's okay with Buddhism. He starts off hating Islam and then is like, hold on, Islam might be okay, and then kind of goes back to not liking it. And this will come as a shock to absolutely no one in the world. He is, especially if you know anything about the 17th century, he's extremely anti Semitic, like extremely. Extremely anti Semitic.

Oh, yeah, like rabid.

Yeah. And he also. I think about this a lot, obviously, because it's what I research. But he also is ahead of the curve on one thing, which is that he engages in racialized antisemitic thinking before the racial turn happens, in antisemitism. So in antisemitism, for those of you at home, there's a period that we would sort of describe as anti Judaism or a sort of religious and cultural hatred of the Jews. And it shifts in the 19th century, like mid to late 19th century, towards racial thinking, where Jews go from being a sort of cultural and religious group to a racial group that has racial traits. But Voltaire, 100 years ahead of the curve on saying this, I found a quote where he engages in racialized Jewish, sort of a sort of racial categorization of Jews way before anyone else is doing that. And he says Jews are ignorant and barbarous people who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched. They are. This is later. They are all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blonde hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not someday become deadly to the whole human race. So he literally says they're born bad the way that Germans are born blonde. So he's saying there is a racial animus that exists. Look at this incredible civil liberties guy who also is like, fuck the Jews, okay?

And also, like within this. This is such an interesting one because he's Mr. Oh, Boo the church. The church is so bad, right? And he's going around saying, oh, Jewish people enrich themselves by other people. And it's like, why is that happening? Well, for a very, very long time in Christianity, you were not allowed to lend money at interest to your fellow Christians because it was considered the sin of usury. But Jewish people didn't have the same prohibition in terms of lending to people outside of Judaism. And as a result, they were forced by the Christian leaders of Europe to be moneylenders. So, for example, when Jewish people were invited to settle in England, they were expressly told to do so, to open up practices as money lenders. And they were not allowed to farm. They were not allowed to do anything else. And then, you know, Voltaire sits here and complains about them being money lenders. Well, bro, whose fault is that? It's The Christian's fault. And I thought that you were mad at the church, so go have a word with them about it, right? It's like such an incredibly long walk when you already have one of your biggest enemies implicated here. So, like, I'm sorry, it's not even clever, right?

Yeah. It's also a missed opportunity you had. This was a layup for you on this one, right? Like, the Church set you up to be like. And here's evidence of the Church. Look at what they've done to these. To these people who are now being forced. You know, in Italy, they're living in ghettos. They're doing all like, look at these people who are forced into this horrible position. And instead he's like, yeah, and they deserve to be there because they were born like that.

He's like, look, I gotta hand it to the Church on this one.

Yeah. He also says they deserve to be punished for this is their destiny. Like, he's also engaging and what I would say, like, he's talking about destinies, natural destinies. You know who loves to talk about that? The Church. He's engaging in the same kind of thinking as the people he's critiquing so that he can justify this sort of, like, animosity he has. And it's. Yeah, it's, like, very bizarre. It's one of those things where you look at something and you say, you're supposed to be a thinker. This is your whole lane. This is your whole thing. There is no critical thinking being applied to your own logic while this is happening. And the result is that your legacy that you're trying to create is tainted because you. You cannot see your own sort of the flaws in your own logic. But, yeah, reading that, I was like, whoa. I thought it was gonna say anti Semitic in this sort of casual way that everyone. No. His own special brand.

And this is. The thing is, it's very interesting because it shows how desperate we are, I suppose, to have people from the past who, in theory, share our views on human rights. That this man was ever crowned some kind of moral arbiter. Right. And indeed an intellectual. Because, again, as you say, Claire, that it's so intellectually lazy. You know, that's an argument that one can pick apart in two seconds. So I don't know, like, what's going on in the salons? Everyone's just going, yeah, word. But you really mean to tell me that you are an enlightenment thinker and you believe in natural destiny? Like, how scientific is that, bro? Like, it doesn't seem to me that you are operating within the age of reason. If you're saying that, like, Jewish people have a natural proclivity towards hating others. Like, it's just bizarre.

Yeah. And he does this with everything, though, right? Like, he. There's no logic in, I think slavery is bad, but I won't actively profit off of it. There's no logic in, I love sleeping with all kinds of people, but I don't think any of them deserve the right to vote. I don't like the church, but I think it's fine for the poors. Like, all of these things are sort of based around not someone who's a great thinker, but someone who has just sort of a great ego. It's not someone whose thought is that incredible. It's someone who is able to articulate his thought in a way that's sort of engaging and funny and quippy and witty in a way that gets people to engage with it, rather than someone whose thinking is consistent, is logically sound, is based out of actual empathy or actual compassion, but instead out of sort of being right and pulling one over on someone or getting one over on everyone else.

Yeah, I would agree. You know, to me, he really comes across sort of like, you know, in outrage television debates. Right? He's that sort of person where he could get a point across. He can make a line of argument, but whether or not it actually stands up is another matter. But it does very much come across like, he's just throwing quips at you. He's just throwing ideas. And then like, please don't follow that up. Right. You know, like, none of this is very well articulated for a theoretical philosopher is all I would say.

He's got sort of like the Howard Stern of the Enlightenment thing going on. The Joe Rogan of the Enlightenment thing going on completely.

I mean, he's a really, really good self promoter, you know, and I'll give him that.

He would have been a great podcaster is basically what I'm hearing, because. But maybe if nobody could talk back to him and only people who'd be invited on are, like, Catherine the Great and his niece, or like, any of these various rich people he would, like, sponge off of when he would, you know, when he went over to England and he had this, like, affair with this woman and her husband also knew about it, and that was the whole thing. He also. I was reading this. Some of these things are just so funny because it's like you could read someone's Wikipedia page now and be like, whoa, what the hell? But there was not that same access. You didn't have all of human information in your pocket back then. So you could go around and say, for example, like, he did, saying he was the illegitimate son of a nobleman, and people would be like, like, I guess, man, okay, sure. You seem smart enough. I guess you could be. And then he'd be like, well, I am.

So what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

Yeah, he had 180 different pen names because he couldn't, like, stick with one of them, and he wanted to, like, reinvent himself. Like, this guy is, like. Is like a poster. Like, this guy is like an online character from a long time ago. And, you know, it's. It's interesting to then, like, imagine if someone is saying, howard Stern is the greatest thinker of our time because he had some, like, good quips, because he was quotable.

You know, it's kind of like he's like a poor man's Oscar Wilde, right? Like, I don't even think his quips are as good as Oscar Wilde, and we don't even get any good stories out of it. Like, maybe Candide, you know, but he will be eclipsed in the 19th century by better and quippier people. So, you know, like, this motherfucker's not getting my, you know, imaginary dinner party invite. Which, you know, I think that would devastate him, right? You know, he 100, percent, like, would be on Twitter 247 and wanting to be in the conversation of, like, everybody's, you know, imaginary best friend, but he's just some prick. Actually.

Is there any other sort of part of his life, his canon, any of that that you. That you want to make sure we. We fix or update?

I guess that I just want to reiterate the fact, like, as you've touched on here, Claire, you know, he says that he was the son of a nobleman. You know, he also said he was a historian, right? And just because you write about history doesn't make you a fucking historian, right? Like, who trained you, buddy? Right? Like, you were completely unable to actually do any of this. And, you know, the way that you write the Middle Ages off just makes it seem to me like you're not very good at Latin, and you're, like, trying to get out of working with some sources, right? So in the same way that he's like, yeah, I'm the bastard son of a nobleman, he's also, like, and historian plus actor plus writer, you know? And you're just like, come on, man, that's not how these things work, but it is very true of the time where if you have, you know, money and you're just kind of able to talk your way into certain circles, these things are just taken as red. And I think what's important for us to know and to think when we're presented with individuals like Voltaire is to pick apart why we want to believe this. Why are we believing this guy's hype right now? Like, what is it that he is giving us? And I mean, I think one of his more dangerous legacies is certainly this, you know, debate me, bro thing. You know, I don't think that everyone has a right to say whatever. I will not defend to my death your right to say certain things. For example, I don't think you should be allowed to say that Jewish people have an inborn hatred of others. I do believe you should get punched in the face for saying that. Right. And I firmly believe this. And I think as a society, our willingness to sweep people's virulent racism, virulent misogyny and hypocrisy under the rug in order to keep Great man history is a legacy that we can attribute to him. And it's one that is incredibly dangerous. It's how you get to the situation that we are in now. And it's also lazy, you know, because he's a lazy intellectual. He's a stupid guy's idea of a smart guy. And he therefore advocates for stupid guys ideas of what history are. Right. And that's why it needs to be picked apart and critiqued. Because he's really poisoned a great deal of the way that we think about history and philosophy. And yeah, I hate him.

And I think also we've established here is that he actively positioned himself this way. It's not like this is something that he was sort of discovered. And all these people were like, this man's incredible and we love him. It's that he was going around saying, I'm incredible, you should love me. And he was actively positioning himself in the place that we see him now. Because this is what he sort of saw as his desired outcome in terms of how he wanted to be remembered, how he wanted to be thought of, how he wanted the world to think of intellectuals like him, how he wanted to be sort of positioned in terms of like legacy and memory. And that alone to me is enough to be like, yeah, this is a convincing argument that he sucks. A person who goes around trying all the time to ensure that everyone who is below him remains below him just so that he can be smart and remembered is someone who sucks. I think we've established that. Yeah, he sucks in terms of the goal of the show. We're there, we got there. And it was his own fault.

He is just the absolute worst. And the only way that he could ever be considered to be a smart person is if he defines who a person is in the strictest way possible. Because if anyone else gets in here, they're going to make him look like an idiot immediately.

Yeah, he basically was like, how do I narrow this definition to so small that it only applies to me? So that we don't even. I don't risk someone usurping the sort of position that I have placed myself in, which is so. That's such loser behavior. Like, that's so lame and I don't like it.

This is the behavior of an ease, and I just. I can't have it.

Thank you so much for coming on. Dr. Yanaga can be found on Twitter at Going Medieval. You can get more of these hot takes fresh hot out the oven. You can also find her on Blue sky at Going Medieval and Instagram @ Dr. Eleanor Yannaga. And you can watch her many wonderful shows or listen to her excellent podcast on Medieval or We're not so different, all on History. Hit. And thank you very much.

Thank you so much for having me, Claire. And I'm sorry that I said niece Fucker. I'm not.

Say it again. It's fine.

That's nice. Fucker. I have a PhD. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of this Guy Sucked. A member of the Multitude Podcast Collective, this episode was hosted by me, Dr. Claire Aubin, featuring special guest Dr. Eleanor Yannaga, and produced and edited by Tom Omani. All of our theme music was written and produced by the wonderful Marshall Dean Williams. And if you'd like to support the show and get access to all episodes, including two extra episodes per month, you can [e-mail] thisguysuck See you next week.