The myth of the Napoleon complex and other short subjects

Great Debates
1

Before I begin to rant and rave let me explain that I may or may not have a dog in this fight, depending on your definitions of “tall” and “short” because I am between 5’8" and 5’9" (depending on whether I measure myself in the morning or in the evening).

But it seems to me that in a world in which we decry discrimination based on skin colour, ethnic origin, religion or even sexual orientation, the most deeply rooted and most robust prejudice that has ever existed in our society, based on whether one is tall or short, remains as strong and unassailable as ever.

Take the so-called “Napoleon complex”. This assumption that short men tend to be bellicose and agressive to make up for their stature is itself based on an historical inaccuracy.

Depnding on what movie or drawing you see, Napoleon is usually represented as some kind of tall dwarf. Yet, the doctor who measured him at his autopsy on St. Helena recorded a height in centimetres that converts to about 5’6". And this was after 6 years of exile and illness. He may originally have been 5’7" as a young man.

Now, this certainly did not make him tall, but did it mean he was considered extremely short by his contemporaries? Or was 5’6"- 5’7" pretty much a normal height for an Italian/Mediteranean male (Napoleon was NOT French) in the late 18th century?

Furthermore, does anyone have any evidence that Napoleon considered himself very short, or that he was in any way sensitive about his stature? Did his contemporaries consider him very short?

He was, to be sure, an agressive, bellicose and egomaniacal bully, but is there any evidence that he was like this because he felt inadequate about his height?

For more information, se Wikkipedia, “Misconceptions about Napoleon’s Height” at

The author of this article says he may have been slightly taller than average for his society and time.

So how can we talk about a “Napoleon complex” when there is no evidence he was in any way bothered by his height, and since nobody had reason to consider him short?

But let us look for a second at how our society views short and tall people, or at least short and tall men.

For strarters, how many disparaging racial slurs do you know about blacks, asians, etc?

Now compare these terms, which most decent people have banned from their vocabulary, to the ingrained size discrimination in the following expressions:

He stands head and shoulders above the rest.
He is a mere pygmy
He is a mental midget/dwarf
He is a giant in his field
I would never stoop so low
He is a person of high morals (or low morals)
I’m walking tall
No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child
You’re being petty
I thought you were bigger than that
Try to rise above such petty concerns
I wouldn’t lower myself to your level
I’m feeling low

Anybody out there have any other expressions? Let’s see how many we can collect. I once counted several dozen, but I cannot remember them all.

Since both giantism and dwarfism are pathological conditions caused by a disorder in the pituitary gland, why is “giant” a compliment and “dwarf” an insult?

And of course, the best one of all is “It’s how tall you are inside that matters.” Get it? If you can’t be physically tall (which is obviously a superior thing to be) we can patronizingly grant you “interior tallness”.

Can you imagine for one second saying to a black person, “It doesn’t matter that your skin isn’t white, it’s how white you are inside that matters.”

Everyone has read about surveys that show that no matter what their marks were, the taller graduates in a given graduating class will end up with more promotions and higher income 20 years down the road.

They will be part of “upper” management, the “top rungs” of the ladder. The short people remain in the “lower” ranks.

There was a statistic to the effect that with perhaps one or two exceptions, every US presidential election was won by the taller candidate. Maybe George W. was an exception, but you will remember that in the debates, they arranged the cameras so that the size difference between him and Kerry did not show.

What do I propose? Quotas for short people? Compulsory leg-shortening for tall people? Well, of course not. But maybe just a good examination and admission of this deep-seated and irrational prejudice in our society would be a useful start.

So how about it? What do others think of this?

2

I think the beauty prejudice is even greater than the height prejudice. Trying to change either of them seems equally misguided.

3

Hehe, I just got done reading a thread in the “Cafe” section where the posters make fun of Tom Cruise for being short (among other things)…

It seems to me that this prejudice does seem to still be around, and is not really “on the books” yet as being “Very Bad™”. Dwarf’s and midgets still have a hard time with the reactions/actions of some of the knuckleheads in our society.

As Shalmanese points out, this prejudice seems to share similar roots with the social concepts of beauty and strength. (A good looking person has a slight edge on a not-so-good looking person of equal qualifications in a job interview…)

However, while this prejudice may be as old as humanity, there hasn’t been the same level of “pogroms” launched against short folks as there has been with other prejudices.

So, IMO, are these “prejudices” rude or unfair? A little, sure.

Should we raise taxes and implement “sensitvity training” in public schools? Nah.

For the record, I’m short (5’ 3"), and as I get older, more and more pudgy…

4

In movies and television shows, dwarves are often more sensible or intelligent than the larger people. In Time Bandits, the little folks have it all figured out. In Elf, the elves and the dwarf lawyer are much smarter than the pseudo-elf Buddy. In Back To The Future, wee Marty MacFly is way ahead of most of the larger cast. In Monster Garage, BodyDrop usually is more often the pranker than the prankee.

I suppose we all can point to some example of a short person who is agressive and arrogant, but there are just as many examples of bigger people who are overbearing jerks.

5

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on height discrimination:

A reasonably good book on the psychology and sociology of height is The Height of Your Life by Ralph Keyes.

You’re only about an inch below average height. I think that the average height for an adult American male is 5’ 9.1" and for an adult American female is 5’ 4.0".

The claim that most or even many dictators were short is pretty clearly false. The Wikipedia entry I cited above can only find the following examples of dictators who were significantly shorter than average for their time:

Engelbert Dollfuss (4’11; 1,50m)
Deng Xiaoping (5’0; 1,52m)
Kim Jong Il (5’3; 1,60m)
Nikita Khrushchev (5’3; 1,60m)
Francisco Franco (5’4; 1,63m)
Josef Stalin (5’5; 1,65m).

6

Particularly in males, we value strength, which correlates with size and height. When males don’t assign higher status to physical power, height prejudice may disappear.

I’ve also read that we’re unavoidably conditioned as children to view height as equating with power and authority. Everyone with any real power is taller, and after fifteen years or so of this as the almost invariable norm, we become hard-wired to view height as a marker of certain things that are good, with the lack thereof a marker of the opposite. Makes sense to me, though I don’t recall where I read that, so I don’t have a cite at my fingertips. I’m also about 6’3", so the status quo doesn’t get me in a lather.

7

I am 6’1" which is fairly tall for my peer and age groups.

Generally I stoop, sit, or use other subconscious tricks to look less conspicuous, but I’ve noticed that shorter people like me around in uncertain situations like walking through Naples.

I’ve also found that I feel slightly insecure when surrounded by taller people.

I suspect that seriously short people are acutely conscious of their height, I’ve also noticed that they tend to be less relaxed and more verbally assertive than taller people.

Napolean may have been 5’7", but his nickname in the UK was Tiddy Doll, and it is highly likely that he was surrounded by the top few percentiles in height terms of his generation.
A French Hussar General would probably have been pretty imposing.

My take is that people do behave differently according to their relative height.

8

I think you may have put your finger on it. In our subconscious minds, taller people represent authority, strength, competence and security, because for the first 15 years or so of our lives, the people on whom we depend for survival, for “leadership” as it were are bigger than us.

I also understand what you mean about markers. Believe it or not, as funny as it sounds, and considering that I have an above-average IQ, when I got to be full-grown around 19 or so, I had a funny nagging feeling in the back of my mind that “There doesn’t seem to be as many big people as there used to be.” This absurd thought played in my subconsciousfor a few months until one day I took the trouble to really examine it and realized to my amusement that I was the one who had changed.

I have always thought that the preferntial promotion of tall men in the working wold cannot be a simple matter of “let’s promote John because he’s 6’3”."

I am sure that there is some unconscious feeling that “John seems like the leadership type”. Now, John may well be a good leader. But somewhere in the minds of the people doing the promoting is the idea that John reminds them of those large, god-like and omniscient figures who took care of them as children.

Just a couple of years ago I was asked by my boss to sit in at a meeting of very senior, upper (note the height allusion) managers in the agency I woked for.

There were a few female managers, but of the 15 men present, I swear not one could have been less than 6’2".

I remember looking around the floor under the U-shaped table and noticing that the average male show size must have been 11 or 12.

I realize this is not the same as racism or other forms of discrimination, but I cannot believe that there was no good leadership/management material among smaller men in that organization.

This prejudice is not only unfair to individuals. It may be aginst the best interests of society and its constituuent organizations.

9

I pay attention to tall women. (Not that they reciprocate, but…:dubious:)

Anyways. I notice that a tall-normal woman (say 5’9’-5’11") is much likelier to be out and around with a shorter guy than one just about her own height. (Although a slightly taller guy is even more likely.)

Over-six-footers seem to match up with much shorter guys a lot more often than guys just a little shorter.

The truly odd sight would be a man 5’11" next to a woman 6’2".

What’s the psychology at work?

10

If you go to the Wikipedia article I cite in the OP, you will see that Napoleon did indeed surround himself with imposing, tall companions. But since there is NO evidence that he was in any way bothered about his height, why wouldn’t he?

Interstingly, Peter the Great, who was extremely tall (I have no exact figures at hand) loved the company of dwarves and had many in his court. Go figure.

The British, of course, have always used derision of their enemies’ real or alleged physical limitations in wartime as a means of bolstering their own troop morale. Much of it centered on the idea that the British were well-fed eaters of what were supposed to be healthy foods, such as beer and beef, wheras their enemies were portrayed as weak, starving, undergrown wretches who could be easily defeated.

As early as the 100 Years’ War English texts would point out that the English soldier had far more stength because he consumed meat at supper, while the Frencman consumed a weak vegetable broth.

By the time of the Seven Years’ war in the late 18th century, there is a delightful series of war propaganda drawings by Gainsborough. It shows the pathetic French roasting whole frogs over a fire (the French were called frog-eaters) and the caption under the drawing says:

“But we’ll soon teach these strutting foes,
That beer and beef give stronger blows
Than soup and roasted frogs.”

Obviously, Napoleon became a lot less frightening if he could be portrayed as a Tiddy Doll.

11

The general assumption of the thread — that all of our prejudices and preferences about height come from men and not from women — sticks out like… like something that sticks out quite a lot.

Half of humanity is, on average, shorter than the other half. Women aren’t quite as tall as men, generally speaking. I’m not about to blame women for the social desireability of height = power, but many women do, in fact, wish to date someone taller and stronger than themselves. I hear from many women that they like looking up to a man, because it makes them feel protected, safe, secure. (I also hear that women like dating someone at least 4-5" taller than themselves so they can wear their tallest set of high heels. That’s probably a more modern variant, so go figure.)

If women mostly wish to date taller men, for whatever reason, then shorter men feel less desireable, and possibly more insecure. In other words, I believe heightism is probably bound up into sexual behavior.

12

Because whether or not Napoleon himself had a Napoleon complex is irrelevant to whether or not such a complex exists. There’s an Oedipal stage of development named after an entirely ficticious character in a Greek play. Is it sensible to dismiss the concept out of hand because Oedipus (being nonexistant) didn’t really suffer from the Oedipal complex? Even if the story were true, it does not really describe the Oedipal stage Freud elucidates, as Oedipus didn’t KNOW that he was killing his father, nor marrying his mother. But the name is good, and describes an interesting phenomonon, regardless of whether Oedipus was, indeed, Oedipal.

13

Doesn’t have to be any psychology if the distribution of men’s heights has a positive kurtosis (i.e., they tend to be pretty strongly clustered around the mean). In that case, a woman who’s taller than the average man can generally find one who’s about her own height, and even though she’d prefer someone taller, someone who’s only a little shorter is acceptable. There’s very rarely an exact match because heights are randomly distributed.

As for the very tall girls, they probably find that they don’t date much if they insist on guys near their height.

Wendell, do your references give any information on the height distributions for men and women other than the means?

14

Not that I can find offhand.

15

Perception can be everything can’t it. Apparently Tom Cruise, Sly Stallone, Humphrey Bogart, Michael J Fox are all around 5’7. Which ones are considered short by the public?

16

Tyrone Powers is reported to have done most of his love scenes standing on a riser to be sure that his co-star was shorter than he.

17

Makes sense to me. This next part, though…

That doesn’t explain why (as I believe) they tend to pair up with much shorter guys over just a little shorter ones. It isn’t as though there’s a shortage of available males of just-above-average height.

18

Guys who are just slightly shorter than very tall girls may prefer girls slightly shorter than themselves. Or maybe it’s just an instance of selection bias.

19

I realize that my OP was male-oriented, and was about promotions and power, more than about dating, but the prejudices of heightism do operate in the male-female dating and sex domain, and in very interesting ways.

Let’s start with a few premises.

  1. Society most approves of tall men who marry/date women who are 4-6 inches shorter than them. Look at the figures on a wedding cake or drawing of an ideal couple. We are conditioned to find this the ideal, “normal” and desirable arrangement.

  2. Men and women will “settle” for less than ideal, and those not blessed with “ideal” bodies and appearance have to settle for what the ideal ones leave them.

  3. Most “ideally sized” males are 5’10" to 6’2, roughly. They take their pick of attractive women who are in the “ideal” range of 5’4" to 5’8".
    So what does the tall girl do (say she is 5’10")? She can try for a VERY tall man to get the 4" to 6" differential that society likes, but the pickings there are slim. Besides, a lot of females would be perfectly happy with a very tall man up to 6’7", but after that point tallness gets freaky. So the tall girl has a lot of competition for very tall men.

So why does she not choose a guy who is 5’9" you ask? Because the average-sized guy normally does not want her. He has a good supply of women shorter than him to choose from in the 5’2" to 5’8" range.

But what about really short guys? Well, most of these guys are not likely to meet a lot of women shorter than themselves unless they start dating dwarfs.

So in other words, the really tall female and the really short male are pushed towards each other by society’s rejection of them, because both of them are, respectively, outside the range of desirability for their sexes. She for being too tall and he for being too short.

20

Beware of Doug writes:

> That doesn’t explain why (as I believe) they tend to pair up with much shorter
> guys over just a little shorter ones. It isn’t as though there’s a shortage of
> available males of just-above-average height.

Do you have any statistical proof of this? Is your claim that very tall women tend to date medium to slightly shorter than medium men rather than somewhat taller than average men based on anything other than your own observations? It doesn’t match with my observations, and my observations are just as valid as yours. It’s a waste of time for us to explain your attempted generalizations if they aren’t true. I get really tired of threads where someone makes a flawed observation and asks us to explain it without us trying to explain that the observation isn’t true.