The grandson is a different person of course; but he invokes his grandfather's name as a reference and proof of competence. Don't fall for it.
The grandson's NPO is named after himself.
"The founder of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and preserving the planet’s oceans, coastal areas and marine habitats, is building the world’s largest underwater research station."
It would be one thing if people knew Jacques was a bigot and touted his science as being great because it promoted bigotry. I had no idea. But I do think of ocean conservation when I think of him and that is the truly important part.
And, as you point out yourself, its the grandson. Sins of the grandfather?
Drove a car without plates so he could park in handicap spaces, Denied his daughter was his, etc.
Apple was founded by Steve Jobs and the entire culture was dictated by him, it is inexcusable to say that Apple products are separate from that.
Or we can say that unreasonable, and even bad people also have good points and that we want to try and take the good they have accomplished and build upon it. This does not mean we have to celebrate the person.
Jacques Cousteau much like Steve Jobs did not develop many of the things we think about when their names are mentioned but they both worked to promote and popularize their fields.
Yet that's what we are doing when we introduce an article about an underwater device by the name of the grandfather of the promoter of said device.
"Joe Shmoe's grandson wants to build something" doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?
I know because I watched and enjoyed the shows as a kid and most people at the time liked him. The only person I knew back then who didn't like the man was my dad (a sailor).
What I mean is the name is still strong enough to attract some interest.
Anti-Semitism: https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1999/06/18/la-plonge...
Cousteau's first wife Simone was independently wealthy and financed his boat (Calypso) and expeditions. She lived on board most of the time (yet never appears on camera). But he had another secret family (with kids) on the shore with a former flight attendant, since the late 70s. Simone only learned about it in 1990. Letters were published where she asks a friend in disbelief if this can be true. She then died within a few months. Can't find the letters right now but I did read them then.
Critique of "Le Monde du silence": https://www.rtl.fr/culture/medias-people/video-pourquoi-le-m...
In that movie from 1956 which won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or, the team blows a whole coral reef with dynamite in order to "count fish living in it". They also catch live sharks on board and kill them with shovels "because seamen don't like sharks".
You can watch the documentary and see for yourself.
Interrogé par Le Monde, Erik Orsenna confie : « C'est évidemment une lettre ignoble. Mais j'ai peur que si l'on ouvre toute la correspondance des Français de l'époque, et si l'on écoute l'enregistrement de leurs conversations, on découvrirait beaucoup d'autre antisémitisme de cette sorte. Autrement, Pétain n'aurait pu rencontrer en France un tel accord, et des horreurs comme les rafles de juillet 42, organisées par la police française, n'auraient pas pu se produire. A la différence de son frère, Pierre-Antoine, dirigeant de Je suis partout, ce que je dis dans mon discours, et à ma connaissance, Cousteau n'a jamais émis ce genre d'ignominie en public ni ne s'est engagé dans aucune action antisémite. »
Which is not to excuse anything, but it seems to me the majority of French society (indeed, European society) at the time held such views. Why single out Cousteau? And why do it in an article about a project undertaken by his grandson, who is not himself, I believe, accused of holding any of those biggotted views? Kin punishment is no less a barbaric practice than antisemitism (and islamophobia, as per the article above).
As henearkr says below, the rest of your comment is about Cousteau's personal life, which is neither here nor there. This is not the Daily Mail.
The part about his personal life is to further substantiate the "liar" part. It's not just that he had a "mistress"; he had another family and hid it from his wife, whom he didn't divorce because he needed her money. She died of sorrow when she eventually found out. I think it tells something about his character.
I'm getting downvoted heavily for all these comments, but I persist in thinking we should be more careful about the "heroes" we choose. This man is no hero. He's horrible.
In any case, why do we need to judge anyone's character in a HN thread? What is this, inquisition by internet forum? That is just the worse, lowest form of internet activity and I'm really sorry to see it on HN. This is at the level of the darkest recesses of 4chan.
Exactly. And we wouldn't be talking about it were it not for the affiliation.
> This is at the level of the darkest recesses of 4chan.
Right. Does this count as Godwin's law?
I posted the article and I didn't post it because Fabien is Jaqcues-Yve's grandson, but because I find the idea of underwater habitats interesting. You're the one who is focused on the "affiliation". And for no good reason other than to throw some dirt around, from what I can tell.
Pretty much the same thing happens today with islamophobic ideas and with "the last racism", i.e. hatred towards Gypsies, Roma and Travellers, even though they were also subjected to genocide by the Nazis.
Some people never learn- and Europeans, in particular, seem to have a particularly hard time to learn from our shared past of nationalism and racism and the brutalities committed because of them. In that, I'm speaking as a European, an EU citizen, a Greek citizen and someone very concerned about the waves of nationalism and racism that are still rising all around Europe. In my own country, it took cold-blooded murder for public opinion to face the fact that Xrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) is a band of criminal thugs and stop voting those bastards to the Greek parliament (now they vote for their dregs). If we expect blood to be spilled before we understand where fascism leads us, we'll just keep destroying ourselves over and over. And I'm very afraid that we will do exactly that.
But, again, this has nothing to do with the character of Fabien Cousteau, which to me is pretty clearly what the OP is trying to attack, through his association with his grandfather, a practice that I find as revolting as the ideas expressed by the grandfather in the letter discussed in Le Monde.
In 80 years if you're famous people will be talking about how horrible you are as a person for being ok with the slaughtering of animals just to eat meat.
It gets really fucking old.
If this is your references, you end up having denigrated him.
About your allegation of J. Cousteau having protected marine life "by blowin' it", it is his work that has raised the current awareness of the richness and fragility of marine life. Compare his positive achievements at the scale of the whole planet (or at least Western world) versus some small part of a coral reef he blew up.
> Ici, nous n'avons toujours pas de logement. Nous sommes actuellement campés dans un petit pavillon d'une pension de famille sur la Corniche. Ce n'est pas gai pour Simone, mais il n'y aura d'appartement convenable que quand on aura fichu à la porte tous les ignobles youtres qui nous encombrent. [0]
A rough translation of the last sentence might be:
> It's not cheerful for Simone, but there won't be a suitable apartment until we have kicked out all the vile youtres [slur for Jew] that plague us.
But, to be more charitable to the man, it was a time where anti-semitism was wide spread, and doesn't seem to be more than the norm of the time. But it isn't really ambiguous.
[0] https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1999/06/18/la-plonge...
The defense of Commandant Cousteau's anti-Semite private writings usually goes along the lines of "okay, but everybody did the same at the time". But this is not true. Most people did not actively call for the physical extermination of Jews in occupied France. They did nothing to prevent it -- but rejoicing and calling for more is on another level.
His brother was a frequent contributor to "Je suis partout" during WWII and was sentenced to death for his writings at the end of the war (later commuted to life in prison).
And yes, Cousteau is not his brother. Yet -- not a good family.
Even more so- what the hell is this "not a good family" business all about? Seriously? The whole family? Because of one member? This is just mud-slinging.
But he was a Nazi sympathizer and was protected by the Germans during the war. Then he falsely claimed to have been a member of the Resistance. This is all documented in his biography.
Why is what you are doing here any different than reminding everyone of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis everytime someone talks about modern Germany, or Angela Merkel?
I'm sorry to have to point this out.
Dozens of other articles
“Cousteau was a showman, nothing more – a man prepared to do anything to sell his films and books, even if it meant martyring animals.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/117...
But the reality is grey and whatever his flaws might have been he contributed a huge amount to diving technology, to make the public discover the marine environment, and for the protection of oceans.
My guess is he made more kids (and adults) happy with his programs, than he made sad with his personality and opinions.
Say I listen to a LGBTIOAQ+* muscian who hates straight people like myself (they exist), who is a feminist who hates men like myself, but I enjoy their music, their personality is definitely horrible to me, but I don't care because I love their music and I will listen just the same :)
If you like Cousteau's movies, good for you. But invoking his name and making him a hero is, I think, wrong.
Anyway, he did not make disappear coral as a species, did he?
Please do not confuse nature protection with sentimentalism. There are very serious environmentalist jobs whose description is "destroy all the cats on this island".
Just to precise, there is none of this kind of cruelty in his films. What he transmitted to generations of children (and still does) is respect and fascination of nature in all its beauty and complexity.
I don't know what you saw about sharks, but what I saw as a child was Cousteau's team filming sharks from inside special cages, and even outside the cages in the open, with special canes he designed to keep them at distance without killing them. If he ever had cruelty towards sharks, he had also compassion, and this is the compassion bit that reached me.
https://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/quand-le-comman...
Nowadays scientists use poison instead of dynamite, is it better? That shows you these methods have strong rationales, even if they seem stupid at first.
And at the time the Sea was still a big unknown, Cousteau greatly contributed to open this unread book.
So you see, you do not have to feel compelled to destroy him and his work.
Edit: Cousteau's work is as bad as his character.
They certainly are not fans of his life, his life is extremely irrelevant, it may as well be totally forgotten, and it would not hurt.
About your last edit: here I beg to disagree.
I love his work as a filmmaker, it made me love the sea and nature in general and made me want to protect it. When I was a child he contributed to educate me and make me an environmentalist. On me at least, his work was tremendously successful.
As an engineer, he created a lot of devices used today for diving. His boat Alcyone was even sporting revolutionary static turbosails.
(I ask rhetorically because even a cursory read of his Wikipedia page would demonstrate that his actions afterwards undercut that sort of cavalier attitude to the undersea environment. I believe he explicitly repudiated that action besides but I can't find where.)
Moreover, what _else_ of his work is bad? That one thing? He produced educational films, books, speeches, etc. for almost four decades after that film.
But the name is connected to the ocean and the grandson wanting to do somthing with the ocean, its not surprising that his name is invoked on that basis.