Apparently people didn’t like that he called things as they were
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For example: his famous “it’s better to be feared than loved” has the caveat that “onset not be hated.” What his quote actually means is that you have to have rules and punish the people that break them instead of letting them off the hook but not to the point of becoming tyrannical.
He also presaged this advice by saying to only follow it if it was not possible to be both feared and loved. But obviously love is hard to inspire and even harder to keep. A vassal, no matter how much they may personally like his/her sovereign, generally is not going to risk ruin for their sake in bad times and will choose any course of action that benefits them, or at least extends their time. (There are exceptions but they're rare.)
So, like you said, Machiavelli advises raining fire and brimstone on those who cross you. But be fair, apply it consistently, don't go too far, and don't try it with anyone who doesn't break faith with you. If you do go too far, they'll continue to rebel because they feel they have no choice. It's them or you.
Weirdly enough, A Bronx Tale remains the only movie I’ve seen that actually understands what Machiavelli was saying in The Prince.
“Is it better to be loved or feared?”
“That’s a good question. It’s nice to be both, but it’s very difficult. But if I had my choice, I would rather be feared. Fear lasts longer than love. Friendships that are bought with money mean nothing. You see how it is a round here, I make a joke, everybody laughs. I know I’m funny, but I’m not that funny. It’s fear that keeps them loyal to me. But the trick is not to be hated. That’s why I treat my men good, but not too good. I give them too much, then they don’t need me; I give them just enough where they need me, but they don’t hate me.”
That movie is such a classic
I can’t remember which mafia boss it was but there’s an urban legend one of the bosses made all the captains in his organization read the prince when they were made captain. So it makes sense a mafia movie would better understand Machiavelli.
Personally I really like Machiavelli’s political theory/philosophy/ideology/whatever, although I think the Discourses is much better than the Prince. Though I do disagree with some of his opinions and ideas in the book (including some of the fundamental ones), but it is half a millennia old it’s not gonna be perfectly aligned with modern ideals or even our base assumptions.
Leaders who are always loved by all of their subjects are usually compromising long-term success for immediate gratification.
Teddy Roosevelt was ran out of New York city for fixing their corrupt police department.
Good politicians who serve the people well don't just do what the people want. They do what's best for them.
A child always wants candy but needs veggies.
I think that is the main problem of democracy.
Even without populism and corruption, democracy is based in the popularity and the popular desire, And when this is different from what really improves the people, creates conditions of stagnation and Regression
However, the idea that leaders should go against the will of those they represent because 'they know what's best for them' is one that I can't really accept.
Leaders should ultimately act at the invitation of their followers, the path that we take, or a change from it, should ultimately come from the bottom-up, not the top-down.
Enlightened despotism, however wrapped, paves the way for regular despotism, and even the well-intentioned may find that one person's enlightenment may differ from another's. And a person who believes they know what's best for everyone, that others are too small-minded to understand what's good for them, and wishes to actively impose their will to obligate others, is the last person I'd like to let near the levers of power!
De Gaulle said that an elected leader have two choices once in place : he apply his program, and then betray the country, or he doesn't apply it, and then he betray the ones who elected them
I’ll have to read more about that. I do know that TR enforced a no alcohol on weekends law, during his tenure as police commissioner. Granted that’s more of the legislator’s fault than Teddy’s, but enforcement of the law lead to beer halls and taverns losing income. Beer hall owners were basically forced to comply with the law and lose the bulk of their sales, or become criminals because of the law. That might be why TR lost some popularity.
I agree with most of what you say, but not the allegory you give to describe your point. Saying "A child always wants candy but needs veggies" makes it sound like you support a nanny state government that tramples on the right of individuals because a small group of elites believe that they know what's best for everybody. While yes, elected officials are supposed to do things like clean up corrupt police departments, governments can only go so far. You can't force even good things on people if they don't want it.
People dont eat candy for food -your analogy is flawed.
Good ol' populism, blow smoke up their ass until their homes are the ones blowing smoke.
Yeah… people nowadays confuse being feared with being hated, and Machiavelli was adamant that being hated is NEVER the answer. You should always strive to be Loved AND Feared, but whenever it’s not possible to be both, it is better to be feared (not hated).
Cherry picking is indeed the number one tool of those who straw man.
Tbf the Prince is absolutely still a work that encourages autocratic tendencies as one might expect, in fact that’s why it’s so influential because it’s one of the first real works which talks about how a society should be devised practically (in this case a guide to be an effective and stable autocrat) without the idealist imagery of how the world should be which is often used in political philosophy prior (including Machiavelli himself)
Well, not exactly. But the quote is a part of a wider, more complex analysis, which is in itself part of his worldview. He says that after analysing how much fear of rulers seems to work as a deterrent and how as a matter of fact, it is less risky (at least, according to his analysis). This analysis comes from a worldview that looks at his world as a place of violence, where everything must be done to avoid chaos. You can disagree, but you can see his point.
Lol I'm going to be honest that sounds like some VERY generous interpretation.
Have you read the Prince?
Cover to cover? No.
That still sounds like very generous interpretation. You're taking the words he actually said and doing about 3 backflips to explain how REALLY HE MEANT IT DIFFERENTLY.
"Punishment" that is designed to "break people" is by its nature tyrannical my friend.
Here’s the two paragraph section of Chapter XVII on it. He clearly distinguishes between feared and tyranny.
“Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a prince is with his army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never hold his army united or disposed to its duties.”
People need to read the Prince
And the art of war (Machiavelli's, not Sun Tzu's). Both before his book was written and after you can see how history vindicated his ideas repeatedly.
Machiavelli's Art of War was pretty meh. Its only really valuable contribution was "don't be cripplingly dependent on mercenaries" and then a couple specific things about pike and shot warfare that were rendered obsolete by the invention of the socketed bayonet. He went way too hard on trying to resurrect hoplite style citizen militia armies and those aren't really viable on the scale of nation states let alone empires. There's a reason the Romans needed the Marian Reforms to replace the maniple system.
His army took back Pisa, so at least in the short term the reforms weren't completely invalidated. That they eventually buckled would probably have happened either way - militia or mercenary.
I focus more on the citizens having familiarity with weapons, in times of war it reduces the time needed for training.
That's completely independent from Machiavelli's misguided attempts to resurrect hoplite style armies.
Sun Tzu’s is also a lot of basic ass tips
I would think Discourses on Livy > Art of War
People need to read his other works
They also need to read Discourses on Livy. Reading only The Prince gives only half the picture.
NEVER!!! All my information about Machiavelli that I shall ever need will come from either biased or uneducated sources! Read….sure….tell me what else I should do MR SCIENTIST!!! /s
Machiavelli is misunderstood. He was simply pointing out the political realities that he perceived, not advocating for those realities.
He also wrote the prince after he had been tortured and put into exile. He had been a part of a functional democracy and watched it torn down around him. He must have been extremely cynical at this point of his life.
“For a long time I have not said what I believed, nor do I ever believe what I say, and if indeed sometimes I do happen to tell the truth, I hide it among so many lies that it is hard to find.”
From one of the last letters he wrote before his death.
The OG Garak.
Well depending on who wins the US election this fall, we may get to witness our own version of that…
did you see the supreme court made it so the president cannot face criminal charges for actions undertaken with their official powers. it is now legal for the PoTUS to use military assets for personal gain
Indeed, any “official” acts have immunity. So ordering the army to assassinate anyone is now legal
I would say his message has been warped more than misunderstood. There was an active campaign by the Church during his life to demonize him as an apologist for tyrants rather than an actual credible political thinker, which thankfully seems to be fading because Niccolo was one based man.
Like Nietzsche with Nihililm, no?
Not at all. Nietzsche may not have been a Nihilist but he was still a crazy idiot that tried to boil morality from dozens of cultures and beliefs systems that stretch back thousands of years into two groups that constantly contradicted themselves and made no sense.
Taking the Prince literally would be like thinking Jonathan Swift was a cannibal because of A Modest Proposal. It's cutting political satire in which he, a passionate republican Florentine, calls princes cunts
How people can look at history and Machiavellis actual works and then say "The Prince is satire" still baffles me. Machavelli doesn't defend republicanism through all its faults, he accepts that sometimes a state needs a strong handed monarch to reach its greatest hights. His ideal state isn't a republic the entire time, it's a state where a strong monarchy leads into a republic. Just look at history, Italy nor Florence itself do not reach their greatest hights under a republic but under a king (the Medicies were for all intents and purposes kings).
Wait, what are you talking about? You realise he literally led republican armed forces for Florence, and worked for the Republican Florentine government, to prevent the centralisation of power that the Medici started to galvanize, and successfully enforced onto Florence by force? They exiled him! He wrote treatises on republics, too, and they're far less 'yeah so this person is a villain' than how princes are portrayed in The Prince. Genuinely to come in so hot and confident there with so little background in Renaissance Florence was bold!!!
Florence was a state that was led by the Medicies to it's hight and then kept there by a republic (until it's destroyed by those same Medicies). Or in other words it was a state that was first brought to its hight by a monarchy and then kept there by a republic. Machiavellis ideal state was an idealistic version of Florence.
Machiavelli thought that his theoretical Prince would be an awful person but he also understood the necessity of that awfulness if that Prince wanted to bring forth a strong unified state. The Princes in Machiavellis The Prince are all tyrannical villains but most of them are successful in bringing about a strong state. The book is specifically about someone trying to rule a new state. His works on republics however focus on ruling a sate.
To bring it all back to reality, during Machiavellis time the idea of a united Italy was on every educated Italians mind. So Machiavelli writes a book on a theoretical Prince who through the various ways described in the book will unite Italy and he writes a book on the ideal government for that unified Italy (he of course wrote other books as well but those two are the most important and supported by his other works).
The Prince is not a satirical book just meant to show the awfulness of monarchies. It's a book that describes the necessary evil that Machiavelli thinks is needed for a unified Italy.
That people took his name and deformed it to make it an insult or as something despective is an insult to him when most of his quotes are based in common sense more than cruelty itself
I mean happens a lot in history where people go with take someone’s words and interpret them in the worst possible light which changes how people view the figure later on.
Such as Nietzsche.
I mean with Nietzsche you can squarely put the blame on his nutcase sister, who fucked up his stuff so badly after he died that we had to get the un-fucked manuscripts after WW2 from the friends he had sent copies to.
My boy Nietzsche has been butchered by the young and depressed and it hurts me to watch.
Nietzsche was butchered by a lot more than the young since his death.
*his nazi sister has entered the chat
Elisabeth Nietzsche has a lot to answer for. She turned the work of a man who more than anything preached "Embrace both life's ups and downs, find out for yourself what you want, and pursue it to the end as it's the only way to guarantee you can be personally happy," into Nazi bullshit that so thoroughly muddied the water that a lot of people still dismiss his work out of hand.
These 2 must be the most misinterpreted thinkers in history.
Like cynicism starting as a moral trangressive philosophy advocating less materialism bounds and social obligations, designing today the attitude of many hypocrite and greedy people.
... i don't think the word cynicism works exactly the way you use it...
Like the word just means bad motives, it no longer refers to the same school of thought that capital C cynicism refers to
Sorry for being a knowitall just tryna help
No I meant it went from an Antique school of thought teaching to mock the conventions but for a sane purpose to a stance of indifference laced with disdain towards any conventions or initiative which doesn't suit your goals. And it's often related to hypocrite and greedy people.
But yeah, in your own words we went from the Cynicism to the (modern) cynicism.
Just a preface, this isn’t an argument against you, this is a massive accidental tangent that all happened because I agree with you
It’s not necessarily an insult, the Machiavellian personality type is a thing within psychology and sociology, and the people with it have a higher tendency towards things like Anti Social Personality Disorder, but not necessarily. Being a Machiavellian doesn’t automatically make you a bad person, same as how being a clinical psychopath doesn’t.
Hell I know a person who is an actual clinical psychopath but they are aware of it, and for that reason have found a way to tie in being good with themselves, basically their own ego hinges in them being a good person, so if they do bad shit it hurts themselves, and that way they fight their disorder.
Personally I also deeply dislike the use of personality types(not the fucking myers briggs ones, the ones we use in psychology) and especially disorders and diagnoses in general as slurs.
Stuff like calling someone a Narcissist, or psycho, or autist(this one hits close to home for me as an autistic person), but quite possibly the most damaging one, has been “schizo” media and us as people have totally ostracised people with schizophrenia, making them scared to talk about their condition, and therefore scared to actually get the help they need and deserve.
Like the schizophrenics I’ve known have all been extremely kind people, and their schizophrenia has never been aimed out towards others, but towards themselves.
Mentally ill, challenged and/or disabled people are much MUCH more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators, in a lot of cases they are actually even less likely to commit violent acts than neurotypical people (in lay man’s terms this means normal, it’s often shortened to NT)
Like the scariest thing I’ve experienced relating to a schizophrenic was having to save them from a SEVERE episode caused by sudden reminder of trauma, depression and having just woken up and not gotten meds yet, it was real lucky I was stronger than them(cause I’m weak as shit) and was able to keep them down, and eventually console them back to lucidity, with meds and water ready. (This is actually a moment in my life I am extremely proud of)
This spun out on a bit of a tangent, I just wish we would treat those who are struggling better, and I feel you can likely sympathise
The mercenaries must have been the ones to spin Machiavelli in a poor light /s
I wonder how much he knew about the Eastern Romans considering the Varangians were mercs that did their job much better than the professional army that made up the praetorians.
His opinion of mercenaries was almost exclusively based on the contemporary to him condottieri in Italy.
Well, he was a romaboo so he knew. And varangians were different in motivations from condottieris of his time
Machiavelli advocated for a military that was part of the state, because they are more loyal. Even if Varangians are technically mercenaries, they only had one employer: the Eastern Roman Emperor. They were basically a state army. They were totally different from condottieri
What i find funny is that characters like Tywin Lannister from ASOIAF, despite being a Machiavellian figure on face value, would actually be endlessly criticized by the real Machiavelli for his excessively disappropriate actions against any slights and be very reviled for the sheer brutality of his actions and constantly protecting monsters like Gregor Clegane while refusing to take responsibility, which ends up creating enemies out of what could have been good allies and making alliances with horrendous people who are just as hated as him like House Bolton and Frey for violating guest rights and House Tyrell who want to control the monarchy as well, all just so he can feel powerful to stroke his ego without any care for Westeros.
In contrast Stannis Baratheon ironically is the sort of figure Machiavelli would like because even though he is stern and can be somewhat ruthless he's also someone who actually has the interest of the realm at his heart, is meritocratic, fair minded and shows zero tolerance for political scheming and a decadent court.
Stannis is ironically the better ruler and leader than Tywin in my opinion
I think that's actually the point, particularly in the books: Tywin wasn't really a good leader, he was just exceptionally ruthless and possessed a kind of genius in the short term. After his death, Kevan proves to be a better leader, and so he's killed by what's his name, the eunuch, in order to destabilize the realm so that the Targaryens have a chance. If Tywin was as effective as he believed himself to be, and as others believed him to be, he'd have been assassinated long before Tyrion went and did it.
Can't remember how it went in the show, exactly, but it's definitely a little less clear that Tywin's penchant for breaking the traditions of the realm and siding with dangerous, ambitious psychopaths is, in fact, not the right way to go.
I think that Machiavelli would love the Stark, no joke. They are a dinasty that lasted for a thousand year. Their claim is so strong that both nobles and population fought to have them back. They are loved but also feared. When Jorah Mormont knew that Eddark was coming to take him because he sold people as slaves, he run away
There are people who will take the sayings of a famed figure and twist them to suit their agenda.
Not only that but sometimes the people who use saying drastically change. In my country there is the saying "Wer hat uns verraten? Sozial Demokraten!" Which roughly translates to "Who has betrayed us? Social Democrates" (Political Party called SPD).
It was originally used by Reichsbürger after WWI with the Dolchstoßlegende, then it was picked up by the left, after that it was used by the Nazis and nowadays its used by the left again.
Machiavelli also specifically suffers from good old fashioned "lost in translation." Mostly because the first people to translate The Prince into English were gibbering imbeciles.
No way, that's crazy.
Justice for my boy Nick he did nothing wrong
Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Marx, and Adam Smith are consistently made into caricatures of themselves. All four of these men are more classically grounded and nuanced than they are given credit for being.
Marx was very much indebted to the atomists (the topic of his dissertation) and Greek notions of flourishing. He also thought that equality was goofy because of people’s needs and talents.
Nietzsche’s übermensch is more like Aristotle’s “man of virtue” than he is an aryan superhero. And his notions in ethics, while radical in spots, owe a great deal to the stoics and other ancient philosophers.
Smith believed in government assistance for the poverty stricken and thought Econ had to be grounded in empathy. Not greed. His work on ethics (Theory of Moral Sentiment) is also exceedingly interesting.
Given that these thinkers are credited as being geniuses, it shouldn’t be surprising that they were more nuanced than they were given credit for being.
I didn't know about Smith, thank you
The OP’s context is kind of weak on this one. The stuff Machiavelli gets a bad reputation for is his book The Prince. Leading up to writing it, he supported a change in government from the current rulers, the Medici’s, of his city state Florence to a republic. The Medici’s were replaced, but then came back almost immediately. Of course, since he supported their overthrow, he was banished.
The Prince was written specifically to the prince of the Medici’s and was advice on how to be a good ruler. He was ingratiating himself to the ruling family so that they might end his exile. But that was just surface level set dressing.
In reality, the book was a criticism of the ruling family. For example, the “it’s better to be loved than hates stuff” was basically him saying that everyone hates the Medici’s. All the advice was just thinly veiled insults. He was calling them brutal, stupid, incompetent, etc.
I’ve heard that there’s still some disagreement on whether the advice might actually have been genuine, but I think it’s pretty clear. For one thing, if you read the book, the subtext is obvious. But also, Machiavelli wanted Florence to be a republic, so the idea he likes ruling through fear doesn’t make much sense. I guess it’s theoretically possible that he changed his mind after the Medici family regained power, but after that happened he was immediately arrested, tortured, and banished. I don’t think that experience would really warm him to the idea of Medici rule.
People think Machiavelli is an asshole because it’s hard to pick up on his sarcasm through text.
EDIT: that last sarcasm point isn’t really right. I guess I mean that the book is political satire. It’s hard to understand that tone without understanding the context of when it was written.
I dont even think that's true, its just that most people haven't read The Price. He very explicitly says "yeah I mean I prefer Republics but I have already written about those so here we go".
I think the main thing people dont realize is that when The Prince says something its not "this is how things should run" and more "assuming you wanted to keep a monarchy stable, this is how I would do it"
I disagree. When The Prince says something, I interpret it as “Hey subjects of Florence who are reading this book (mostly philosophers and other intellectuals), this is how your government functions. It sucks.”
That's also a fair enough interpretation I think. In either case I think the important takeaway is that he makes it very clear that "I dont actually want this, I would much prefer a Republic."
Yeah, even reading the prince, he is like, “Republics don’t have this problem or can deal with it easily, but if you aren’t a republic-“, sometimes.
Thanks for explaining it better. I just didn’t feel like typing all that out. TBH I didn’t catch any sarcasm in his text. Though it is pretty clear he doesn’t prefer an oligarchy, I read the Prince as “if you’re going to do it the wrong way here’s how you at least remain stable”
Yeah, I guess that sarcasm point isn’t great. Rather, I mean the tone of political satire.
The original poes law.
As an Italian, it always surprise me that many forget that Machiavelli wrote that book to help the unification of Italy. This is a common thing in italian authors: Dante, Petrarca and Machiavelli advocated for the cassation of the separation of Italy in many states. Machiavelli created that guide to permit an Italian ruler to unite Italy and protect it from foreign conquest.
Machiavelli's dream is to create an Italian republic as it was during Roman times, but he understands that a republic couldn't conquest all the italian states. He wants a prince that unites Italy, and then a government change to a republic.
And you know, his dream became true :)
I think Machiavelli's thoughts, especially his notorious "The Prince", only really start to click when you realise he was a fierce republican. It's like a modern liberal democrat westerner having to write a manual for Vladimir Putin - of course you will put stuff like "cull your rivals", "manipulate the public" etc. in that guide, because that is your view of the horrible system you are giving advice on succeeding in. It's really not rocket science - he gave "evil" advice because the person he was advising had to work in a framework Niccoló considered to be evil in its premise.
Not necessarily evil, he observed that your allies left completely free to behave as they want turn into problems if not due facto enemies. Mercenaries but also your police.
He brought the example of how Cesare Borgia (son of the Pope) had given jurisdiction oved Romagna but thieves and various unorganized criminals had made impossible to live and administrate serenely thus he hired some very brutal dude that without mercy or tolerance basically murdered and exterminated all those gangs until Romagna became peaceful again.
Problem is with no criminals causing issues the brutal dude and his fellow cops began terrorizing and acting "lawful evil" to the commoners so now Cesare Borgia had another issue. How did he solve it? Showing the body of the brutal cop severed in two parts on the public plaza. This way he reached the perfect balance of feared but not hated ie he made clear of being capable of extreme acts of brutality BUT for his people's serenity and not for his own interest or amusement. Had he continued giving the role of police chief to the brutal man he would have ended being feared but HATED (which was the cause of demise of the cop himself).
Blue from Overly Sarcastic Productions? What are you doing here?
Who was Machiaveli's favorite musician? Prince
Machiavelli: hey Prince, politics is pretty dog eat dog. Here's some ethically questionable tools at your disposal, but please understand the consequences of choosing to use them.
People in the 21st century: he was a sociopath.
"Machiavellian" is a lot like "Orwellian" The name doesn't come from what they advocated it came from what they wrote about.
One word describes Niccolo Machiavelli perfectly.
Based.
While I do abdicate for the death of the author when it comes to fiction, specially in this day and age of fan works that can be more profound than the original media.
When it comes to philosophy is the opposite. People mean to say something specific in those cases, is just that everyone missed what it was
My philosophy professor summed up his thought process as “ideally its best to be equally loved and feared, if you have to choose, it’s better to be feared then loved, but for God’s sake don’t make them hate you”.
One of these days I actually need to read Discourses. I’be read the Prince, but apparently Machiavelli favored Republics.
He really did. I had to read both for school but I found the Prince far more interesting.
Machiavelli be like: Why are you booing me? I'm right!
Love without fear is what he saw as destabilizing. His implied hierarchy was
Loved and feared but not hated
Hated and feared but not loved
Not hated not feared but loved
Not feared and hated
Machiavelli wrote the prince basically as a job application. In a lot of it, he talks often about how “well-disposed princes” as he puts it often have trouble running their domains effectively because they’re too nice. So he’s basically telling this prince that he’s too nice to run his domain effectively but if he listens to Machiavelli, Machiavelli’s going to help him be strong and assertive and get the kingdom of his dreams.
Machiavelli was basically a political pickup artist.
You need to read Discourses on Livy to get Machiavelli’s (probably) real political views
I liked that “The Prince” was his way of buttering up the new King; as a way to avoid being tortured again. He was fairly humble honestly. Just a run of the mill intellect really.
My exact reaction when I read "The Prince" by Machiavelli, expecting some diabolical, Machiavellian villainy rather than just practical, realistic tips on what to expect as a ruler, particularly when you become abusive with power versus not being a dick.
Imagine that. Machiavelli was less Machiavellian the more you actually read about him. Same with what people believe of Nietzsche versus what he actually wrote.
The Prince shows that people wildly misunderstanding satire is not a new problem
He was just a smol girl nerdy boy, who liked to play strategy games.
The last chapter of Il Principe still rocks
Those in charge have never dealt particularly well with those who speak truth to power.
I was kind of surprised after reading the Prince. I was expecting advice on manipulating people, but instead he talks about not trusting mercenaries.
I don’t know why but I find his argument to not use mercenaries hilarious. “Good ones are ambitious so they’ll backstab you. Bad ones are a waste of money” it’s so hilariously simple. I love it.
IRL as you get older, you understand better what he was talking about
It tells you all you need to know about the man that he handles the issue of consent vis-a-vis sex better in "The Mandrake", than all the 1980s teen comedy movies put together.
Good ol' Mach&cheese. Entering a discussion about The Prince with people who didn't understand the point of the book (while obviously acting like an authority on the matter) will propably never cease to be entertaining to me
Yeah, I didn't realize until later that when people called others or things "machiavellian" it was an insult. To me I had always thought that was a good thing, since Machiavelli was extremely intelligent and clever.
I just read the Prince.
Pretty interesting things that you wouldn't expect considering his reputation
the better feared than loved, other comments already talked about. Full quote is try to be both, if you can only be one be feared. Whatever you do don't be hated.
Don't be a tyrant, don't be capricious, don't steal people's property or women. That makes you hated, and being hated gets you dead.
Chapter X was all about how a prince should align themselves with the commoners not the nobles. Because 1. it's easier to give the commoners what they want than the nobles 2. you can kill a lot of nobles, you can't kill a lot of commoners because there's too many
Get all the brutal stuff out to of the way at the beginning of your reign to consolidate your power (considering your not hereditary monarch, but a new one). Then try to lay off it. That way people forget it after a while and think of you fondly. (better yet have an underling do it, then kill that underling for being too brutal)
Of course, he was a republican (anti-monarchy person) and his book Discourses on Livy is way more important, and is about how important virtue and how leaders should put the republic above their own self-interest.
I do like Machiavelli
My favorite writer talking about Machiavelli is Diderot in his Encyclopedia:
Source: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0000.237/—machiavellianism?rgn=main;view=fulltext;q1=Denis+Diderot
That dog is just happy he got to go for a ride
if you're a monarch are you hiring a guy like Machiavelli? Me neither.
So many people hate him because of his "beliefs" and the political strategy he "created". They are either dumb or never fucking read the prince. The entire thing was a fucking observation on his part. It was literally him calling it like he saw it. He saw what leaders were doing. He saw what they did that worked, and what didnt work. He saw that the successful leaders had MANY tactics in common. I get that even the best translation of the book can be a difficult read because of the age and how tied to a region it is but... Come on. Its a list of successful strategies that he compiled
He didn't even do that, Prince is for the Medicis, it is catered towards them, Discourses is his genuine down to earth opinions. Reading that made me realize A. He's a lot more capable and thoughtful than what people give him credit for, even his fanboys B. He is quite liberal for his time People are reading a single ahh book without any historical context and deciding dude's entire personality lmao
Let’s give it up for Marshall for being a good ol boyo
Machiavelli is a nuanced but insightful person. Some people here however hijacked this tread to sell vegies and oppose democracy. Machiavelli did not had anything like that in mind. He wrote a guidelines for a ruler on how to stay in power for longer and not get killed due to own stupidity.
And he made a personal point of saying he does not personally endorse most of it.
I scored alarmingly high on the test people thought I was joking or being edgy.....
“Everyone is a dick, Machiavelli is just a dick with balls.” -me in a Socratic circle for history class
Oh, you met him?
When you hear someone say “call things the way they are or the way they were” that basically means “this person expressed their opinion verbally and it may have been rude, aggressive, vulgar, or offensive and I agree with them but I didn’t say it out loud”
I'm pretty sure he is hated for being a monarchy loving monarchist, no?
Except that’s also entirely false.
Please, for the sake of our presumably shared interest in history, read Discourses on Livy.
Evidence of the "angry beta man" theory.
With such insight into power and political intrigue, one would expect him to be extremely, or even marginally, successful and powerful.
In his own word a man with talent but no luck and a man with luck but no talent ultimately share the same destiny : failure.
But he conquered Pisa, and for a Florence man there is no greater success
Anyone who thinks,
"...the ends justify the means"
Just gave all the horror and evil of the world THE perfect excuse.💀
March on sociopaths. It's called mental illness and insanity (and in the DSM') for a reason.
🙄🙄🙄
So you obviously haven’t read the Prince…
He doesn’t say the ends justify the means it is a terrible paraphrase of what he writes. He says at the end of chapter 18 that when a ruler cannot be held accountable then the people only care about the end result. The subjects do not care how the end result was achieved only how it affects them
I definitely will have to pick that up!!! I have not.
I remember studying some of this in college but we did a lot of cramming (the ends justify the means there? LOL)...
I much prefer what you wrote -I can see the truth in THAT for sure.
I cannot recommend it enough. The Prince is filled with so much nuance that you really need the context of why it was written to understand.
Essentially the Medici family ruled Florence until they were overthrown. During the republican rule Machiavelli was a fairly high ranking government official. Then the Medici’s came back to power (the pope at the time was a Medici and that played a part in it). So Machiavelli got fired right away. He then wrote the Prince as a kind of unofficial job application to get back in the Medici’s good graces showing “I don’t agree with your style of government but here’s how to do it effectively to maintain stability”
The interesting thing is that Machiavelli was clearly a republican and anti monarchist (his Discourses of Livy is all about how great the Roman Republic was before it became imperial). Some people take that knowledge of him and believe the Prince was meant as a message to the people about characteristics to look out for in their leaders. I personally don’t agree with it but it’s still an interesting opinion.
Thank you that definitely got my curiousity even more aroused and it is NOW on the top of my "to read" list -and considering with all this internet stuff, that I'm going to sit down and read it, from your summary, that's QUITE a feat!
Thank you for the helpful insight. Much appreciated.
Nah, Machiavelli was an absolute ass