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Total misunderstanding of Machiavelli

This entire article discusses Machiavelli with an acceptance of "The Prince" as his most

important work and most influential work. However, the work was not the most important toMachiavelli himself, and in it he says nothing about what is actually "good" (this word is

avoided completely, last I checked), only what is necessary and favorable to keep a principalityworking. The Prince itself was never meant to be published (it was published 4 years after hedied); rather, he created and distributed it to some higher-ups in Florence while he was exiled as

a sort of plea to be able to return.

Machiavelli should be remembered more for his "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Levy",

where he states things such as "The Masses are Wiser and More Constant Than a Prince"

(Capitalised because it's a chapter title), and that the ideal republic is actually a combination of

an aristocracy, a democracy, and a principality; this is likely where Adams gained his admirationfor the Italian. In this work, by the way, he also said that principalities are actually all temporary

and cannot last permanently due to the fickle nature of individual man - countries require some

form of democracy in order to create a lasting, stable nation, in Machiavelli's mind. And, giventhat this was completed in 1518, long before the advent of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, or

Hobbes, and only one year after Luther's "Theses", is very significant.

Thus, it is in my strong opinion that this article is confused and unfair in its judgment of

Machiavelli as either "evil" or purely a "political realist". If one erases everything else he wrote

and did to the Prince and perhaps the "Art of War", then perhaps that is true, but otherwise itcannot be.Tancrisism(talk) 07:50, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:NPOVmeans that we cannot present the "true" Machiavelli, as scholars dispute this.Your points about theDiscourses are present, as are the reasons why not everyone finds

them persuasive. Some people see a different significance to the fact that Machiavellispeaks of what is necessary rather than good, just as he never speaks of the soul.

Machiavelli himself states (regarding Livy, and in theDiscourses) that when someoneomits something commonly thought to be important, it is a sign that he thinks it

unimportant. We can't very well ignore thePrince (and the less republican statements of

theDiscourses) because it contradicts (some of) what is said in theDiscourses.RJCTalk

Contribs14:47, 12 March 2010 (UTC)Naturally, and I wouldn't suggest omitting "The Prince", or the less republican statements

of the Discourses, as they are important and necessary to understand Machiavelli. What I

am saying is that "The Prince" gets much more focus than it should in drawing a

conclusion about the nature of the man, given that he merely wrote it for a select few to

read and it was never published in his lifetime as he never meant it to be. In the"Discourses", on the other hand, he does mention what is "good", rather than simplyusing the vague "virt", and he writes with more ideology. Besides, I am curious as to

what he says in "The Prince" that contradicts "The Discourses", as "The Prince" is notmuch more than a guidebook to govern a principality effectively and a plea to unify Italy

(one of the very few moments where his human side appears in the otherwise mechanical

book).Tancrisism(talk) 07:09, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

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I would suggest you take it up in an academic journal and convince the field. You are

likely to meet stiff opposition, given the number of scholars who've studied the

Discourses in great detail and come to the opposite conclusion. Until there is scholarlyconsensus, molding the article about what you feel is the correct interpretation would run

afoul ofWP:ORandWP:NPOV. AsWP:Vsays, verifiability, not truth.RJCTalk

Contribs

14:12, 31 March 2010 (UTC)Yes, I see what you are saying. I suppose I will have to do just that, then. Thanks for the

suggestion.Tancrisism(talk) 00:18, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Layout revision

The article is in need of a few minor layout changes. as i am unfamiliar with the coding, perhapssomeone would like to apply these.Zarzhu(talk) 01:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, why "is" he a philosopher? I'm pretty sure he's dead. Precedingunsignedcomment added by173.48.207.13(talk) 21:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Changed to "was" (by somebody else). Re: layout change. Perhaps In popular culture headingis in order? Move some stuff there to simplify. E.g.: the 'Modern Video Gaming' entry seems

rather stub-ish, and/or inconsequential. ~Eric F184.76.225.106(talk) 21:16, 12 March 2012

(UTC)

Yes, I think that popular culture is an issue that will not go away on this article, even

though pop cultures references to NM are so far in spirit from the reality of the main

subject. So a properly made section might be better than just having an eternal series ofdrive-by edits and reversions which we have had for some years.--Andrew Lancaster

(talk) 09:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

was he gay

on Showtime that appear to make him gay, I never heard this before. what is your view on thisplease?

== == ( monkish)

redundant?

Do we need the article to say "The Prince's contribution to the history of political thought is thefundamental break between political Realism and political Idealism." twice within a couple

lines?MephYazata(talk) 01:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

From the two lines I think the best one to leave in is the second instance. The first line "The

Prince's contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental break between political

Realism and political Idealism. Niccol Machiavellis best-known book" could be changed to"The Prince, Niccol Machiavellis best-known book, ...". This leaves the second sentence of the

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paragraph mostly intact and in the point about realism and idealism is not lost, simply a few lines

later.MephYazata(talk) 01:18, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The Prince's contribution to the history of political thought is the fundamental

break between political Realism and political Idealism. Niccol Machiavellis

best-known book exposits and describes the arts with which a ruling prince canmaintain control of his realm. It concentrates on the "new prince", under the

presumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task in ruling, since the people

are accustomed to him. To retain power, the hereditary prince must carefullymaintain the socio-political institutions to which the people are accustomed;

whereas a new prince has the more difficult task in ruling, since he must first

stabilize his new-found power in order to build an enduring political structure.

That requires the prince being a public figure above reproach, whilst privatelyacting amorally to achieve State goals. The examples are those princes who most

successfully obtain and maintain power, drawn from his observations as a

Florentine diplomat, and his ancient history readings; thus, the Latin phrases and

Classic examples.

The Prince does not dismiss morality, instead, it politically defines Moralityas in the criteria for acceptable cruel actionit must be decisive: swift, effective,

and short-lived. Machiavelli is aware of the irony of good results coming from

evil actions; notwithstanding some mitigating themes, the Catholic Church

proscribed The Prince, registering it to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum,moreover, the Humanists also viewed the book negatively, among them, Erasmus

of Rotterdam. As a treatise, its primary intellectual contribution to the history of

political thought is the fundamental break between political Realism and politicalIdealismthus, The Prince is a manual to acquiring and keeping political power.

In contrast with Plato and Aristotle, a Classical ideal society is not the aim of the

princes will to power. As a political scientist, Machiavelli emphasises necessary,

methodical exercise of brute force punishment-and-reward (patronage,clientelism, et cetera) to preserve the status quo.

Frankly, the above paragraphs are tendentious and only true if you ignore large parts of

"The Prince" and/or decide arbitrarily that Machiavelli was lying in some parts of the

Prince and telling the truth in others (the method used by Leo Strauss and his followers,

who disdain to supply supporting evidence for their conclusions, since they do notbelieve in empiricism). Scholars have very differing interpretations of what Machiavelli

meant and the article would be more acceptable if informed readers of the range of these

differing interpretations instead of supplying its own. It is true that Machiavelli does

claim to be describing "la verita' effettuale delle cose" the actual truth of things, but hehimself did not identify himself as a "realist" writing against the "idealists". This is

presentism-- the application of nineteenth and twentieth century terms to the past. In fact,

Machiavelli makes it clear in a long prelude at the beginning that his advice in The Princeonly applies to leaders of new principalities that have been seized illegally by strongmen

who possess neither the "virtu" necessary to have a what we might call a strong public

mandate (and the political skill to keep it) nor the legitimacy conferred by hereditary

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succession. The leader or prince that Machiavelli is addressing (a weak and illegitimate

i.e., non-hereditary one) must rely on fortune, but fortune will betray him in the end, as it

did Cesare Borgia and as it does everyone. In the last chapter of the Prince, Machiavellicalls out for a leader (such as Moses) who does possess virtu (an actual constituency and

the support of God) to unite Italy. Machiavelli wrote I Discorsi at the same time as The

Prince and there is no necessary contradiction between the two works.The article's identification of "realism" with willingness to resort to cruel and evil actionsis overdrawn. Aristotle had made clear in his Politics that a different set of ethics applies

to leaders than to ordinary citizens; for example, the advice for Princes to appear to be

liberal (generous) while in reality taking care that public resources are not endangeredoccurs in "Mirrors for Princes" written before Machiavelli.Mballen(talk) 19:46, 13

January 2010 (UTC)173.56.200.209(talk)

One more thing, when I checked there are no wiki cross references for "political realism"

and "idealism" so it would be best to either define/and or contextualize these terms (withcitations) or leave them out.173.56.200.209(talk) 23:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)My error

-- there is a link to political realism in wiki173.56.200.209(talk) 04:03, 14 January 2010

(UTC) Actually, I see that Political Realism redirects toRealism in International relationsan article that calls Machiavelli, along with Sun Tzu and Tacitus an antecedent of Power

Politics because in the Prince he allegedly "held that the sole aim of a prince (politician)

[sic] was to seek power, regardless of religious or ethical considerations". Machiavelli

does write about how a prince can maintain power in a new state, but he does not reallyaddress international power relations. IMO he could more accurately be called one of the

founders of systematicpolitical science along withJean Bodin, the French theorist of

absolute monarchy who was roughly contemporaneous with Machiavelli, who is creditedwith inventing the term.173.56.200.209(talk) 05:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It is not a question of any good result -- it must be a good result for very large numbers of

people over a long period of time, and not for the short-term private good of the prince

and his associates. The best known example is Machiavelli's treatment of the myth of thefoundation of Rome during which Romulus murdered his brother Remus in order not to

have to share power (The Discourses I:ix); as Edwin Curley writes:

The question of Machiavelli's amoralism is often framed in terms of the questionwhether the end justifies the means. We might better ask, I think, whether there

are certain ends (such as the establishment or preservation of a politicalcommunity) so good that they justify the use of any means whatever. The most

instructive passage I find on this occurs in Machiavelli's discussion of Romulus's

murder of Remus, where his consequentialism falls somewhere in between the

extreme individualism of the egoist and the extreme universalism of theutilitarian:

A prudent founder of a republic, one whose intention is to govern for the common

good, and not in his own interest, not for his heirs, but for the sake of the

fatherland, should try to have the authority all to himself; nor will a wise mind

ever reproach anyone for some extraordinary action performed in order to found akingdom or institute a republic. It is, indeed, fitting that while the action accuses

him, the result excuses him; and when the result is good, as it was with Romulus,

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it will always excuse him; for one should reproach a man who is violent in order

to destroy, not one who is violent in order to mend things. (The Discourses I.ix in

Machiavelli 1979: 2001)

In this passage Machiavelli does concede that in some sense an act like that of

Romulus is reprehensible; the fact that it leads to a good result does not justify theaction, it excuses it. .... [And] It is not just any good result which will "excuse" an

action of this character. It takes a very significant result, affecting a large number

of people, not merely the agent and those who are close to him. As [Peter]Bondanella and [Mark] Musa point out, the result in this case was "the

establishment of the most durable and powerful republican government in human

history" (Machiavelli 1979: 22, editors' introduction). It may be that "patriotism,

as Machiavelli understood it, is collective selfishness,"35 but Machiavelli's"patriotic consequentialism," as I am inclined to call it, falls short of saying that

what-ever you can do, you may do. What it does hold is that a ruler is to be

praised, not blamed, even though he does things which might other-wise be highly

reprehensible, provided he acts with a prudent regard for the well-being of thecommunity he is ruling. Edwin Curley, "Kissinger, Spinoza, and Genghis Khan"

in the Cambridge Companion to Spinoza.Mballen(talk) 05:01, 14 January 2010(UTC)

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