Machiavelli
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Niccolo Machiavelli, one of the great political minds of the 15th century, accomplished what many mathematicians today only dream of, having ones name used as an adjective. To be Machiavellian is to demonstrate characteristics of expediency, deceit, and cunning and as Machiavelli wrote in, The Prince, these are the qualities of a great leader. The Prince was published in 1531, creating great controversy with other political thinkers of the time. Machiavelli completely ignored the popular religious teachings of the era and erased the moral and ethical considerations from the leadership equation; the actions of a ruler should be governed solely by necessity. “Since I intend to write something useful to an understanding reader, it seemed better to go after the real truth of the matter then to repeat what people have imagined” (221). The predominate theme of The Prince is that it is the responsibility of any leader to secure and maintain the political power of their state by any means necessary. One can consider many leaders in history who took this to heart, some into success and some into infamy.
Using the cold light of pure reasoning, Machiavelli analyzed human behavior and concluded that man is not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a leader who wishes to remain in power to learn how to not be good and to use this behavior and knowledge and bring it to bear on the decision he is making. “Hence a Prince who wants to keep his post must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires” (222). Machiavelli not only wanted people to let go of the idealistic fact that man is not pure at heart, but to take it a step further and embrace this assumption. Those who do embrace this assumption as a fundamental Ðgiven will be the ones with the power to manipulate and control the masses. “Men are so simple of mind and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived” (228). Decades of thought about religion and politics are intertwined in this thought. The common man willing to give up their free will to that of a higher power and many a deceitful theologian willing to exploit that ignorant passivity for their own purposes.
Why does Machiavelli has such a low view of man? Was he just cynical or did he have his own experiences to draw on? While his logic behind human behavior is quite sound, most great thinkers focus on the good points of man and form Pollyanna-ish ideal views. Machiavelli does not directly condemn those who study and espouse the ideal; he condemns them for failing to study the real as well and claims that this oversight will lead to their ruin. In other words, hope for the best and plan for the worst, a quite depressingly, realistic world view.
One of the most colorful analogies that Machiavelli makes is when he describes the teacher of Achilles. A brilliant example of mans inherent paradox, Chiron, the centaur, was significant to Machiavelli because he was half man and half beast making the argument that one without the other has no lasting effect. “As the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves, you have to be a fox in order to be wary of traps, and a lion to overawe the wolves. Those who try to live by the lion alone are badly mistaken” (228). According to Machiavelli the lion represents the beast, proud and powerful but vulnerable. The fox represents the aspect of man Machiavelli values most, the ability to deceive. This is yet another example of Machiavelli looking down on man, he takes what in his opinion is mans greatest ability and compares it to an animal that does it better.
A great leader has both the strength and charisma of the lion and the cunning of the fox; these are the qualities of a great leader according to Machiavelli. The way Machiavelli describes the ideal prince as compared to the men he rules, he makes the prince sound more than human. Machiavellis ideal prince not only does not have any of mans inherent weaknesses but instead his superior intellect and cunning gives him the power to exploit and rule man because the people are weak-minded and greedy. This view of the prince is ironic because in the first passage of The Prince says that his aim is to describe the real and not the ideal, something he condemns. Machiavellis ideal leader is also ironic in the sense that it could be seen as greedy to desire to maintain your power at any cost and greed is a quality that the prince should exploit not posses. Machiavelli also says a great leader need not have any of these qualities provided he can deceive his people into believing he does.
Machiavelli uses irony to support his logic on how a prince should, and most of all should not, spend his money. “There is nothing that wears out faster than generosity; even as you practice it, you lose the means of practicing it, and you become