Niccolò Machiavelli
I remember reading The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli in high school. I don’t remember a whole lot from my original reading of it. I do remember thinking it was just words. I think I understood each line at a time, but I was definitely not grasping it as a whole. It was way over my head for sure. The one passage I have remembered through my life, about if it is better to be feared or loved, did leave me with the impression that Machiavelli was quite cynical. And for that, I did not respect him or his book.
What I did not realize at the time was Machiavelli’s own personal history. He was a senior official in the Florentine Republic for well over a decade through 1512 while his political rivals, the Medici, were out of power. He wrote The Prince in 1513 while in exile from city affairs. He was intimately familiar with both diplomacy and military affairs, but also wrote comedies, songs, and poetry. Based on this information I can think a few possibilities for Machiavelli’s intent and purpose in writing The Prince:
- A sincere treatise on the proper use of political and military power given as advice to a Medici prince. This was my original understanding, and I think the traditional understanding, of the work. Knowing that Machiavelli was a republican and political rival I have begun to find this doubtful. The Florentine Republic was just conquered and he was exiled; I cannot now imagine he was in a very advice-giving mood to his conqueror.
- A work of deceit, in that it was actually bad advice he was hoping the Medici prince would take. Perhaps generally good advice with little pieces of bad advice slipped in. For example, he encourages the prince to live in a city he conquers. Perhaps not the best idea to live among enemies that would love to kill you. (The Medici’s policy was to live OUTSIDE the city.) If this was the intent it utterly failed since the targeted prince purportedly never read the work.
- A satire to show the ridiculousness and absurdity of aristocratic power, revealing to the common people what the ruling class really thinks of them. Revealing the twisted and self-contradictory machinations of reasoning rulers use to justify their immoral reigns. I believe these ideas first came from the 18th century philosophers of The Enlightenment. Knowing that Machiavelli wrote comedies and carnival songs makes this theory plausible to me. Although satirical works have existed since at least the Athenians, satires were not extremely common. So if Machiavelli’s audience was the “common person” it is not clear if they would have understood the subtext. But just because the populous of Renaissance Florence or the high school student of the 20th century doesn’t get it doesn’t mean it wasn’t written to be satirical.
- Perhaps less a satire though and more of an exposé. Something of an exposé is what feels about right for me.
Now that I am less naive than my teenage self, I realize Machiavelli was perhaps just a realist. Whatever Machiavelli’s intent of The Prince, without a doubt, he had a firm grasp of the nature of Fallen Man. As Machiavelli points out, understanding our fallen nature, in both ourselves and in others is important:
“Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.”
Of course I do not agree with him entirely. I do think we ought to try to be good all the time. But it is a fair point that we shouldn’t be totally naive of evil. And besides, Machiavelli, always the realist, affirms that how we ought to live and how we actually live are two different things:
“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.”
Part of our fallen nature is to know good and evil, as stated in Genesis 2:22:
“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good AND evil:” (emphasis added)
I do not think we should learn evil with the intent of pursuing it. But, we should know evil exists and how it works so we are not caught unaware.
So, I think it is worth studying Machiavelli. His insight into human nature is as applicable today as ever. I will share some of my favorite quotes and perhaps a few of my own thoughts. To be clear, I do not endorse these as truth. I think they give a valuable perspective and have nuggets of truth. I have tried to categorize them as well.
Leadership
Let’s start with to be feared or loved. Since this is the one passage I retained some memory of since high school I will actually comment a bit more on this than the others. He says,
“Nevertheless, he must be cautious in believing and acting, and must not inspire fear of his own accord, and must proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence does not render him incautious, and too much diffidence does not render him intolerant. From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting.”
I still maintain this is quite cynical, but I have to admit he may be right. It feels like a false choice between three options. Aren’t there other motivations, such as respect, duty, patriotism, anger, etc? Perhaps those are just nuances of fear and love though. And although Machiavelli does seem to suggest love is as good, perhaps nobler even, than fear, he still maintains it is a bad idea to seek to be loved,
“Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I conclude that since men love at their own will and fear at the will of the prince, a wise prince must build a foundation on what is his own, and not on what belongs to others.”
So, how does this apply today? There are insights both leaders and followers can glean from this. And since we are all both leaders and followers in different parts of our lives we can learn both lessons.
First, as a leader, it is important to know what you can control and not control. You cannot control how people feel about you. At some point you will annoy, offend, just rub somebody the wrong way. Although you should never be rude on purpose, it is inevitable you will be, or at least perceived to be, at some point. Moreover, you should have no expectation of being loved by those you lead. But, you should have an expectation of being respected. Just as those you lead should have an expectation of being respected as well.
For the times we are followers, I think it is an important question to ask ourselves, “WHY?” Especially in your devotion to God. Are we afraid of consequences, of social pressures, of going to hell? Or do we follow God because we love him? Because we have a relationship with him? I think we can learn a lot about ourselves from honestly asking ourselves what our true motivations are. What do we do out of fear, and what do we do out love? I gave a talk in church once that explored a little into our motivations. The talk is on this site and is entitled “Obedience“.
Related to following…
“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.”
I firmly believe that all democratically elected leaders should heed this advice…
“He who becomes a Prince through the favor of the people should always keep on good terms with them; which it is easy for him to do, since all they ask is not to be oppressed.”
Intelligence
“Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.”
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“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
I believe this is as important to apply to ourselves as it applies to our judging of others. Do those around us uplift us, influence us to do and be good, stimulate our intellect? If not, perhaps we will be correctly judged by others to be a fool as well.
Receiving Advice
“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.”
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“When everyone feels free to tell you the truth, respect for you dwindles… A wise prince should take another course: choose wise men for your advisors, and allow only them the liberty of speaking the truth to the prince, and only on matters about which you ask, and nothing else. But you should question them about everything, listen patiently to their opinions, then form your own conclusions later.”
First, do not be offended by the truth, even if it means we need to change. Second, there probably are better and worse ways to seek counsel from others. For certain, we shouldn’t be overly swayed by every bit of advice given to us, tossed about by every whim. We should honestly assess advice and criticisms and make necessary changes though.
The Fallen Man and Vulgar Crowd
“The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.”
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“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.”
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“Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.”
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“Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.”
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“It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.”
I have always felt it is important to see the good in others. I believe the vast majority of people are not perniciously evil or corrupt. I think people are egoistic though and left unchecked people can act quite selfishly. And we all do like simple answers, especially ones that neatly fit our current world view. But when you interact with individuals, there is usually civility. It is hard to disagree that large groups of people often become vulgar mobs, just as Machiavelli purports. It is good to be aware of that potentiality.
Aspirational Man
“Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.”
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“Never was anything great achieved without danger”
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“God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us.”
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“The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.”
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“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
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“Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.”
Okay, so some of these are a little negative. I lumped them together because they all feel a bit like reading Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, or proverbs, or maybe even a fortune cookie. I still find them interesting though.
Governance
“A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.”
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“The chief foundations of all states… are good laws and good arms. And as there cannot be good laws where there are not good arms… where there are good arms there must be good laws…”
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“As the observance of divine institutions is the cause of the greatness of republics, so the disregard of them produces their ruin; for where the fear of God is wanting, there the country will come to ruin, unless it be sustained by the fear of the prince”
I especially like his assertion that one good person can make a difference. Either by inspiring others to follow their example, or simply by shaming those who by comparison realize their own faults. Without good men and women, it is easy for others, especially those with power, to assume everyone else acts as selfishly as they do. Perhaps in most cases they do. But we need more good voices to rise up and be heard.
In conclusion, do I always agree with Machiavelli? No. I DO think he is a genius though. As a primer on how to be a successful prince in 16th century Europe, if that is what The Prince actually was, it may be hard to disagree with very much. His observations on humanity are incredibly insightful and we can still learn from them today. And although I do not think you should follow his advice, I believe others very often do behave as he suggests, purposefully or not. Sometimes even our own behavior is “Machiavellian”, unwittingly of course! And it is good to know that.