The only thing that proves is they both were bad at literary analysis.
(Sorry all, I know I’m over-posting to this thread)
But moreover, a heck of a lot of Europeans read it for five centuries, and managed to be brutal tyrants before and after Machiavelli.
I was about to make a very long and meandering counter-counter-argument post (well, two really - one for the discussion on the book’s core principles, another for that side discussion on that one Cesare bit specifically) but on re-reading what you wrote, I don’t think I’ll bother
More on this later, first off I needed to clarify something very hard:
It wasn’t meant as an insult (even though, on re-reading, yeah, sounds a lot harsher than I reckoned as I typed it), and it wasn’t meant literally either.
I don’t doubt you’ve read the whole book (it’s not like it’s War & Peace :)). What I meant was that, if it’s probably true I make too much of the mucky parts because the contrast is more amusing that way, I do think you’re focusing altogether too much on the glowing ones, what Machiavelli says an ideal Prince should do (or maybe what you think an ideal Prince *would *do ?), and glossing over how he actually enjoins his assumed-to-wannabe Prince reader to act, be it in text or subtext. Reading half the book, see ?
Maybe I should have said something like “remember only half the book”. Maybe I should have just shut the fuck up.
Moving on.
I’m not. I was illustrating succinct, simplified points with specific quotes directly from the source text. What do you want I should have done ? Quothed entire chapters and dissected them line by line, semantic field by semantic field, word by word, double spaced to allow annotations from the examiner ? Because I can do that you know. I’m mental, me, I don’t care, I’ll fucking do it ! Someone stop me, I swear I’ll fuckin’ do it !
All right, so I’ll grant you that the one regarding the protection of private property was way iffy* - the language isn’t all that clear and of the three different translations I looked it up in, all three seemed to be saying entirely different things with it - guess I’ll try to root out a French translation or two for myself to muck my understanding of it up some more. But anyway, since you implicitly conceded me the one about respecting laws, we’re even.
The other two I’d have been inclined to further detail and defend, in a serious tone even, had something not struck me in that last paragraph of yours. Specifically:
This right here. That “if you won’t read it honestly” bit. Rubs me the wrong way.
Correct me if I’m misunderstanding you, but ISTM you’re insisting that I should not keep stuff like the actual historical context of the book in mind (as in that stuff about Cesare), nor give a moment’s thought to the idea that maybe the text wasn’t meant to be taken strictly at face value, nor follow Mack’s precepts to their nearest consequence/inference. You’re asking me to remain a strict Princical literalist, so to speak.
Seeing as all I’d really like you to do is read it again, only this time considering it as satire (because once you see it that way, it’s real difficult to unsee it) or at least paying more attention to how things are said rather than what things are ostensibly said, as well as what things are pointedly not said ; we’re bound to remain at loggerheads for ever no matter how well-constructed, thorough or byzantine the back-and-forth of our conversations might otherwise turn out to be.
You’ll always be frustrated by the notion that I’m not reading this stuff the way you do and vice versa.
I have no interest whatsoever in discussing the actual statesmanship of Machiavelli’s “pragmatic” Prince with you (or anyone, really).
You seem to have no interest whatsoever in seeing the genuinely funny bits in this piece of literature for what they are (to me at least, if no one else).
So what I’m trying to say is, when you get right down to it, inna final analysis, wots the point, mate ? We just don’t want to have the same bit of fun.
But that leads me to wonder: what *do *you expect from this thread, then, if providing one’s own interpretation of the work ; or challenging your own interpretation of the work ; cannot but lead to this brick wall ? Do you just want people to agree with you at length on how realpolitik-y and insightful Machiavelli was ? How cool it would be if we had Princes like that, they don’t make them like they used to ? What ? I’m honestly curious here.
Well fuck me. Guess I did make a very long and meandering post after all. I need more drinks.
- That being succinctly said, you’ve got to admit Machiavelli would have to have some schutzpah if, with a straight face, on one hand he was praising Cesare on how good he was at seizing land away from its current (and unless otherwise proven, rightful) owners and thus being an exemplary proto-Prince, and on the other hand saying a good Prince should respect private ownership to the utmost on the other.
Then again, Machiavelli contradicting himself from one part of the book to the other would be fodder for yet another lengthy dissertation and…
Then let me turn one of your questions around. If you won’t even engage in an actual debate, why did you bother?
He didn’t write it as satire. Whole sections of it are dry historial accounts to support his position. This isn’t a matter of “reading it another way,” this is flat reading into it something else. Also, nobody at the time or apparently for long afterward ever claimed it was. What they did claim was that it was an attempt to appeal to the Medicis, a quite different claim. Machiavelli put years into developing it. He might not have much liked the Medici, but he also had no specific problem working for them.
It’s not the way you read it which bothers me. It’s the fact that you seem have deliberately distorted everything. No author could survive that method. For the most part, he offered practical advice on how to avoid becoming another one of history’s briefly successful tyrants, as well as some historical arguments on whom to emulate and why.
I had hoped to have a serious discussion about how government should act, rather than trying to rescue his good name.
Well, you should have mentioned that in the OP, which is about something entirely different.
I rather expected it would flow naturally.
That doesn’t prove it’s not satire. That just makes it a mirror for princes. Here’s Garrett Mattingly’s argument as to why he thinks it’s satire.
http://www.idehist.uu.se/distans/ilmh/Ren/flor-mach-mattingly.htm
The thing is, if it isn’t satire, why is it, 1. In contradiction to pretty much everything else we know about his political views and 2. So distinct in content from previous princely mirrors?
I did want to engage in a debate. Or a discussion, at any rate. Just not the one you turned out to be interested in, that’s all.
It’s like when you go to the movies with a bunch of friends, and you want to talk about the plot and that scene when that thing happened and then the girl said… ; and instead some asshole can’t shut up about meaningful play on colours this and bold deconstruction of camera angles that.
That’s what we’re having. I’m that asshole right now.
I know. That’s what my very first contribution to this thread consisted in. Saying that it wasn’t really satire. *Do try and keep up, it was only 15 posts ago. In that last post, I was using the word for convenience, and for lack of a better one (still haven’t found it since said first contribution. Consistency !).
I am quite convinced he wrote it to suck up to the new breed of Medicis indeed. I am also quite convinced he wrote what he thought they’d like to hear.
I also reckon he didn’t buy much of it himself, that he still tried to prop it all up as best he could and that *this *shines through. Either because he deliberately intended to subtly stick it to the Man, or because he just couldn’t help his true colours from showing, or because what he’d really wanted to write was *The Gonfaloniere (*which he’d end up writing anyway) but beggars can’t be choosers. Possibly didn’t even realize it himself, who knows ? Or maybe it only reads that way to me. shrug. Obviously you’re not seeing it. But I find this possibly apocryphal notion endlessly entertaining.
Certainly more so than the one that he could have written it in earnest cover to cover because in that case he’d have had to have been rather dim, not to mention in complete contradiction with himself before and after writing it.
Anyway, digressing. My point is: the book is not all “hearty chuckle haha very droll” funny like actual, purposeful satire is ; but rather “slowly creeping smile I get it now heh” funny at times. So that’s the word I’m looking for: “an oeuvre working at cross purpose with itself in a multitude of small ways which ends up being unintentionally funny as a result”. It’s quite the specific kind of oeuvre, maybe I’ll have to coin that word myself.
Would it maybe help to know that Machiavelli always was much more in favour of Republics as government systems ? That he dumped quite extensively on autocrats and their ways in the *Discourses *? FWIW, (Wiki magic !) apparently Rousseau thought along the same lines I do. So I may be an idiot. I probably am, at that. But in my idiocy, I found good company.
At least I *think *it’s good company. Never read him. Complete tosser for all I know.
Again, it’s not so much the advice itself (which even excluding ethical considerations is pretty darn vague all things considered), it’s more in the way it’s delivered, the choices of words and phrasings, the little jabs, the ambiguities, the historical context… Let’s try this for size: to me, *The Prince *kinda reads like a Bible study would if it had been written by Richard Dawkins because he desperately needed the money. And only the Pope had any. Does that speak to you ?
I mean come on: “He deceives himself who believes that with the great, recent benefits cause old wrongs to be forgotten” ? Would you write *that *to the guy(s) who’d had innocent little you tortured and exiled ? In a book meant to open you the doors to their inner circle ? You can’t make this shit up.
Well all right then. Then as I said, we’re *really *not into the same kind of fun. Which is perfectly fine.
He has one ?! :).
Don’t think I’ve dragged him down in the mud though. Dude was OK by me. Shame he became so popular over the wrong book for the wrong reasons I guess, but you don’t get to choose.
I’d sum up The Prince as “Yes, you should be a good, moral leader. But being a good, moral leader isn’t salve for your conscience as you look out over a city filled with an invading horde sweeping through your demoralised, beaten populace. Temper goodness with wisdom.”
Which is all well and good, but the problem with it is that it’s vague. Anyone can agree or disagree with it - unless you’re a total extremist for one viewpoint, but total extremists are thankfully rare - because anyone can draw the line at whatever point they find reasonable (or unreasonable). There’s examples, sure, but it’s far enough removed in time that likely someone may fit whatever modern examples into the text.
And of course the other problem is that a person who follows it looks, from the outside, exactly the same as a very cunning bastard. That’s the point of quite a lot of it.