What “Machiavellian” really means - Pazit Cahlon and Alex Gendler
From Shakespeare’s plays
to modern TV dramas,
the unscrupulous schemer for whom
the ends always justify the means
has become a familiar character type
we love to hate.
So familiar, in fact, that for centuries
we’ve had a single word to describe
such characters: Machiavellian.
But is it possible that we’ve been using
that word wrong this whole time?
The early 16th century statesman Niccoló
Machiavelli
wrote many works of history, philosophy,
and drama.
But his lasting notoriety comes from a
brief political essay known as The Prince,
framed as advice to current
and future monarchs.
Machiavelli wasn’t the first to do this–
in fact there was an entire tradition of
works known as “mirrors for princes”
going back to antiquity.
But unlike his predecessors,
Machiavelli didn’t try to describe an
ideal government
or exhort his audience to rule
justly and virtuously.
Instead, he focused on the
question of power–
how to acquire it, and how to keep it.
And in the decades after it was published,
The Prince gained a diabolical reputation.
During the European Wars of Religion,
both Catholics and Protestants
blamed Machiavelli
for inspiring acts of violence and tyranny
committed by their opponents.
By the end of the century,
Shakespeare was using “Machiavel” to
denote an amoral opportunist,
leading directly to our popular use of
“Machiavellian”
as a synonym for manipulative villainy.
At first glance,
The Prince’s reputation as a manual for
tyranny seems well-deserved.
Throughout, Machiavelli appears entirely
unconcerned with morality,
except insofar as it’s helpful or harmful
to maintaining power.
For instance, princes are told to
consider all the atrocities necessary
to seize power,
and to commit them in a single stroke
to ensure future stability.
Attacking neighboring territories and
oppressing religious minorities
are mentioned as effective ways of
occupying the public.
Regarding a prince’s personal behavior,
Machiavelli advises keeping up the
appearance of virtues
such as honesty or generosity,
but being ready to abandon them as soon
as one’s interests are threatened.
Most famously, he notes that for a ruler,
“it is much safer to be feared
than loved.”
The tract even ends with an appeal to
Lorenzo de’ Medici,
the recently installed ruler of Florence,
urging him to unite the fragmented
city-states of Italy under his rule.
Many have justified Machiavelli as
motivated by unsentimental realism
and a desire for peace in an Italy torn by
internal and external conflict.
According to this view,
Machiavelli was the first to understand
a difficult truth:
the greater good of political stability
is worth whatever unsavory tactics
are needed to attain it.
The philosopher Isaiah Berlin suggested
that rather than being amoral,
The Prince hearkens back to
ancient Greek morality,
placing the glory of the state above the
Christian ideal of individual salvation.
But what we know about Machiavelli might
not fit this picture.
The author had served in his native
Florence for 14 years as a diplomat,
staunchly defending its elected
republican government
against would-be monarchs.
When the Medici family seized power,
he not only lost his position,
but was even tortured and banished.
With this in mind,
it’s possible to read the pamphlet
he wrote from exile
not as a defense of princely rule,
but a scathing description
of how it operates.
Indeed, Enlightenment figures like Spinoza
saw it as warning free citizens
of the various ways in which they can be
subjugated by aspiring rulers.
In fact, both readings might be true.
Machiavelli may have written a manual for
tyrannical rulers,
but by sharing it, he also revealed
the cards to those who would be ruled.
In doing so,
he revolutionized political philosophy,
laying the foundations for Hobbes and
future thinkers
to study human affairs based on their
concrete realities
rather than preconceived ideals.
Through his brutal and shocking honesty,
Machiavelli sought to shatter popular
delusions about what power really entails.
And as he wrote to a friend
shortly before his death,
he hoped that people would “learn the way
to Hell in order to flee from it."
