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Originally Posted by rantaid
i agree. however by that i get the message that you advise to just read and imagine the rest. we can interprete it as however we can. but is not this just being complacent and deceiving yourself?
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You can think of it this way: Sun Tzu can be read as an introductory background into the world of, oh, Warring States China, upon which you read the
Dao De Jing, and then some work from Confucius' students, and so on and so forth. You have to start somewhere after all. Or some curious reader could start from the
Dao and go to Sun Tzu later, however they want to do it.
So bravely read on and pretend you actually know what you're reading. Generally you probably "get" a lot more things than you thought you did, and at some point the puzzle fits, you stop and realize, oh, I'm an expert.
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about the prince... is it written when the italy is still a federal state which occassionally warring against each other? my information about machiavellian is kind of lacking.
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It was written when "Italy" existed in three forms: geographically, the peninsula; culturally, the people of that peninsula with all the flavors and dialects therein; and as a title, the northern part of the peninsula, above the Roman Papal States, being a sub-kingdom of the Holy Roman Empire and the German emperors consider the title "King of Italy" one of theirs. This did not mean they had actual power over any of the Italian states beyond what they can enforce with the might of their armies.
The nation-state did not exist. Machiavelli -- transitional figure that he is -- was actually one of the first thinkers of the post-Medieval era to speak openly of the need to establish a free Italy against the "foreigners," and in
The Prince he claimed that he desired a savior for Italy, an ideal figure capable of great
virtù (this should not be interpreted as morally good, rather, it meant talent, fortune, boldness -- and results) who could unite the disparate Italian states and successfully maneuver against the many powerful invaders the peninsula faced.
That, at least, is what he wrote explicitly. His true intentions are one of the great debates about this work.
Anyway, Italy during Machiavelli's time was indeed a divided peninsula dominated by minor city-states, republics, noble polities, dukedoms, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of Naples/Sicily to the South. It was also dominated by the
condottieri, mercenary captains who had a strong hold on organized warfare in the peninsula, and whose captains had asserted their monopoly on force to establish various personal fiefdoms. The greatest of these
condottieri before Machiavelli's time was Francesco Sforza, who served the Visconti dukes of Milan and, when they were overthrown, he maneuvered successfully against a young republic there and claimed the dukedom as his own. Sforza was, again, just one of many, though the most successful.
Florence, the greatest city in Tuscany and the center of the Renaissance, was Machiavelli's hometown, and he loyally served the Republic there as a capable diplomat operating primarily in France. His long service coincided with the time when the city leaders threw out the Medici who dominated the city for much of the 1400's, and he bore witness to the return of the Medici with the aid of Papal arms and who, quite reasonably, distrusted him as a loyal partisan of the Republican cause. He wrote
The Prince to try to regain their favor, with limited success.
More importantly, Italy in his time also witnessed the greatest series of foreign incursions since the time of the Hohenstaufen emperors in the Middle Ages. To the North, France invaded in force and Florence became allied to her out of politics and survival (at least for much of the time -- Italian politics shifted ridiculously fast). France's invasion provoked intervention from the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, who brought his own Germans down the peninsula. The Swiss served both sides -- and others -- as capable mercenaries. To the south, the recently united Spanish (they remained legally separate as a personal union of kingdoms, but Machiavelli called Ferdinand -- the King of Aragon, husband of Isabella, Queen of Castile and sponsor of Columbus -- the Spanish king) used the turmoil in Naples to establish control over the kingdom. It is conceivable that an Italian statesman would view this time as one of great crisis and foreign invasion.
So what does all this background teach about the work of
The Prince? Well, you didn't need to know all this to get the universal renown, or infamy, of Machiavelli's advice -- appear good, but do whatever it takes, and value force over love and empty legitimacy. What one can learn from this background, however, are several things:
One, the Italian states were experiencing upheaval. "Legitimate" rulers in the Medieval European sense -- nobles with bloodline claims -- were being thrown out of their petty thrones by local men of force and by foreign invaders with mighty armies. It's not surprising Machiavelli would be scornful of the traditional Medieval legitimacy when they did nothing to prevent defeat and often destruction. And the people's love? Worthless. No matter how much the populace of a city loved their kind and pious ruler, when the French were at the gates, they knew what really counted.
Two, "legitimacy," respect for leadership, can be forged by sheer talent and a generation or two of stable leadership, as happened with the Sforza of Milan and, eventually (ironically), the Medici. His book's hero, Cesare Borgia, was the son of an infamously corrupt pope and the Borgia's -- plenty of delicious drama to their name -- came from Spain, were probably merchants, and their opponents even claimed they had Jewish ancentry (a point of infamy in those dark times). No one will ever consider Cesare Borgia legitimate for anything except what he could conquer and hold by force, intrigue, and charm. Had he survived the vengeance of the Borgia's many enemies when his Papal father died, he might have established a similar dynastic regime in the Romagna as the Sforza did in Milan and the Medici in Florence.
[As a side note, the later Machiavelli work would argue that this is why a Republic is superior -- the people
are the rulers, so legitimacy is inherent.]
In one sense Machiavelli was writing of universals, given how his work resonates to this day with equal fame and infamy. In another sense, despite some of our members' straightforward claims that the nobles of the time already knew in their hearts what he wrote (they probably did, to some levels), he was writing against the prevailing Medieval "wisdom" that a "pious" and "virtuous" ruler would lead successfully. He saw these platitudes for the empty moralist Church-spawn BS that they were, and he saw an Italy both full of potential and full of devastating internecine warfare. If it wasn't all satire after all, he might as well meant it when he asked for a great leader to arise out of the Italian states and put things in order.