
A No-Nonsense Machiavelli - pepys
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/12/18/no-nonsense-machiavelli-the-prince/
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rrggrr
We often forget The Prince was a job application, from an exiled and
impoverished Machiavelli to the court of Medici. Parks seems to forget this
inconvenient fact. Parks also forgets to mention that it was Machiavelli's
Discourses on Livy, a book that disagrees with The Prince with numerological
precision, that screams Machiavelli's love of a Republic over a monarchical or
despotic rule, and that defines virtue in idealized, classical terms most
embrace today.

As Parks implicitly states, the difference between a man's message and his
mission depends a great deal on who is reporting it. It is this difference,
between The Prince and The Discourses, between marketing and motive, where
Park may learn Trump, like Machiavelli, is no fan of Princes but is instead
very much a man of the Signora and the Guild to the great benefit of a
Republic. Park's piece is straight from the Medici playbook.

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jldugger
> We often forget The Prince was a job application, from an exiled and
> impoverished Machiavelli to the court of Medici.

To some degree it is a mirror, but rather than an application I think it was
more of a middle finger. It's a fairly clearly satirical work, that calls the
Medici court hypocrites, brutes, and the little advice it offers includes
arming the populace.

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jacobolus
It’s often veiled/subtle about its explicit vs. implicit messages, with layers
of indirection and lots of wry humor, though the surface meaning of the text
is straightforward. Which is why it’s great for the careers of modern
political philosophers who can spend years combing through it for clues.

Oh hey, linked at the bottom of the OP:
[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/11/04/a-special-
supplem...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1971/11/04/a-special-supplement-
the-question-of-machiavelli/)

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scribu
It's fascinating how easy it is to misinterpret an author, particularly when
the work was published a long time ago.

I'm currently reading a modern take on the subject of power - "The Dictator's
Handbook" by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. It has the same no-
nonsense approach as "The Prince".

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h4nkoslo
This is by far the best explanation I've read of where Machiavelli is
metaphysically coming from:
[http://www.exurbe.com/?p=1429](http://www.exurbe.com/?p=1429) . He was a true
patriot for his people.

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noir-york
Thank you for posting this! Looks like I will need to acquire this
translation.

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jack_pp
note to future readers, don't try to click anywhere inside the site or you
will be greatly frustrated

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galfarragem
Two short but life changing books:

"The Prince" \-- Machiavelli

"The little Prince" \-- Saint Exupery

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paganel
His "Discourses on Livy" is also a pretty solid book.

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CalChris
Even if Livy isn't. Livy conflates myth with sort of remembered history. So it
starts with Aeneas includes Romulus+Remus, Horatius Cocles, ... on through the
rape of the Sabine women. Like the Aeneid, it is pretty much Roman state
propaganda.

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hodgesrm
Ahem, permit me to defend poor Livy. The early history of Rome was basically
fairy tales, which includes the first 10 books of Livy. Livy's account was not
great but it was certainly immensely popular through the Renaissance and far
beyond.

The later books are far better. The account of the 2nd Punic war is as good as
any history I have every read. The descriptions of the main characters are
like great paintings; the story of the invasion and near destruction of the
Romans is riveting. I also love the language--there are turns of phrase that
are hard to capture in English translations like Hannibal's "more than Punic
perfidy" (perfidia plus quam punica) that must have delighted and inspired his
Roman readers. Livy did not just write history of the war; he described a
clash of civilizations.

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CalChris
Yes, popular. However, one of the lessons I remember from Classics classes at
Berkeley was that (outside of Tacitus) you should take anything the Romans say
about their opponents with large doses of salt. Victors write the histories
and the Romans sure wouldn't take the trouble to tell the other side of the
story, especially about the Carthaginians. Cato comes to mind.

Tacitus is the singular exception. He's exalted by Germans for _Germania_ and
_Agricola_ has the immortal line,

    
    
      To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles,
      they call empire; and where they make a desert,
      they call it peace.
    

I kind of rank Livy with Herodotus who'd never let facts or especially lack of
facts get in the way of a good story. Tacitus I rank with Thucydides.

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hodgesrm
I don't disagree with your view of Livy, especially the early parts (books
1-10). The 2nd Punic War is more factual but still like the fables of the
earlier volumes in the sense it's first and foremost a ripping good story. I
first read Livy's account of Hannibal burning and pillaging down the Val di
Chiana in Italy while sitting on a hill overlooking his march. It was part of
his successful plan to enrage the Roman Consul Flaminius and entice him into
an ambush at Lake Trasimene. You could look out over the flat valley and
imagine the smoke rising up where the Romans could see it easily. Reading
history does not get much better than that.

Incidentally I believe that in Germania Tacitus was holding up a mirror to
Rome so the bias goes the other way The praise of the German tribes was a hit
on his own citizens. For example, the memorable inference in Section 2 that
nobody would leave Italy for the awful weather, formless land, and sorry
agriculture of Germany unless they were natives was implicitly a criticism of
the effete Romans.

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automatwon
_One sentence in particular from his opening dedication to ... reads as both
guidance and encouragement for all future translators:

"I haven’t aimed for a fancy style or padded the book out with long sentences
or pompous, pretentious words, or any of the irrelevant flourishes and
attractions so many writers use; I didn’t want it to please for anything but
the range and seriousness of its subject matter."_

For me, this article was the opposite.

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known
Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism
(egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy),
Sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others);

They're diseases, not competencies;

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jacobolus
The word “Machiavellian” is only loosely related to Machiavelli the real
person (as discussed e.g. in the linked post).

Machiavelli the scholar is a clever and perceptive observer/analyst of human
nature and political affairs. Anyone interested in any kind of human politics,
institutions, or society should read both _The Prince_ and _The Discourses on
Livy_ , which are both fantastically insightful.

