Machiavelli, villain or hero? -Part 1

My brother, Dr. Ting-Kai Chen had conducted extensive research on Machiavelli and his book, The Prince. He had made a presentation to the Taiwan Pen Club in New York. He is kind enough to send me his presentation DVD. I watched the DVD, summarize the factual contents and make my own comments at the end of the story.

Machiavellian, according to the dictionary, is being or acting in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.  Yet, the writer of The Prince, was a historian, a writer, an independent thinker, and was considered to be the father of the political science.  When he died in 1527, he was buried with honor at the Santa Croce Chapel (Florence) along side with Brunelleschi (the architect who built the dome), Michelangelo (the artist who sculpted David), Botticelli (the artist who painted the birth of Venus), Galileo (the astronomer who said the earth moved around the sun, not the other way around), and Dante (who wrote The Divine Comedy).

Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469.  In 1478 when Machiavelli was 9 years old, he witnessed the political violence, or the so-called Pazzi Conspiracy in which one of the de Medici brothers was killed while the other escaped the assassination attempt.  He served as Sodeeini's Secretary (equivalent to today's Secretary of State) from 1498 to 1512.  When de Medici regained power in 1512, he was tortured by de Medici.  After Machiavelli survived the torture, he wrote the (either famous or notorious) book, "The Prince" in 1513.

The book, The  Prince , was dedicated to the magnificent Lorenzo de Medici,  to whom Machiavelli considered as a hero even he was tortured by Lorenzo de Medici in 1512.

The Pazzi Conspiracy was an assassination attempt on the de Medici family by the Pazzi family (political rival) who had allied with the Pope in 1478; the time when Machiavelli was only 9 years old.  During the attack, Giordano de Medici sought asylum in a church unaware of the alliance between the church and the Pazzi. He was found and was executed at the church.  Lorento de Medici, on the other hand, used a different tactics to escape the assassination.  He took off his official robe, and disguised as an ordinary peasant, disappeared in a crowd.  After he survived the assassination and returned to take revenge on the Pazzi family, the cruelty the Lorento took on his former enemy was far beyond anyone could have imagined.  Lorento took no prisoner on his former enemy, not even small children or baby.  Machiavelli took notes on this cruelty as part of the traits of 'The Prince'. " Men ought to be indulged or utterly destroyed for if you merely offend them,  they take vengeance. But if you injured them greatly, they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance not to be feared." said Machivalli in his book, The Prince.   In other words, cruelty was sanctioned by Machiavelli as the golden principle of the government.  Machiavelli adored Lorento de Medici, for Lorento was cunning as a fox, and fiercely forceful and  as a lion.  According to  The Prince, these are the traits a political leader must have.  'A political leader, if he cannot be loved and feared at the same time, the leader must be feared.'  However, being feared is different from being hated.  A leader must not steal property from populace, must not do violence against women.  There is no need for generosity as the leader.  'It is too costly of being generous; besides, at the end, the leader must raise taxes to meet his financial need; to which people would hate.'  There is no need for a political leader to keep promise, but he must appear to be honest.  'The Prince is never lack of legislative reasons to break his words.'  The 'end' justifies the 'means'.   Political expediency that includes deceitful tactics will always work because the populace that you govern are forgetful and complacent; they would end up support you if you satisfy their immediate needs.  In this discourse, Machiavelli differed from Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Cicero (106-43).  In Aristotle's view, politics is something 'ought to be', while in Machiavelli's view, politics is 'what is'.  In Cicero's view, 'public and private moral (ethics) are the same', while in Machiavelli's view, politics has no relation to moral (ethics).  --To be continued.