Machiavelli, Villian or hero? Part II

When I was at Princeton University in 1971, I had lunch conversation with a political major student. She said that 'politics' as well as 'political major' bear the baggage of 'bad reputation'. The more the history 'verifies' the prediction of The Prince , the worse the reputation for 'politics' and 'political science'. Politics in history has been considered as heartless, ruthless, cunning and dirty; no individual with dignity would like to be involved in politics.

The fact that Machiavelli was regarded as the father of the political science does not help improve images of politics and political science.

Does politics and political science has to be the way Machiavelli described, ruthless, cruelty, etc.?

How much trust we shall give historians or scholars who had elevated Machiavelli to the status of 'Father of the Political Science'. ? Can't we be so sure that historians and scholars are non-biased?

Growing up in Taiwan, I know first-hand that history can be so biased to favor the oppressor side. Chiang Kai-Sheik and his Chinese troops colonized Taiwan in 1945. The history I read was all about the glory of Chinese territory expansion; not a single word mentioning how many Tibetan and Muslim minority were killed in Tibet and in Xing-Jiang (新疆).

It needs to be recognized that history was written by people with social privilege and status and has never been written by the under-privilege populace. Those socially-biased 'historians' can always find justifications for the over-advantageous individual, can honor their hero such Machiavelli as the 'father' of political science, and can defend Machiavelli's statue by citing numerous examples including Hitler (1989-1945) Stalin ( 1878-1953) Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and Chiang Kai-Sheik (1887-1975) as these leaders all fit into the descriptions of The Prince.

One can say that if politics is for exploitation of a few against a populace, then political leaders can be ruthless against their opponent, can be deceitful to the populace, and can justify the means with their final goal of exploitation. The results of such exploitation were the misery of populace, stories of such misery were captured in numerous famous literature, including Victor Huggo's 'Les Miserables'.

Great political leaders do not have to be characters portrayed by Machiavelli. Abraham Lincoln was a typical example. Not only Lincoln had political skills to lead America in such a turmoil time, his personal and political moral or ethics are consistent, not what Machiavelli had preached that political and personal ethics are separate entity.

Machiavelli said that the prince must have troops to carry out his policy. That is true for colonial powers and for authoritarians. However, this is not true for spiritual political leaders such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) and Martin Luther King (1929-1968) Jr. Both of them changed the history. None of this two spiritual political leaders have troops to back them up.  To be continued.