The Prince, his infamous Chapter 15

So is Machiavelli a realist? or a devil? i would say he's a realist, as he broke away from the usual "should be's" of how a king should behave, usually in a religious context, and looked at how truth manifests itself in practicality, or, in other words, he was more interested in truths that manifest themselves through effect, in the real world, not in a systematic value system that has no grounding in the :real world"...but this philosophy works for those who are practically minded, those who cannot rise to the shoulds of religious virtue, those who care not to rise to them and only care for worldly power...but there are those who rise, who seek to rise, and have the optimism to try and reach them, and are revered because of it, Machiavelli was only interested in the prince and his keeping of power, his keeping of the state, and if this meant he must do evil deeds then he must, but if you read elsewhere, he deplores the ones who do nothing but malice upon his own people and those of others, yet they are a good case study in how to keep power, because fortune deals her blows in whatever way she seems fit, and if evil triumphs over her obstacles, then, to Machiavelli, so be it...

whatever to keep your power, to Machiavelli, this is the name of the game in this treatise: power, to have said anything else, would be to regurgitate what had already come before, and his work would have drowned among the many

it is interesting how people have approached this work, how the term "Machiavellian" came to be, the senses it connotes, when i don't think he believed in these things, i don't think that murder and deceit and cunning are things he believed was at the heart of great men, or that he thought these things were "right", whatever that may mean, i think his code was beyond good or evil, it is about power, and the use and keeping of it, is power beyond good and evil? is that why power studies became so popular? because it is a step away from morality? is being a realist one who is out of morality's bounds? "whatever it takes" mentality, "no matter what you have to do" and these kinds of diatribes

its about a code of living, and, ironically it seems, that the lives of kings, kings of men, must be more practical than most, even though they are regarded as being the closest to God (minus the pope?) and could this be a message then? of the system? that the closer one is to reality, the closer one is to God? yet i cannot accept this version either, for in the mundane we are lost in it, the world...yet to find, once again, a balance, to find God in the World, that would be the goal? maybe its Einsteinian, the relativism of it all, that one must know thyself to realize which of the truths will work best, either for you, or any given situation...some need practicality, some need spirituality, could there ever be, one code?

Machiavelli says that man will have his virtues and his vices no matter what, and it is up to him, and his virtu, to decide how he will use them...in terms of kings, how they will serve him in his ruling of the state, and by extension, the ruling of one's life in all its forms, the State as life proper or the State as metaphor for life...i like to read Machiavelli like this, like Sun Tzu's Art of War, read as metaphor, as a how-to guide for living one's life

Machiavelli's The Prince...Some Thoughts

Build on the power of the people, they are not as mud, the nobles can be made and unmade everyday, those who commit crimes on the way to the throne, have difficulty in keeping what is deemed theirs by the time they reach it, it is best to be with the people, on the side of them, than those of the petty nobles, but do beware those nobles who are ambitious and want what is yours by right, they will go to great lengths in discarding you once you are met with adversity!

a parable of speech but one worth of the undertaking...

Use cruelty only when necessary and use it quickly, for the terrors that are needed day by day only serve to loosen your grip, use deceit and cruelty quickly hmmmm, does make sense, leave them with awe and satisfied, with awe and satisfied! how pungent, how true!  give them their thirst for blood! their vindictive thirst for justice! meet it and quench it, then they will be yours! they as the people, and perhaps the nobles as well...

Ah Lady Fortune, dost thou smile upon me? or thee? or...? Niccolo says to manhandle the wench, to get what is deemed yours, so Fortune's a dirty whore now? ie: see Macbeth for further reading on this one...
"And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, 
Show'd like a rebel's whore..."

Funny how Fortune has been seen as both male and female, how about Fortune as LBG? or tranny?...or a dog? that'd make sense, right?


Machiavelli has turned out to be not so hmmm...Machiavellian


The guy's got a conscience, its obvious, the whole "through whatever means" is there but its not like he agrees with it, in fact, he says one may acquire power through evil, yet he will not acquire glory, which, apparently, is the be all, end all of any great man/woman, existence proper etc. He says it himself that deeds, cruel deeds, which may be necessary for one to hold onto power, are evil, its not like he's throwing a blind eye at the situation, he's being pragmatic, practical, right? it was a manual, a how-to, an answers.com, a how to be a prince for dummies, dummy book, for a dummy, some fatcat Medici whom he wanted to impress just so he could get a job, his old job back that is, poor guy got demoted to being in the fields, (of his own villa btw) yet to a man like Niccolo, this was banishment and removal from what he held most dear, which can be tormentous, his own state...


p.s.: tormentous ...yeah, that's gonna make it to Websters one day...

p.p.s.: well, technically, he was actually banished from Florence, soooo not really demoted, was actually removed from the city by big burly Italian men who smelled of nasty Medici but...the sense is the same, right?