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Why There Will Never Be a 'Good' Politician

The good, the evil, and the prince.

By Saugat MenonPublished 3 years ago 11 min read
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Picture by djvstock on VectorStock.

Chapter 1: Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Free Will

Segment I: Introduction

In his book The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, “How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.” This quotation underpins Machiavelli’s political theory and, in principle, the quintessence of his magnum opus.

Since long has the dichotomy between how one ought to and want to act tormented princes and politicians. How a ruler can best maintain his subjects and state is the crux of The Prince—a striking manual of advice, indeed. Perhaps no other thinker has contemplated this notion of politics to such a degree. That, I reckon, is Machiavelli’s brilliance. “Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than to be loved,” wrote Machiavelli—which, despite its rather callous connotation—is elusively redemptive.

Segment II: A Political Disparity

The genealogy of political ideals could be ascribed to Aristotle and his definition of virtue, which is explained in Book III of the Aristotelian compendium the Nicomachean Ethics. In it, he identifies the intrinsic relationship between citizens, the state, and the constitution, maintaining that a citizen is not a mere denizen of a city but someone who contributes to the public office administration, and citizenship—a luxury of lineage—must no longer be so, for the civic laws would alter in times of constitutional reformation or war. However, if a city can no longer be identified with its governing body, will the citizens take the brunt of its collapse? Such a paradox it is, to which Aristotle responded that a city must be recognized by its constitution.

Socrates despised democracy, for he supposed that not every citizen must be granted the right to vote; only the politically educated ones must, which is a profound non-elitist sentiment. One must have a holistic comprehension of his constitution to vote. I reckon he is right, for a cursory glance at contemporary politics will suffice as a rational argument. A leader must not be a product of intuition; he must be a product of reason.

Aristotle, however, advocated that a constitutional government that comprised the middle class would alleviate the hostility between the rich and the poor to establish a stable society, albeit seldom does such middle class rise to power. As Athens and Sparta embodied democracy, Aristotle’s alternative was to establish oligarchy and democracy in cities of the rich and poor, respectively. Who, then, is a good citizen? He would be—according to Aristotle—one who endorses and abides by his constitution and virtuous, the only benchmark for a good person. This will mean that one’s perception of an ideal citizen and person is subjective. One can be a good person or a good citizen; a ruler must be both. The implication of such an ideal, Machiavelli envisaged, would be anarchy.

Segment III: The State

During the Renaissance, Italian states were principalities or republics. Machiavelli conjectured that it would be less troubling to govern a hereditary principality than a new one as the subjects are acclimated to the lineage of the ones in power; moreover, the people of a new principality would trade their current ruler for one better. He will be encumbered by expectations, jeopardizing his official capacity. A foreign ruler, however, can conquer a new principality, and the optimal solution for subjugation would be to inhabit the state. The former prince’s officials would be deposed, good subjects will be subservient to the new prince, and rebels will be silenced. As he says,

“People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage, they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them, there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.”

Machiavelli’s political theory was predicated on the bygone French, Roman, and Greek governments. He noted that a citizen’s love or hate emerges from whether he is harmed by his ruler, which is perhaps why he believed that they were naïve. A prince need have only modest amounts of concern for his subjects’ well-being if he could maintain the state, for the primary motive of a ruler must be to establish stability. He deemed it pivotal that a prince must have mastery over warcraft and statecraft such that he can thwart enemy conquest. In his own words: “There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others,” which is perhaps the antithesis of Christian traditionalism.

Segment IV: Girolamo Savonarola

After the expulsion of the House of Medici, Girolamo Savonarola—a Dominican friar who inhabited Florence as a preacher—would mold Machiavelli’s political outlook. Savonarola condemned the rich and preached that wealth would sully one’s relation with God, claimed that Florence was the city of God, and prophesied that a “new Cyrus was coming over to the mountains to begin the renewal of the church.” The French invasion in 1494 would bolster this claim, and the friar would rise to power and rule Florence until 1498.

Karl Marx’s astute remark that religion is the opium of the people would be written forward in time; however, it had been living its truth backward. The 25-year-old Machiavelli—who observed Savonarola’s reign and, ultimately, his death—wrote thus in The Discourses:

“But when fortune is not thus propitious to him, he must contrive other means to rid himself of rivals, and must do so successfully before he can accomplish anything. Anyone who reads with intelligence the lessons of Holy Writ, will remember how Moses, to give effect to his laws and ordinances, was constrained to put to death an endless number of those who out of mere envy withstood his designs.”

He contrasted Savonarola to Piero de’ Medici, noted that the latter—despite precipitating the Medici expulsion—yielded to the French to save hisself, and likened the former’s fall to the crucifixion of Jesus. Felicitous, this comparison. My faith is that a man whose faith in a faith that is crucified on the cross of faith will inevitably be disenchanted with his faith, for that faith shall not redeem him of this one truth that affirms life: death.

Segment V: Virtù, Fortuna, and Free Will

Virtù, which bears a divergent connotation than the Aristotelian ethics, is—according to Machiavelli—the defining quality of a prince, and subsumed under it are all the darker arts that a prince may employ to govern his state. In principle, he proposed that a politician cannot be devoid of criminality; rather, it is a tool that would induce political stability. To that end, he used the term criminal virtue, which would later be theorized as Machiavellianism, a component of the dark triad. He noted that a prince’s circumstances supersede his talent to rule, which draws a fascinating link between Fortuna (fortune), virtù, and free will.

The Christian edifice indoctrinates one to follow a course of life that is beyond his control. Contrary to this wisdom, Machiavelli advances that without free will, one’s virtù is futile, for he views the former as the antithesis of the latter and claims that if one adjusts his course to fortune through free will, then it would conspire in his favor. This would imply that one acts concordant with his nature, whose control is beyond him.

Consider this: One must be free willed to adjust hisself to his fortune; however, if one’s nature is beyond free will, what is free will precisely? If one’s fortune governs his free will, how can he be willed to act as hisself? The gravity of this paradox, only a non-deterministic cynic can comprehend.

Chapter 2: The Borgia, Hitler, and the Devil

Segment VI: Cesare Borgia

In Chapter 7, Machiavelli enlightens us as the two pathways that one can follow to be a prince: fortune and prowess; the thematically relevant examples in the book are Cesare Borgia and Francesco Sforza, respectively. Historians have derided Cesare as ignoble; however, Machiavelli would think otherwise, for he saw in him an exemplar. He writes, “Those who solely by good fortune become princes from being private citizens have little trouble in rising, but much in keeping atop; they have not any difficulties on the way up, because they fly, but they have many when they reach the summit.” Such is the case of Cesare, for his dominion fell after his father, Rodrigo Borgia’s, death in 1503.

Machiavelli’s depiction of Cesare may be equated to a Greek tragedy; however, it must be asserted that The Prince is not a political fiction but a journal of fecund imagination. Borgia is painted as an emulatable prince, for his endeavors to maintain his princedom—and, therefore, a stable state—are remarkably abhorrent. Let your subjects fear but not hate you, befriend the weak, decimate not to your disquiet, thrash foreign powers that may subjugate you; perhaps these accomplishments of Cesare prompted Machiavelli to say thus in Chapter 7:

“If, therefore, all the steps taken by the duke be considered, it will be seen that he laid solid foundations for his future power, and I do not consider it superfluous to discuss them, because I do not know what better precepts to give a new prince than the example of his actions; and if his dispositions were of no avail, that was not his fault, but the extraordinary and extreme malignity of fortune.”

A truly great man Cesare was, for he fulfilled the desire of his people: order. Would it not be presumptuous of a subject to expect any greater deed from his prince?

Segment VII: Contemporary Politics

Lay aside your political and religious presuppositions, reader, for you cannot fathom this segment otherwise.

Machiavelli wrote, “The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” It is rather uncanny the relevance of Machiavelli in contemporary politics.

Malcolm X likened the white liberals and white conservatives to foxes and wolves, respectively. The latter would explicitly manifest their animosity towards the black; however, the former would stifle their contempt through contrived smiles. In his own words: “The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the ‘smiling’ fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.”

Bismark embodied Machiavelli’s political theory through the Second Schleswig, Franco-Prussian, and Austro-Prussian wars. The Danish threats to Prussia would unite the populace, and through the Second Schleswig War did Bismarck buttress his political stature and consolidate the Prussian military. It is said that he had The Prince on his proverbial desk.

Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic predilection and paranoia would precipitate the Holocaust, the carnage that wrote history in crimson. It is remiss of anyone to deduce that Hitler alone instantiated Nazism. His words cajoled Germans precisely because they fed him what they wanted to hear to fuel their abhorrence of the Jews, Slavs, and Poles, all of which he regurgitated as gospels. Were I to list the greatest orators in humanity, Adolf Hitler will be in its upper echelon. A relationship between a leader and his subjects has yet to disgust me to the abysmal dimensions of Nazi Germany. Notwithstanding the transgressions, a bona fide Machiavellian leader was he. Fear, oppression, and chicanery are indispensable to order, for the unification of a country that orchestrated a genocide because of one man’s delusions is no trifle. Is it not the privilege of the oppressive that the downtrodden will remain as but a question mark? Such is the reality of citizens that no government can resolve.

Segment VIII: Machiavelli the Devil

The Prince was published five years after Machiavelli’s death in 1527. It was pilloried by the Catholic Church, and some christened it the book of tyrants. Machiavelli did not champion despotism; he merely stated that one must resort to covert, deceptive schemes should the need arise. Having known this truth all along, enslaved, victimized, and exploited are we, for our principles have yet to circumvent the pathologically religious tenets. Verily, only in such moments will our Machiavellian, grotesque apparition be untethered. Machiavelli wrote:

“The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. Therefore, if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must be prepared not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not according to need.”

Can this philosophy be any more succinct? Unsurprisingly, this advice has ensconced in the contemporary axioms of politics. It is negligent of us to conclude that The Prince is exclusive to a prince, for the insights can be extrapolated into citizenry to ensure that one is not oppressed to the mercy of any leader. Indeed, this is my definition of reciprocal politics and the reason for the certitude with which I concur: there will never be a ‘good’ politician.

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About the Creator

Saugat Menon

I am Saugat. welcome to my page where I write about whatever I want.

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