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It's the month of March in the year 1513. A Florentine diplomat, whose name has become synonymous with manipulation, scheming and deceiving, is freshly released from prison and now in exile from the city of Florence, he looks out over his Tuscan farm estate and thinks about the year just gone. His body is still in excruciating pain from three weeks of incessant torture. The Medici family, who had been run out of Florence for the last two decades, have returned to rule and have reasserted their power. And they were concerned that one Niccolo Machiavelli, who had been serving in the important position of second Chancellor during their absence, was part of a plot to stop their return to power by means of assassination. Whilst imprisoned, Machiavelli was tortured by means of strappado. His hands were tied behind his back. He was raised to a great height with weights attached to his body, and then he was dropped, dislocating his shoulders and his arms. Throughout the brutal punishment and interrogation, the diplomat maintained his innocence and he was eventually released. And now, in retirement from his public life and political career, Machiavelli begins writing what he referred to as his little book. At less than a hundred pages in most volumes, the book may indeed be little, but it would go on to exert a large influence. And the writings contained therein would cause an enormous ripple effect through the ages and would gain its writer the reputation as father of political science. In Il Principe, or the Prince, Machiavelli aimed to offer pragmatic advice about statecraft to new rulers wishing to claim and maintain power. We could see this work as, in effect, Machiavelli's job application to the Medici. This was a way of showcasing his political knowledge so as to bring him out of enforced retirement. He would dedicate the work as a sign of his devotion to Lorenzo Medici, the grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Though Machiavelli addresses this Lorenzo as magnificent too, he was writing the work ostensibly to court favour with the returned rulers, but it is unlikely that they ever even read the work. Many authorities in the years since its publication, however, certainly did. Ideas expounded upon in this tract would influence much of the republican thought that led to the English Civil War and the Glorious revolution in the 17th century. Indeed, Napoleon Bonaparte was a great fan of Machiavelli, and he wrote extensive comments about this work, all of which was found in his coach after his defeat at Waterloo. The founding fathers of the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams. They were influenced by this work, too, and so was General Secretary of the USSR Joseph Stalin, who heavily annotated his personal copy. And indeed, Benito Mussolini was a fan too. He even wrote a discourse on the Prince. We can also see in the 20th century that mobsters like John Gotti and Roy Demeo would quote from Machiavelli's work, and they would consider the Prince to be the Mafia Bible. Many, like political philosopher Leo Strauss, have argued that the Prince is a work of great evil. The Catholic Church banned it, putting it on the index Librorum Prohibitorum, whilst others, like French 18th century philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, the mind behind the Social Contract, called the Prince a deeply ironical work of satire and fitting well within a literary genre of didactic political writing known as Mirrors for Princes, which was popular in the medieval and Renaissance era, but had a tradition that went back to the ancients. With that in mind, we might consider that the work could well be less a straightforward guide on how to rule, and more of a mirror up to the evil face of power, essentially showing what shouldn't be done. More than 500 years on from when Machiavelli wrote the Prince, what are we to make of this work? Is the Prince evil and immoral? Is it satirical? Or is Machiavelli actually just a pragmatist, a realist, and an unapologetic one at that, who dared to write about how things are rather than how they ought to be? The work, which was written in Italian vernacular, not Latin. Latin, just like Dante's Divine Comedy before it, though of course the chapter titles are in Latin and which wasn't actually published until five years after the author's death. The work continues to resonate, inform and be considered controversial today. Let's see why together. And as we do so, we will answer the question of whether it's better to be loved or feared. We'll explore why a ruler should imitate both the fox and the lion. We'll see how best to obtain and maintain power. We'll learn what to do and what not to do from great rulers and evil rulers alike. And we will also consider the morality of the advice given. I believe that we can see the writings of Machiavelli as being like the dark arts, like black magic. And if you are good and morally strong, you want to have access to these principles and guidelines, learning from good and bad alike in the name of good, because sure enough, you know that the villains of the world will use such tactics and strategies too. And the power of these principles, maxims and mindsets is such that they become very dangerous. When they fall into the wrong hands. And as we dive in, One thing to bear in mind from the outset is that Machiavelli uses the word prince, but his advice bears keeping in mind for anyone who wishes to come into and then maintain power. The advice also isn't gendered, and Machiavelli learnt many of his lessons from strong women rulers, and the advice isn't applicable only to those who hold royal titles, but rather the advice is applicable to anyone who wants to enter a position of authority or lead and dominate in their domain of expertise. Now, if you crack the prints open at the beginning, you might be surprised to discover that this renowned political tract begins not with a list of strategies for how best to lie, deceive and murder your way to the top, but it begins with a rather dry series of definitions on the different kinds of principalities. If you wish to go straight to the Machiavellian stuff, then that begins roughly halfway through the book. There are 26 chapters in total, and from chapter 15 onwards things get really interesting and we start to see the advice that would lead to the reputation Machiavelli has today. And you can read this book this way. You don't have to read it from beginning to end. Indeed, you do not need to read nonfiction the way you read imaginative literature. In a book like the Prince, you can zero in on the topics that interest you most. You can choose from the menu that is the contents page, and you can work out going backwards and forwards in the work in a reading experience that is reflexive, exploratory, and quite adventurous. But there is a value in beginning at the beginning of a work of philosophy, because such writers take great pains to define their terms, they set out their premises, and the rest of the work then builds upon this foundation. But however you read, I highly recommend that you have a pen in your hand and you make notes in the margins or jot down ideas as you go through. We'll be moving through the prints together, so you might wish to have a copy of the work open in front of you. You do not have to have already read the prints. Our discussion is designed to be not only a primer for readers coming to this work for the first time, but a strong refresh of the principles explored throughout. I recommend you make a note of the sections that resonate the most with you right now, and indeed if you're listening or do not have a copy at the moment, then just make a mental note for later. I will be referring to chapters throughout our discussion as opposed to page numbers so you can locate our topics easily regardless of translation. Though if you want to work from the translation I'm using then I recommend the George Bull translation in Penguin Classics paperback. Once we've explored this work together, I encourage you to return to the sections that caught your attention. Most significantly, reread those sections and then go to the beginning of the work and very steadily chip away at the book chronologically. Read slowly and work your way through and think intensively about each and every section. And if you would like to see what fellow deep readers and like minded lovers of the great books have made of Machiavelli, then we have a nuanced, profound and exciting discussion around this book and indeed many more great books at the Hardcore Literature Book Club, which is@patreon.com Hardcore literature the Prince begins with a definition of the different kinds of principalities, which as I said, may seem dry and uninteresting at first, but this is so integral to the entire work. Simply put, the advice for one kind of prince will not necessarily suit another. Machiavelli stresses this and there are two kinds of principality, hereditary and new. Hereditary states are those passed down through a family. They're inherited, and these are the easiest to hold onto because all the ruler has to do is keep homeostasis. Do not change too much and your hereditary state will be easy to keep hold of. But the new principality is hard won, and it's the new ruler who Machiavelli wants to address his advice to the ruler who is trying to obtain new power, not the one who has been born into it. As far as Machiavelli is concerned, if you can't keep hold of something that's been passed down to you, you're beyond the help of such advice. Anyway, he is talking to princes who must go through hell to obtain their power. A principality, Machiavelli says right at the very start, is like a limb joined to the state of the prince. In Renaissance figures of speech, we have the head of state, the king, queen, prince, whoever holds power conceptualized quite literally like a head. The people are the body, and different states are like limbs. You'll hear such metaphors deployed in Shakespeare's plays, but you will also hear other ways of visualizing ruler and body politic too, like in John Webster's the Duchess of Malfi, in which we're told that a prince's court is like a common fountain. If poison near the head, then death and diseases through the whole land spread. The idea is that it all flows down from the top and we can see this even in the corporate world. When you visit a business, you will know what management and leadership is like from the front facing workers, those on the floor. We talk of having a good or bad corporate culture. Well, it all flows down from the top. And if there is rot or weakness on the lower layers, then those at the top have an obligation to rectify or remove it. Unless, of course, they are the ones responsible, in which case there will be many others waiting in the wings, lurking in the shadows, ready and willing to leap in and lop that head off. The Prince's life is a dangerous one. A moment of weakness and you're gone. And so we might ask the perennial question that rulers have long been concerned with. Is it better to be loved or feared? Machiavelli answers this question directly in the 17th chapter of the Prince. But before we examine his answer, I would like to know, what do you think? What does your instinct tell you when faced with just two choices in your life? Would you choose love or would you choose fear? Now, Machiavelli would say that the answer is you would, of course like to be both. If you can be loved and feared, you will make an incredibly powerful ruler. But because it is difficult to combine them, it is far better to be feared than loved. If you cannot be both, one can make this generalization about men. Machiavelli says they are ungrateful, fickle liars and deceivers. They shun danger and are greedy for profit. While you treat them well, they are yours. They would shed their blood for you, risk their property, their lives, their sons. So long, as I have said, the danger is remote. But when you are in danger, they turn away. And men worry less about doing an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself feared. For love is secured by a bond of gratitude, which men, wretched creatures that they are, break when it is to their advantage to do so. But fear is strengthened by a dread of punishment, which is always effective. One might initially wonder if there's not a disconnect there in the assertion that it's best to be loved and feared. But there isn't. Fear is not the opposite of love. Fear is not hatred. And Machiavelli is very clear that above all, regardless of what reputation you obtain for yourself as ruler, you do not want to be hated. Since some men love as they please, but fear when the prince pleases. He writes, a wise prince should rely on what he controls, not on what he cannot control. He must only endeavor to escape being hated. You can be feared and not hated. And you can also be loved and feared simultaneously. One might think that such fear is akin to respect. And indeed, if we look to religious faith, we're told in the Book of Proverbs that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And this was continuously asserted throughout Scripture. We might consider the utility of the Holy Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The idea is that you fear God and love Christ, and so you can have love and fear in one by virtue of this Trinity. But when it came to Christianity, Machiavelli was very critical when it came to its effects on politics, because in the figure of Jesus we have a man who was loved by his disciples and his followers and hated, but not feared by his opponents. And so he was put to death, crucified for his beliefs. And this is a good example for why prophets must come armed. That's what Machiavelli says. And to Machiavelli, a political leader who allows himself to be governed by Christian ideals, turn the other cheek, the meek shall inherit the earth, and so forth, rather than reality, are asking for a short reign and a bloody end to it. One of my favorite examples for a leader who was both loved and feared comes in the form of Henry V, or at least Shakespeare's representation of him in his patriotic history play. We can make fruitful study of Machiavellian principles by immersing ourselves in the world of William Shakespeare. When it comes to Henry V, the actual monarch died five decades before Machiavelli was born. And Machiavelli doesn't refer to him in the Prince. But Shakespeare, on the other hand, wrote his play on the monarch rough roughly seven decades after the Prince was published. And though Il Principe wouldn't be available in English translation in the Bard's lifetime, it was freely available in the original Italian and French translation, which Shakespeare would have had a working knowledge of if he didn't read it firsthand. Then his playwright friends in the Elizabethan version of the Writers Room definitely would have spoken about it endlessly. And we can see many references to the writer, to Machiavelli. When characters talk of being a Machiavell, this was a stock character, a stock villain in the theatre world. Machiavelli quite literally gave his name two villainous stock type characters. And all through his dramatic career, Shakespeare worked to develop his villains, taking them from the ranting, raving and bombastic antagonists you might see in the dramas of Christopher Marlowe, who are basically just offshoots of the devil and personifications of vice that you would See, in the religious mystery plays, he would take those kinds of villains and Shakespeare would sculpt them into psychologically complex plotters and schemers with inexhaustible consciousness. The Machiavel character reaches peak development in Iago of the Tragedy of Othello. And if you pay close attention to Iago's words in that play, you will see that they reveal deep familiarity with Machiavelli on the part of Shakespeare. I am not what I am, the villain says. And then we see in that tragedy, as we do throughout all of his plays, we see that the Shakespearean imploration is, be careful what you see, because what seems, what appears to be rarely actually is. And the Machiavellian imploration, his advice be rulers, is appear to be good, seem virtuous, and that's very different from actually being so. And appear virtuous, because you must, above all avoid being hated by the population. So you must appear virtuous even whilst you're acting in a very non virtuous way. Machiavelli instructs princes that they must always appear to have the following five compassion, good faith, integrity, kindness and religious belief. Men in general, he says, judge by their eyes rather than by their hands, because everyone is in a position to watch, few are in a position to come in close touch with you. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are. And the common people will always be impressed by appearances and results. Now, of course you want a reputation for compassion rather than cruelty, Machiavelli says, but he also stresses that you must make sure you do not have bad use of compassion. If you have a cruel reputation, so be it, as long as you keep your people united and loyal. If you are considered cruel, then a couple of choice examples of compassion, some demonstrations here and there will go a very long way. And if you are considered compassionate, then a couple of choice examples of considered cruelty will also go a long way. Let's tie this back to Henry V, who along with Elizabeth I, is vying for top spot as my personal favourite English monarch, loved and feared, respected due to his capacity for cruelty, and most importantly of all, he was not hated by his men. At the Battle of Agincourt, we see what the power of strong morale can do, along with, it must be said, a troop of men armed with longbows against an army that wasn't. But we see that at the Battle of Agincourt, the English soldiers were beaten down, exhausted and vastly outnumbered by the French. Victory should have been secured for the French, but in the English camp, we have the king with the common touch, going from man to man and rousing them all with ennobling speeches and the assurance that their bold leader will be riding alongside the them in the heat of battle. And his men, of course, knew King Henry's ruthless nature, his capacity to be cruel as well as compassionate. And that is very important. There's that cliche that we hear in films. When the hero rides in, people say, thank goodness he's on our side as a ruler. This is the kind of feeling you want your people to have about you. And again, I stress we are using the example of Shakespeare's character when we talk of Henry V, because with the character of Hal or Henry V, he deliberately crafts a representation of the leader. With Machiavelli's principles in mind and because of the influence of Shakespeare, it's very difficult to separate the dramatic representation and idealization from the historical reality. And the same is very much true with Richard iii. With him, Shakespeare creates a villainous reputation that has lasted until today or until recent refutations of this character based on historical evidence. In the play Henry V on the way to Agincourt, King Henry would make an example out of a close friend who looted from a French village he stole from a church. And he knew that if he allowed such behavior to go unchecked, then it would spread like a disease among the men and chaos would break out and innocent French citizens would be horrifically victimized. So what he did was he made an example of his friend and he hung him as a warning, as a deterrent. And because Henry was naturally compassionate, there was always a danger that those closest to him would take advantage of him. And so rulers who are quite naturally compassionate must demonstrate their capacity to be ruthless if they want to remain in rule and they want to be considered strong. Now, talking about Shakespeare's play, we also see Shakespeare dramatise this Machiavellian principle at the end of Henry iv, Part two. Yes, we're talking about a play here, and I acknowledge it is highly fictionalized, but it really does a perfect job of capturing the Machiavellian ethos we see in that play. When Henry comes to the throne, which his father had held with great brutality, there was a collective feeling across the land that the commoner prince who spent his youth gallivanting in taverns and merrymaking with non royals would be a soft touch. And we see the lovable rogue Falstaff, one of the greatest characters Shakespeare ever created. We see Falstaff, at Henry's coronation, break out of the crowd and he makes a scene. Falstaff had pinned his hopes on an England under Hal, under Henry, becoming a land where common thieves could pursue their vocation in peace, where vice would be considered virtue, where the law was not enforced. And we see Henry makes an example of his friend in front of everybody. He says, essentially, I don't know who you are. My old life is but a dream and do not presume that I am who I once was. And he calls for his old friend to be arrested, effectively giving a message to the country that mistaking his compassion for weakness, mistaking him for a soft touch, is a grave mistake, one that will win you a cruel punishment. When you become king or queen or prince or ruler, you must shed your past self. You must become a symbol, an icon. You must become an emblem of rule. You become an idea. And you must be what you need to seem rather than what you actually are. And if you must cry inwardly as you are being cruel, so be it. But one mustn't present oneself as a man who can be trifled with. So we see at the Battle of Agincourt, Henry's reputation as both compassionate friend and commoner, king and ruler who is not to be messed with, results in an extraordinary amount of morale. And the smaller army with the greater spirit will often beat the greater army, in which spirit, morale, courage is lacking. For another example of a leader who commanded respect and inspired love rather than fear, we can look to Queen Elizabeth I. I love her iconic speech to the troops at Tilbury whilst England was up against the Spanish Armada order. And although the battle was won at sea, the concern about it potentially coming to land led to Elizabeth delivering this rousing and emboldening address, one which I think gives just a little taste as to why she was so revered. My loving people let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that under God I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguarding in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you, as you see at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live and die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my kingdom and my people, my honour and my blood. Even in the dust, I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, she says, but I have the heart and stomach of a king and a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm to which, rather than any dishonour, shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms. I myself will be your general, judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. She goes on to say that she does not doubt that the men will display their valour in the field, and she does not doubt that we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom and of my people. Morale is one of the most significant factors in an army's success. Men united will almost always win against those split and divided. And men unite under leaders they love and leaders who have a reputation for cruelty. Napoleon is an example of the former, a man who read, studied and admired Machiavelli. And we can also see two examples of the latter. We can see examples of cruelty in the form of Cesare Borgia and Hannibal, both of whom Machiavelli personally emphasises. Napoleon, who won more land battles than any other general in history, was dearly beloved by his men, and that was so important to his success. It must be said, of course, obviously, that many hated him too, but those who followed him did so with all their hearts and all their might. Napoleon was seen as a channel for the people's desire and what some people believed were the ideals of the Revolution. And though Edmund Burke would say that the Revolution operated under Machiavellian principles, we might say that this was nothing new and nothing that the aristocracy and the absolute ruler rulers weren't already doing, just in different ways. What we see is, towards the end of the 18th century, once France has descended into chaos, we have the reign of Terror. Royalist heads are rolling in the streets, including those of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. We see around this time, there was absolutely no order in the country, which fell under tyrannical mob rule, the kind of mobile that feasts upon itself. And so when Napoleon comes in, he restores order and he shows himself not to be a brutal tyrant to his people over his people, but rather a brutal leader for his people. And Tolstoy, in his masterpiece War and Peace, stresses this about a nation's rulers. He says kings are the slaves of history. In effect, what he's saying is that because the ruler is a conduit for the people, the ruler actually has less free will than the common man or woman. This is a refutation of Thomas Carlyle's great man theory, which posits that leaders exert their will over the people, they influence reality, they shape it, and they impose their desires and aims on the populace. Tolstoy essentially says, no leaders are Great insofar as they reflect the public's will. Will good and evil alike, be they Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, Caesar or Alexander. So when Napoleon is exiled to the island of Elba after the Grande Armee's undoing at the Battle of Moscow, and that came after an astonishing string of unparalleled military victories, and they are finally defeated by the Russian winter and a scorched earth policy that left little behind. When Napoleon is exiled because his people love him, it doesn't take long before the public, unhappy at the restoration of the absolute monarchy, start yearning for his return. And Napoleon gets wind of this. He begins to march back to France, headed for Paris to reclaim his rule. And along the way, men who are sent to stop and apprehend him swiftly start to follow him. Near the town of Laffrey, the battalion of the fifth Line had been sent to arrest him and Napoleon ordered his grenadiers to lower their weapons. And then he stepped forward. The soldiers of the 5th had their muskets levelled at his chest and Napoleon said, soldiers, I am your Emperor. Do you not recognise me? If there is one among you who would kill his general, here I am. And a royalist officer. Officer Commanded the battalion to fire, but not a shot rang out. Instead, the soldiers rushed forward and embraced Napoleon with cries, vive l'empereur. They march behind him all the way to Paris and they give the authority to lead to him. In Bulgakov's the Master and Margarita, a phenomenal novel that is still very much in my mind at the moment, as we very recently wrapped up a book club. Read through of it@patreon.com hardcore literature. So if you're interested in that, all of the lectures are still available to stream on demand, at your own leisure. In the Master and Margarita, we see Yeshua tell Pontius Pilate that all authority is violence over people. And we can see the truth implicit in that, that because in order to uphold laws, there must be the threat of violence as a deterrent, there must be an answer to the question, what if I don't obey the law? But when it comes to taking power, very often it's not actually seized by violence, but rather bestowed by the people. Would the men of France sent to arrest Napoleon have marched behind this man out of fear? Or did love make them march behind him? Now, in the Prince Machiavelli gives the example of Cesare Borgia, a man who you might be interested to know, would have his image, his portrait, used as the basis as the inspiration for our modern depictions of Jesus. Christ. Though you'd be very hard pressed to find a less Christlike man. Cesare and the Borgia family has a reputation for using ruthless tactics. The Borgias are renowned for being steeped in sin and deviancy, murdering, betraying, backstabbing and intimidating. At the height of Cesare's power, for example, one chronicler reported that the bodies of murdered men, men were being fished out of the Tiber river in Rome every single day. Now, historians will say that whilst many of the accusations levelled against the Borgias were true and they did much to garner their reputation, there's also a fair bit of exaggeration and fictionalisation. And we see that the reading public has long been fascinated with the legends that grew in the telling after their deaths. Alexandre Dumont, for example, was fascinated with the Borgias. He wrote a sensational book called Celebrated Crimes that included a chapter on the family. And this book was eaten up by readers. But historians say that their behaviour wasn't necessarily much worse than many other powerful Italian families during the Renaissance era. They weren't saints, but perhaps their reputation as complete villains is rather exaggerated. Now, Cesare bought was a huge influence on Machiavelli's thinking when it came to statecraft, and Machiavelli got something of a baptism of fire when it came to the world of politics from a very young age. He was just 29 years old when he was elected the second Chancellor of the Florentine Republic. So he was ambassador for the territories within Florence's rule, and he served what was known as the 10 of war. This was the committee responsible for the Republic's foreign diplomatic relations. We see that very early on in Machiavelli's career, one of his diplomatic missions took him to a man who gained a reputation for great cruelty. And he may not have been loved, but he was certainly feared. At the Beginning of the 16th century, Cesare Borgia led a newly emerging military power and presented a threat on Florence's borders. Now, Borgia's father was Pope Alexander vi, and the Pope made his son Duke of Romagna in 1501. And Borgia then launched a series of campaigns to seize and carve out territories for himself. And he was able to launch a rebellion against the Florentines after much military success. Success. He demanded a formal alliance with Florence and he asked for an envoy to be sent to hear his terms. The man selected for that mission was Machiavelli. And four months spent in Borgia's court might as well have been four years spent in the heart of the viper's den, because this is where he developed many of his thoughts on how to run a state. And one of the most profound lessons is perhaps best conceptualized by Shakespeare's Hamlet. I must be cruel to be kind. When Borgia came to power, the Romagna was in disarray, torn apart by civil strife. But his cruelty united the province. Borgia installed a man called Ramiro de Lorca as governor and he empowered him to carry out a. A ferocious regime of torture and public executions. Very swiftly, people were frightened and brutalized into submission, and peace came to the province. In effect, cruelty worked. And then, once his dirty work had been done, Cesare Borgia wished to rid himself of his cruel reputation, which he had gained through de Lorca's actions. And so what did he do? He arrested him on suspicion of being part of a conspiracy to assassinate Cesare. He wasn't actually involved, but he confessed under torture. And then he sliced de Lorca in half and he stuck him on a pike for all to see, as though to say, well, his cruel actions were not my actions, and I don't approve of what he did. Perhaps one thing, a little bit of Shakespeare's measure for measure, because in that play we see that Duke Vincenzio has been compassionate for too long and gained a reputation for being lax. And so the citizens do not respect the law. How can they when it's not upheld? And knowing that a ruler who has been soft for a very long time will be considered a tyrant the moment he enforces the law, Vincenzio installs one of his higher ups to do his bidding for him. And once the new laws are instated and upheld, Vincenzio can then return as the heroic and compassionate leader without the tyrannical reputation. But returning to Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli says that his cruelty was actually merciful. And so often mercy is the real cruelty. He takes the example of how the Florentines, not wishing to gain a reputation for cruelty, allowed Pistor to be torn apart. There was a vicious civil dispute between two factions, the Black Guelphs and the White Guelphs. And the Florentines did not intervene for fear of their reputation. And what was the result? Continued bloodshed and needless death. In Pistoia, if a ruler had come in with an iron fist, yes, cruelty would have been necessary. But short term, brutality would have been the lesser of the two evils. And inflation, fact inaction was, as is so often the case, the greater evil. Machiavelli also gives us the example of the Carthaginian General Hannibal, who waged war against The Roman Republic. For years, historians would praise Hannibal for keeping order among his troops, and they would praise his military's great discipline. But in the same breath, they would dash Hannibal's cruelty. The irony is that his cruelty is what kept his men united. And historians praise what they damn and damn what they please. We see the same is true for Genghis Khan and Scipio. All of these men proved the value of cruelty and why it shouldn't be avoided. If uniting your men is the aim, the cruelty men enact against their common enemies keeps them together. In the words of Judge holden from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, what joins men together is not the sharing of bread, but sharing of enemies. Of course, one has to tread carefully when it comes to being feared, because if you become too feared, you can become hated. Like in the case of Richard iii, who we see, at least in Shakespeare's play. And of course, there's more Tudor propaganda in his play than actual historical fact. But we see ruthlessly backstabs everyone, and he is abandoned at the very end. He's left crying out, my horse, my horse. My kingdom for a horse. And no one helps him. Richard had tried to force Lord Stanley to fight for him by taking his son George hostage. And the night prior to the battle, he sent a message to him, notifying him that his son would be executed during the battle if he did not aid him. And Stanley would send Richard's messenger back with the response, sire, I have other sons. And the next day, Stanley chose to fight with Henry Tudor rather than assist Richard. Or indeed, we might look to the example of Joseph Stalin, a thoroughly Machiavellian leader. If we look to Stalin's end, we see it wasn't pretty. Stalin collapsed from a massive haemorrhagic stroke, and those surrounding him were too afraid to do anything to help him for fear of being punished if they got it wrong. And that was compounded with the very real possibility that those waiting in the wings to usurp him consciously decided not to rush medical aid to him. Let him die. And there is added irony when we consider that Stalin had just recently arrested, arrested the best doctors in Moscow. Hundreds were imprisoned and tortured, and many tragically died in detention. Stalin ruled with an iron fist. He ruled with great cruelty, but was ultimately left in a puddle of his own urine with no one who loved him enough to save him. In Machiavelli's writing, we see that a ruler is walking a tightrope, one made of love and cruelty. And as he makes his way, precariously across the abyss of rule. He must try at all costs not to be despised. Indeed, he says that one of the most powerful safeguards against conspirators plotting to take you down is to avoid being hated by the populace. Machiavelli stresses that everything the ruler does must be in the service of maintaining his state, or mantenere lo starto. This is fundamental. Readings of Machiavelli arrive at the conclusion that he believes the ends justify the means. And whilst he didn't actually say this, his advice would indicate that this was indeed his belief. And the end. The aim, the object of rule for a prince is not being virtuous. And this is what made his writing so controversial. The thing is, among rulers, everybody knew the cruelties that heads of state state needed to enact. But this was the first significant time that someone wrote it down. Machiavelli wrote about the reality of rule, warts and all. Rather than penning an idealized conception of rule, Machiavelli is daring to be pragmatic and realistic, and he is casting aside what ought to be, and he is staring what actually is right in the face. And indeed, eschewing fantasies of perfect rule doesn't make you a pessimist, but it makes you a realist. Machiavelli says many have dreamed up republics and principalities which have never in truth been known to exist. The gulf between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done, moves towards self destruction rather than self preservation. The fact fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way, necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. Machiavelli's maxims fly in the face of and are a massive departure from established political writings on princely virtues. In classical writings and in Renaissance humanism, a prince above all else, should be just. Indeed, Aristotle in his Ethics said that justice was the greatest virtue because it's the virtue upon which all other virtues hang. And it's also the most difficult virtue. It was long thought that a prince should be just, generous and display clemency, which means mercy or lenience. But Machiavelli shuns all of this. He points to the example of Pope Alexander vi. There is a recurring cast of characters, a stable of historical personages in this book. Alexander VI is one of them, Cesare Borgia is another. He points to Pope Alexander and basically says, do we think he was so successful because he was merciful, just and generous? Now, if you don't know anything about this pope, the one who brought his son, Cesare Borgia to power, then spoil. He was cruel, ruthless and deceitful. And that is what made him so successful. He was a man who had no qualms about not keeping his promises. And I think we can see why the Church put Machiavelli on the naughty list. The important thing is that you appear to have integrity even whilst breaking your promises. The appearance of integrity is more important than real integrity. To Machiavelli. Machiavelli, it made absolutely no sense keeping one's word if that was not in the benefit of you keeping hold of your rule. The higher good is always that you remain in power. And because you must appear virtuous whilst enacting vice, at times, Machiavelli instructed would be rulers. In chapter 18 to imitate the fox and the lion. He'd say that a man can fight like a man, using the law when he can, when possible. But sometimes one must make use of the beastly part of ourselves. In the Renaissance model of the world, man is tightrope walking between beast and angel. Machiavelli implores would be rulers to appear the higher being to appear the God to appear the great man. Whilst descending to the beastly realm, a man must imitate the fox, he says, a creature of cunning, and the lion a creature of strength. And the reason why you need to imitate both is because the lion is defenseless against traps, whilst the fox is defenseless against wolves. Therefore, one must be a fox in order to recognize traps and a lion to frighten off wolves. So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot and must not honor his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist. If all men were good, he says, this precept would not be good, but because men are wretched creatures who would not keep their word to you, you need not keep your word to them. Those who have known best how to imitate the fox have come off best, Machiavelli says. But one must know how to colour one's actions and to be a great liar and deceiver. Men are so simple and so much creatures of circumstance that the deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived. And all of this is in virtue of. And think of the language we use in virtue of maintaining one's rule, keeping a hold of one's state. We talk of virtues, yeah, like truthfulness, courage, generosity. These are virtues. But for Machiavelli, virtue is that which is subservient to solidifying one's rule. And indeed, virtue is one of the most commonly recurring words in the prince. It appears on every other page. Machiavelli calls virtue the most important quality for a prince, though its definition in his hands shape shifts from what we typically expect. The prince of virtue is not the moral ruler, but the one who is acting out of necessity in virtue of maintaining their state. And that means you want prowess, skill, valor, bravery, and a commitment to doing whatever is necessary to secure rule. And Machiavelli sets up traditional virtue against prudenza, or prudence. And he says that one must often ensure they aren't sacrificing prudence for weak good. We might think, what's the use of virtue? What's the point of it if one is taken from power? You act in a way that is right, morally upstanding, honest, and it gets you yanked from the throne. If you have virtuous qualities and behave always in accordance with them, you will find this harms you. He says if the prince only appears to have virtues, then this will render him a service. His disposition should be service such that if he needs to be the opposite of virtuous, he knows how. So essentially you should know how to do evil if necessary. And often we solicit the dark side in the service of good, or we need to. And for those who denigrate such Machiavellian philosophy, we might think of Nietzsche's counter to the so called virtuous, because he would say that virtue is rarely actually good and is so often actually cowardice or inability. So some will say, if I were in power, I would never do such and such an action. In fact, we might all say it, I would never do that. And we might, as we say we wouldn't do it, we might refer to something that is integral to keeping your rule. It's a burden you have to take on. But Nietzsche would say it's not that you wouldn't do it, it's that you couldn't do it. And there's a difference. And it's very much worth bearing in mind, as Machiavelli says, that one can be hated just as much for good deeds as for evil ones. Therefore, a prince who wants to maintain his rule is often forced not to be good. Now, Machiavelli isn't in his writings taking an inherently good or evil position, but he is casting a light on an uncomfortable truth. Sometimes virtue, virtue is taken for weakness, unless it's compounded with cruelty or at least a capacity to be cruel. Disrespect happens when it is allowed to happen. It happens when one thinks they can walk all over another. The loving hand that feeds the nation is all the more valued when the populace knows that that same hand will protect them, will keep themselves safe, that the love is coming from a position of strength and capability and competence rather than weakness. Machiavelli takes the example of one virtue that was so long held up as a princely virtue. He takes the example of generosity in chapter 15, and he dismantles it. He says, if you earn a reputation for generosity, you will come to grief, because if your generosity is good and sincere, it will go unnoticed, and it will also not save you from being reproached for its opposite. The problem is, a prince can only be generous with a few, which leaves the majority disgruntled. And when that generosity takes a toll because it must come from somewhere, the imposition of burdens on the people in the form of necessary taxation or different methods to raise the money will result in him being despised. And so, just like the Florentines who didn't want to be seen as cruel and so refused to intervene in the Pistoian conflict, thus causing more bloodshed, the prince who aims for the reputation of being generous will end up despised, impoverished, and still considered miserly, still considered the very opposite of what he was trying to be. A prince must not fear being considered a miser, Machiavelli says, because on a long enough timescale, such a man will be considered generous when he uses his generosity where it matters. If you focus on ruling effectively, the people will come to love you, which they absolutely will not do if you bankrupt yourself trying to buy their love. Now, Machiavelli says he is aware that people will cite the example of Julius Caesar in order to refute this line of argument. The people loved him because he was so generous. But Machiavelli points out that he was generous as he was climbing to power and trying to secure his position. If you're on the way up, then you want a reputation for generosity. And so much the better if your generosity actually comes from other people and not directly from yourself. But what gets you into a position of rule is not the same thing that keeps you in rule. Obtaining and maintaining are two different games. Machiavelli contends that had Caesar not been a Saxon assassinated and if you're interested in this, we have a lecture on Julius Caesar where we talk about this in depth at patreon.com Hardcore literature if Caesar had remained alive and ruled, such generosity would have had to have cease, for if it had continued, he would have inevitably fallen from power. You hurt yourself only when you give away what is your own, Machiavelli says, and there is nothing so self defeated as generosity. In the act of practicing it, you lose the ability to do so and you either become poor and despised or seeking to escape poverty, rapacious and hated. A prince must try to avoid above all else being despised and hated. And generosity results in your being both. In effect, you cannot pour from an empty cup, secure your position and keep yourself in health if the country in your power has any hope of prospering under your rule. So here are some rules from Machiavelli. One, do not fear a cruel reputation. Two, that which gets you into power is not that which helps you maintain it. And three, avoid contempt or hatred at all costs. Let's keep these in mind as we consider what is my favourite historical case study in the Prince in chapter 19, it's when Machiavelli compares and contrasts the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius with Septimius Severus. Machiavelli makes examples of leaders who are good and bad. He showcases virtuous and tyrannical Roman emperors and he asks, what can we learn from the good who were successful and what can we learn from the cruel who were successful? What mistakes of the good and of the cruel should we we avoid when studying history? Most will want to be like Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations, which he wrote whilst in the tented field as an instruction manual to himself. It wasn't meant for the eyes of others. Aurelius, Machiavelli warns, had hereditary power. And so you cannot rule like Aurelius if you're a new ruler. When it comes to hereditary power, as we said, you just need to keep keep things on an even keel, keep things as they were. Taking power requires a different approach. You can rule like Marcus Aurelius once you've established yourself, but you may have to study Septimius Severus when it comes to your rise. Severus knew how to be fox and lion. He knew that the emperor at the time, Julian, was very laissez faire when it came to matters of state. And so he persuaded his troops to march on Rome from Slovenia, ostensibly in the name of avenging the death of the previous emperor Pertinax, who had been put to death. But this was just his pretext and he made sure that it didn't seem as though he was actually vying for the position of emperor, though that was his True aim. So Severus and his men arrive at Rome without warning. They turn up and they present themselves as a problem. The Senate, out of fear, elected him Emperor and they put Julian to death. But two more obstacles remained in his way. There was an obstacle in Asia where a commander called Pasenius Niger had proclaimed himself Emperor. And there was an obstacle in the west where Albinus also aspired to be emperor. Machiavelli says in chapter 19, judging it was dangerous to show himself hostile to both both of them, Severus decided to attack Niger and to trick Albinus. He wrote to the latter saying that having been elected Emperor by the Senate, he wished to share the high rank with him. He sent him the title of Caesar and through a resolution in the Senate he made him co Emperor. Albinus took all these things at their face value. But once Severus had defeated Niger and put him to death and pacified the east, he returned to Rome and complained in the Senate that Albinus, not recognizing the favours he had received from him, had treacherously sought to kill him. Because of this, Severus added, it was necessary for him to go and punish such ingratitude. He then marched against Albinus in France and took him from his state and took his life. We can of course see that if Severus had been honest and forthright about who his enemies were, then he would have had too much to contend with. At one time you don't want to fight two enemies simultaneously. So in service of securing his rule, he needed to deploy deceit, he needed to lie, and he needed to think several chess moves in advance, taking out one position before moving on to the next. Now, to be macchiato, you need to treat your enemies brutally and you also need to treat your friends very well. Cruelty for the enemies, pampering for your friends, both in service of you maintaining your rule. But you must also have an awareness that one's closest friends are the ones who make the most disastrous enemies or could do. And one's enemies can actually become one's greatest friends and most powerful adversaries. Advocates friends can become complacent and they can take your favour for granted, whilst enemies who have been won over are much more grateful for your help whilst being eager to win your continued affection and service. One line of advice very early on in the Prince really sums up the Machiavellian ethos to me. Speaking of how to destroy one's enemies, Machiavelli writes, men must be either pampered or crushed because they can get revenge for small injuries, but not for grievous ones. So any injury a prince does, a man should be of such a kind that there is no fear of revenge. So there's no middle ground here. And it's this kind of rule that can lead to a prince being loved and feared simultaneously, but not hated. And this is very difficult advice to put into practice, because it requires a dissolution of ego. If someone has upset you, but not to the degree that it's worth completely cutting their head off, you're better off making the decision to leave it be. Don't half wound them, at least. And if someone close to you, someone you love, has caused a grievous error, that would get someone not so close to you punished. You must not make compromises with your principles, and you should be severe with them too. Rule like this, and those who are pampered by you value it all the more for their recognition that you have the capability to crush if need be. Because love from a weak man means nothing. Love from a warrior means everything. Machiavelli pointed out that not taking this seriously was the cause of Cesare Borgia's downfall. He was astounded by Borgia's ambition, courage and self assurance. And he also noted that he had great pride, great hubris. And of course, what do we say about pride going before a fool? To Machiavelli, Borgia was a man who felt as though he could have anything he wanted. But it became clear that he had come to power through fortune. Because his power was passed down. His father was the Pope. He appointed him duke. He came to power through fortune rather than prowess. And it's harder to come to power through prowess. It's harder to build yourself up from nothing. But if you do, and if you overcome the struggles inherent in such arise, it's easier to keep your rule secure because you have learnt skills along the way that will never leave you. But because Borgia was handed his dukedom by his father, he eventually messed up where a ruler who had come to power through prowess would have. Borgia's error was that whilst his father was still pope, he had injured a man called Julius iii. Injured, not crushed. And Julius never forgot it. When his father died, Julius became pope and Borgia supported him, effectively emboldening one he had harmed. And once in power, Julius stripped the dukedom and the authority from Borg and reinstated the old rule of the Romagna by half injuring one. Rather than destroying them completely, you are only fostering hatred against you. Destroy them completely and you will have a reputation for Cruelty and ruthlessness, a reputation for doing what's brutally necessary, which isn't undesirable, because then you will be feared. So if you pamper those in your protection, you will foster love. And if you totally crush those who transgress against you, you will also foster fear. But what's the utility of fostering hatred? Why act in a way to make others hate you? It doesn't serve. There's no utility there. There are two things Machiavelli says that a prince must fear. One, internal subversion from one subjects and two, external aggression by foreign powers. And defence of the latter lies in being well armed and having good allies. And if a prince is well armed, he will always have good allies. And being well armed means arming your populace. This is how you win over your people. The very last thing you want to do as a ruler is disarm a populace that is already armed. Machiavelli writes. No new prince has ever at any time disarmed his subjects. Rather, when he has found them unarmed, he has always given them arms. This is because by arming your subjects, you arm yourself. Those who were suspect become loyal, and those who were loyal not only remain so, but are changed from being merely your subjects to being your partisans. As soon as you disarm your subjects, you stop start to offend them, showing, whether through cowardice or suspicion, that you mistrust them. And on either score, hatred is aroused against you. Machiavelli says there are exceptions when it comes to acquiring or annexing a new state. Then you should disarm all except for those who are already your partisans. So arm your people and do not let dissension or civil strife come to your state. Everything hangs upon this. Domestic and international matters of great importance all flow from this. Now, some rulers, Machiavelli says, like those who controlled Pisa and Venice, deliberately fostered strife in the public, and they would pit two factions against one another, although they never allowed bloodshed, Machiavelli writes, yet they fostered these discords so that the citizens, taken up with their own dissensions, might never combine against them. This is a very problematic tactic, however, and the prince who uses such methods is weak. And of course, this only works temporarily and only during peacetime and overall stability. When war comes, you want the nation to be united, not divided, and you want a common enemy. You don't want to fight amongst yourself. And in fact, having a common enemy is so important for solidifying your strength in the eyes of your subjects that a prince would be very well served creating one Find a common foe that you can defeat. And keep in mind that every military success unites your country. Further, if you need to find a foe, then why not take a look at what's happening on your borders? You might wonder, is there fighting there? If so, the very last thing you want is to remain neutral. Machiavelli implores rulers to take a hard position in chapter 21 if there is an aggressor on the border. If one state has invaded another, then take a hard position and befriend or foe of the parties involved. Choose a side. Why? Because whatever the outcome of a conflict on your board, both countries, invader and invaded alike, will resent you. If you don't, the conquered state will want to see you fall, and the conqueror will see you as weak and ripe for conquering too. There's no such thing as a safe course of action, Machiavelli says. All actions are risky, and that includes inaction. Neutrality or not. Taking a position can often pose the greatest danger of of all. Now, of course, this may end up dragging one into a war, but Machiavelli makes the point that one must never allow disorder to continue so as to escape a war anyhow. One does not escape. The war is merely postponed to one's disadvantage. Being Machiavellian means making brutal decisions and taking the lesser evil. And often this means expediting violence with the plan that to do so is to avoid greater violence down the line. Machiavelli takes the example of how the Romans approached war. In chapter three, he says, the Romans did what all wise rulers must. Cope not only with present troubles, but also with ones likely to arise in the future and assiduously foresee. When trouble is sensed well in advance, it can be remedied. If you wait for it to show itself, any medicine will be too late because the disease will have become incurable. Notice the figurative language around disease, sickness and health. This is true. The best cure is prevention. By the time it started and you're in the thick of it, it's too late. By the time you need a cure, the disease has advanced and you're going to have a harder time of it. And this means making difficult decisions early, early on. Indeed, this may make it look like you are an aggressor in war. Whilst you know that your actions are actually preventative, you can take this advice into your personal life too. If you have a difficult decision to make. You know intuitively already that if you deal with it now, it will of course be painful. It will be difficult. But you also know that it's not going to go away, and if you leave it longer, it will be worth worse. You must take the difficult action immediately if you are serious about preventing it. So the Romans saw when troubles were coming, Machiavelli said, and always took counter measures. They never, to avoid a war, allowed them to go unchecked because they knew that there is no avoiding war. It can only be postponed to the advantage of others. Machiavelli says in chapter 12 that a prince must build his state on solid foundations, otherwise he is bound to come to grief. The main foundations of every state, he says, are good laws and good arms. And you cannot have good laws without good arms. And where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow. Such is the importance of war that in chapter 14, in expounding upon how a prince should organize his militia, Machiavelli writes that a prince must have no other object or acquire skill in anything except war, its organization and its discipline. The art of war is all that is expected of a ruler, he says. The first way to lose your state is to neglect the art of war. The first way to win a state is to be skilled in the art of war. Francesco Sforza came to power, he says, because he was art and those who weren't armed did not come to power. And because being a prince will naturally involve some people despising you or coveting your power. What happens if you're unarmed? You're undone. There is simply no comparison between a man who is armed and one who is not, he writes. It is unreasonable to expect that an armed man should obey one who is unarmed, or that an unarmed man should remain safe and secure when his servants are armed. So arm yourself, arm your people, and keep your people happy. And how do you keep your people happy? Well, it would help if the prince actively encouraged able men and honored those who excel. That means you do not put up obstacles or stand in the way of your people. Being a good leader to Machiavelli, a lot of the time is about being strong, making difficult decisions, choosing the lesser evil and standing out of the way way of your people and enabling them to prosper. An example that he uses is if a person is excelling in their business, if you were to tax them highly when they are boosting the economy, you would ultimately damage yourself and your state. You want to incentivize people to be excellent, he says, and would you rather have a weak, scorned and oppressed nation, or would you like to lead a pack of wolves? This should be kept in mind also when it comes to the prince staffing his courts and choosing his advisors. Surround yourself with competent men and intelligent men, he says, because intelligence recognizes intelligence. This is why delegation is such a strength and why it's so difficult. But it's also a very important skill to learn. You need to have a very broad knowledge and you need to have intelligence covering many areas. You need to have a big picture approach, but you also need to have the intelligence to see who can go deeper when it comes to some facets of statecraft. Then you alone could. In addition to surrounding yourself with excellent and intelligent men, you must also shun flatterers. Sycophants fill the courts of every land. Every wise man's son knows this. But sycophancy will weaken you. You want experts around you who speak the truth when you ask them. That's the caveat. Not out of turn, not volunteered, but when you ask specifically, they do not hold back. This means you should gain a reputation for punishing flattery and falsehoods. Now, of course, Shakespeare's plays have long told us us that sycophants exist because the egotistical ruler enables them. And very often in a Shakespeare play, the only one who can speak truth to power is the fool, because everyone else fears they'll lose their head. Often it's only the fool who can dispense wisdom, because you have that face saving excuse of he's only joking, he's not really criticizing me. But this is to be avoided, avoided at all costs. And you know you're under the wing of a strong ruler when he looks you in the eye and says tell me the truth based on your expertise. And when you do, your position in the court is strengthened, not threatened. And Machiavelli would also stress the fact that the prince's pursuit of knowledge and his own excellence must be incessant. And as warfare is the foundation of rule, his his thoughts must never stray from military exercises, which he must pursue more vigorously in times of peace than in times of war. Both physical and mental exercises. Keep yourself accustomed to hardship, Machiavelli says. Hunt and travel in the wilderness. Learn practical geography. And indeed understanding local geography will help organize one's defences. And that knowledge can also be applied to new locations too. Machiavelli cited the example of Philopaemon, leader of the Achaeans, who gained the reputation of never in peacetime thinking of anything except military strategy. For example, when he was in the countryside with his friends, he would invite discussions like if the enemy were on top of that hill over There, and we were down here with our army. Which of us would have the advantage? How would we engage? How could we retreat if need be? If they retreated, how could we pursue them? Philippoemen would find all contingencies that could befall an army. And he would rehearse, visualize, practice. He would hear opinions and give his own, and he would put his knowledge to the test. And as a result, because of this continuous speculation, when he was leading his armies in real conflict, he knew how to cope with all and every emergency. Of course, how does one apply such advice in their own life when they aren't a head of state, when they aren't heading a military? Well, quite simply, this means you learn the lay of the land, of your work, of your vocation. You learn everything you can about your expertise intimately. You never stop studying, you keep challenging your yourself. For example, with athletes, studies have shown in all sports, if you practice both mentally and physically, if you rehearse in your mind as well as do physical exercises, you have an advantage over those who practice just physically. And you do not develop your strategy or your expertise, your skill whilst you're playing. You don't develop it whilst you're playing the game. You train for months. You train in peacetime, like a boxer training for a fight. The battle's not won in the ring. We might say that the battle is won in times of peace. Now, Machiavelli may be considered the father of political science, but he's also done his part, in my opinion, for the tradition of the self help genre, because ultimately he believes in the power of the individual. And he believed this in a time when most resigned themselves to fate. For Machiavelli, life is a grand battle between fortune and virtue, or fate and prowess. And in a part of the book that veers into poetic sentiment, and there are a couple of such passages, we get little bits of poetry poking out of the pragmatism. We see Machiavelli waxing lyrical about the value of believing in some element of free will. In chapter 25, he tells us that if you blame fortune for everything, then you will come to grief at the hands of it. Yes, fortune exerts an effect, but you can offset fortune with personal prowess. Now, when Machiavelli talks of fortune, at this time this meant fate. So you can have good or bad fortune. Machiavelli is very much a proponent for having what the psychologists would call a strong internal locus of control rather than an external locus of control. And that's where you are the pilot of your own Destiny, you're in the driver's seat, you control your life. And Machiavelli sounds very much to me like a soft determinist. More than three centuries before William James would coin that phrase. You can't choose the circumstances, you can't choose where you were flung into the world. There's so much you cannot choose, but you can choose your response. And Machiavelli says that he is aware that many are of the opinion in his time that fortune and God controls our lives in such a way that man's behavior cannot change the course of things, that we have no influence whatsoever. And people who conclude such say that we should not sweat over things and we should just submit our lives to chance. Regardless of how common this viewpoint is, however, Machiavelli says he does not wish to rule out free will completely. And he says it's probably true that fortune is the arbiter of half of the things we do, leaving the other half controlled by ourselves. We are responsible for ameliorating bad fortune and capitalizing upon good fortune. And he compares fortune to one of those violent rivers which, when they are in rage, flood the plains, tear down trees and buildings, wash soil from one place to deposit it in another. Everyone flees before them. Everybody yields to their impetus. There is no possibility of resistance. Yet, although such is the nature of such rivers, it does not follow that when the river is flowing quietly, one cannot take precautions constructing dikes and embankments so that when the river is in flood, they would keep to one channel or their impetus be less wild and dangerous. So it is with fortune. She shows her potency where there is no well regulated power to resist her. The Machiavellian imploration time and again is prepare for war. In times of peace, we do not rise to the occasion, as the Navy Seals say, but we fall to our level of trouble training. And that means our training never ends. For Machiavelli, this means a prince must read history, study how eminent men conducted themselves, and model oneself on the victorious, both the virtuous and the evil, taking what's valuable from both and rejecting what doesn't serve. As we say, success leaves clues. Alexander the Great imitated Achilles. He would even sleep with Homer's Iliad under his pillow along with a dagger. Caesar imitated Alexander, and Napoleon imitated both Caesar and Alexander, and their strengths became his. But should the Prince be our textbook? Should we keep Machiavelli's Il Principe under our pillows? Well, in the Prince, we do not get a complete worldview or a total picture of the huge experience. And indeed, it would be a sad state of affairs if reality and people, if human nature, could be reduced to the precepts offered in this work. But to be fair to Machiavelli, he does not purport to offer a comprehensive depiction of the human condition, but what he does purport to offer a pragmatic guide on how to rule. One that is not soft, softened by idealism, is all here. What we have in Machiavelli is a mirror that does much to reflect the one holding it, and strong reactions either for or against the deployment of Machiavellian principles. Either revulsion or attraction, I think, should be treated with suspicion and carefully moderated, because there is much uncomfortable truth and wisdom in this work. And there is also so much that could well sacrifice the most beautiful parts of our human nature, swapping in something darker and more nefarious. We ignore the warnings in the Prince at our peril, but we also misread Machiavelli at our peril too. Luckily, few will be in a position where the only choices between two evils, a greater and a lesser evil. And I say luckily because rules effectively, and I think this is made abundantly clear in the Prince, ruling effectively is a heavy burden. My disagreements with Machiavelli are significant when it comes to the idea that one must appear to be virtuous, but not necessarily be virtuous. I personally believe that true integrity can be discerned. It can be sniffed out. And I believe that people can tell if you are being discerned, dishonest. And I think that when one turns away from virtue and embraces vice, then one pays a very serious spiritual price. The good messages that I find in Machiavelli are conduct yourself in such a way that you are loved and feared. Though I find the word respect to be more helpful in conceptualizing this. If those surrounding you love you, and those who do not love you at least respect you, then you will have built up quite a fortress in your life. Consciously striving to avoid being hated, I think, is also not a bad aim to go for. And I find it at times puzzling why so many would go through their lives as though hatred is the very thing they want from people. A further Machiavellian imploration that I find useful comes in his urge to prepare for war in times of peace, prepare for the flood of the violent river whilst it's calm and undisturbed. Build yourself up, commit to excellence, surround yourself with excellence, and make those in your care better, not worse. Despite Machiavellianism denoting scheming, deceiving and manipulation. These are the elements of Machiavelli's philosophy that I think anyone, prince or pauper, would be well served to implement implement in their life profoundly. Il Principe ends with Machiavelli imploring the state to rouse a citizen army, to fortify themselves, to unite the people and to prepare for hardship to come, and in so doing avoid the greatest hardship of all, the destruction of the state. Though we might not command a great military, in actuality, we do command one in our lives, and we could well read Machiavelli as turning to us and encouraging us to build our strength, courage, fortitude of mind and inner resolve. Fortune will fling troubles in our path, but our prowess will be what helps us to overcome them. Now I would encourage you, if you haven't already read Machiavelli, to turn to your copy of the work and go straight to the passages, the idea ideas that most resonated with you at this moment in your life. Agree or disagree in the margins with Machiavelli and then once you've lingered over those passages, turn to the beginning and work through the Prince and steadily chip away at the book and see where his advice might apply to your life. And if you would like to see what fellow deep readers have made of this incredibly influential and thought provoking tract, then we have a vibrant and nuanced discussion around this work at the Hardcore Literature Book Club. Join the conversation@patreon.com hardcore literature and you'll get instant access to a sprawling back catalogue of lectures, read throughs and bookish content. We have deep dives into the tragedies, comedies and history of William Shakespeare. We have read throughs of great novels from the likes of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Steinbeck, Dickens, Joyce, Pynchon and many more. At time of recording we are appreciating Jane Austen and Moliere and very soon we will be embarking upon a journey through the Tale of Genji and I'm very excited for that. That is going to be an unforgettable experience. We'll also soon be reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest together and I know that many readers are really looking forward to that. We will also be reading later this year Nietzsche, Montaigne, Freud and many more. That's at patreon.com hardcoreliterature thank you so much for listening and happy reading everybody. Bye bye for now.