{"id":42873,"date":"2018-03-31T03:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-31T07:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=42873"},"modified":"2019-12-21T11:15:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T16:15:10","slug":"if-anybody-could-be-described-as-machiavellian-itd-surely-be-machiavelli-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/03\/31\/if-anybody-could-be-described-as-machiavellian-itd-surely-be-machiavelli-right\/","title":{"rendered":"If anybody could be described as Machiavellian, it’d surely be Machiavelli, right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Foundation for Economic Education<\/em>, Paul Meany<\/a> tries to rescue the reputation of Niccol\u00f2 Machiavelli:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Portrait of Niccol\u00f2 Machiavelli by Santi di Tito (1536-1603)
Via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

If you have ever studied Shakespeare, you might have heard your teacher use the word \u201cMachiavellian\u201d to describe amoral characters such as Iago from Othello<\/em> or Edmund from King Lear<\/em>. \u201cMachiavellian\u201d denotes a person or action that disregards morality and is wholly self-serving. The origin of the word derives from the famous Florentine politician and writer Niccol\u00f3 Machiavelli.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Published posthumously, The Prince<\/em> left Machiavelli with an infamous reputation as an amoral, atheistic, and cynical writer. In 1559, the Catholic Church put Machiavelli\u2019s works on the Index of Prohibited Books. In the play The Jew of Malta<\/em> by Christopher Marlowe, written in 1589, Machiavelli appears in the prologue, boldly exclaiming, \u201cI count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machiavelli came to be associated with an Elizabethan term, \u201cOld Nick,\u201d used to denote the devil. There is a subject of modern psychology, known as the \u201cdark triad,\u201d which focuses on three malevolent personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.<\/p>\n

However, this deeply negative image of Machiavelli did not always exist. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a more positive view of Machiavelli emerged, with authors such as the Republican James Harrington referring to Machiavelli as \u201cthe prince of politicians.\u201d During the Italian Renaissance, humanist Giovanni Battista Busini fondly described Machiavelli as \u201ca most extraordinary lover of liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n

This praise might seem confusing; after all, the word \u201cMachiavellian\u201d denotes someone who is cunning and unscrupulous. How could a man so devious and pragmatic be called a lover of liberty? The answer lies with Machiavelli\u2019s other book, known as Discourses on Livy<\/em>, which presents a very different image of his political beliefs.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The stark differences between Machiavelli\u2019s Discourses on Livy<\/em> and The Prince<\/em> come from the nature of the aims of each book. The Prince<\/em> aims to refine the conduct of a single prince, while Discourses on Livy<\/em> offers guidance for the entire citizen body. The Prince<\/em> was written to address a unique political opportunity that quickly evaporated, whereas Discourses on Livy<\/em> was written to articulate the principles required by republics that sought longevity, liberty, and prosperity.<\/p>\n

To this day, there still remains a huge debate over the intricacies and contradictions that characterize Machiavelli\u2019s writings. Machiavelli was an extremely nuanced and original thinker whose reputation should not exclusively be that of an evil schemer. He argued for a republic whose liberty is safeguarded by the common person, in which free, unhindered debate provides the best course of action, and where compromises between opposing groups create harmony. Discourses on Livy<\/em> reveals another side of Machiavelli, a man committed to the ideals of freedom through the means of representative government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Foundation for Economic Education, Paul Meany tries to rescue the reputation of Niccol\u00f2 Machiavelli: If you have ever studied Shakespeare, you might have heard your teacher use the word \u201cMachiavellian\u201d to describe amoral characters such as Iago from Othello or Edmund from King Lear. \u201cMachiavellian\u201d denotes a person or action that disregards morality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,62,7,339],"tags":[459,1334,1318,576,139],"class_list":["post-42873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-europe","category-history","category-italy","tag-censorship","tag-florence","tag-niccolomachiavelli","tag-philosophy","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-b9v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42873"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52589,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42873\/revisions\/52589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}