From Shakespeare’s plays to modern TV dramas, the unscrupulous schemer for whom the always justify the means has become a familiar character type we love to hate. So familiar, in fact, that for centuries we’ve had a single word to describe such characters: Machiavellian. But is it possible that we’ve been using word wrong this whole time?
The early 16th century statesman Niccoló Machiavelli wrote many works history, philosophy, and drama. But his lasting notoriety comes from a brief political essay known as The Prince, as advice to current and future monarchs. Machiavelli wasn’t the first to do this– in fact there was an entire tradition of works known as “mirrors for princes” going back to antiquity. But unlike his predecessors, Machiavelli didn’t try to describe an ideal government or exhort his audience to rule justly and virtuously. Instead, focused on the question of power– how to acquire it, and how keep it. And in the decades after it was published, The Prince gained a reputation. During the European Wars of Religion, both Catholics and Protestants blamed Machiavelli for inspiring acts of violence and tyranny by their opponents. By the end of the century, Shakespeare was using “Machiavel” to denote an opportunist, leading directly to our popular use of “Machiavellian” as a synonym for villainy.
At first glance, The Prince’s reputation as a for tyranny seems well-deserved. Throughout, Machiavelli appears entirely unconcerned with morality, insofar as it’s helpful or harmful to maintaining power. For instance, princes are told to consider all the necessary to seize power, and to commit them in a single stroke to ensure future stability. Attacking neighboring and oppressing religious minorities are mentioned as effective ways of occupying the public. Regarding a prince’s personal behavior, Machiavelli advises keeping up the appearance of virtues such as honesty or generosity, but being ready to abandon them as soon as one’s interests are threatened. Most famously, he that for a ruler, “it is much safer to feared than loved.” The tract even ends with an appeal to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the recently ruler of Florence, urging him to unite the fragmented city-states of Italy under his rule.
Many have justified as motivated by unsentimental realism and a desire for peace in Italy torn by internal and external conflict. According to view, Machiavelli was the first to understand a difficult truth: the greater good of political stability is worth whatever unsavory tactics are needed to attain it. philosopher Isaiah Berlin suggested that rather than being amoral, The Prince hearkens back to ancient Greek morality, placing the glory of the state above the Christian ideal of individual salvation.
But we know about Machiavelli might not fit this picture. The author had served in his native Florence for 14 years as a diplomat, staunchly defending its elected republican government would-be monarchs.
When the Medici family seized power, he not only lost his position, but was even tortured and banished. With this in mind, it’s possible to read the pamphlet he wrote from exile as a defense of princely rule, but a scathing description of how it operates. Indeed, Enlightenment figures like Spinoza saw it as warning free citizens the various ways in which they can be subjugated by aspiring rulers.
In fact, both readings might true. Machiavelli may have written a manual for tyrannical rulers, but by sharing it, he also the cards to those who would be ruled. In doing so, he revolutionized political philosophy, laying the foundations for Hobbes and future thinkers to study human affairs based on their concrete realities rather than preconceived ideals. Through his brutal and shocking honesty, sought to shatter popular delusions about what power really entails. And as he wrote to a friend shortly his death, he hoped that people would “learn the way Hell in order to flee from it.”