During the last 500 years The Prince has been a favorite of numerous political leaders—Louis XIV, Napoleon Bonaparte and Benito Mussolini being among the most famous in the long list of powerful men. Because of the purely technical lessons one can learn from the book, it is useful to all politicians no matter what their ideologies are. This may have contributed to the popular belief that the book is just a manual on how to gain power by any means necessary, with no regard to how you should use that power. This is the Shakespearean view of the man as the “murderous Machiavel”.
There is also the long tradition of interpreting Machiavelli’s works as patriotic exhortations. The idea can be found in Hegel, and during the 19th century Italian Risorgimento Machiavelli was recognized as an important early proponent of Italian unity. According to the patriotic view, the final chapter of The Prince can be taken to summarize all of his work.
Many see in the Discourses the seeds of modern republicanism[contradicts to the hieratic society from the teaching of the church]. Jean-Jacques Rousseau even puts forth the theory that in the Discourses Machiavelli presents his true, republican view, while The Prince is a satirical work. But it has to be said that Machiavelli’s republicanism is not based primarily on moral principles, but also on amoral considerations: a republic is simply a more powerful and enduring political and military machine.
Machiavelli’s legacy is the strongest in political science. Many authors have claimed that his goal was above all to understand and explain political phenomena in scientific terms. Although this is a controversial statement about his true aims, his influence on political science is unquestionable. If he did not yet separate politics from ethics, he paved the way to those who did.
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