Chapter 52 Chapter 3 Machiavelli

Although the Renaissance did not produce important theoretical philosophers, it produced an incomparably outstanding person in political philosophy-Niccolò Machiavelli.It has become customary for ordinary people to marvel at his absurdity; sometimes he is indeed absurd and astonishing.However, if other people are as free from deceitful hypocrisy as he is, many of them will be like this.Machiavelli's political philosophy is scientific empirical learning, based on his personal experience of affairs, and seeks to explain the means needed to achieve a given end, without addressing the question of whether that end should be regarded as good or evil.Now and then he allowed himself to speak of his desired end, an end which we can all applaud.The slander customarily added to his name was in large part the indignation of the hypocrite who resents the confession of evil.Of course, there are still many places that really need to be criticized, but at this point he is the performance of the times.Such intellectual honesty about dishonesty in politics would have been impossible in any other age or country. Perhaps in Greece, the theoretical education of the Sophists and the practical experience of small city-state wars The tempered ones are the exception; the wars between the small city-states were, in classical Greece as in Renaissance Italy, the political background that naturally accompanies individual genius.

Machiavelli (1469-1527) was a Florentine; his father, a lawyer, was neither rich nor poor.When he was in his twenties, Savanarola dominated Florence; the man's tragic end evidently impressed Machiavelli, for he said: "The prophets who are armed have triumphed, the prophets who are not armed." failed," before citing Savanarola as an example of the latter category.On the contrary he speaks of Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus. Not to mention Christ, which is exactly the sign of the Renaissance. Immediately after Savannarola's execution, Machiavelli received a minor post in the Florentine government (1498).He continued to serve in the government, from time to time as an important diplomatic envoy, until the restoration of the Medicis in 1512; The countryside lived in retirement.Since I had no other work, I engaged in writing.His best-known work, The Prince, was written in 1513 and was dedicated to Lorenzo II in hopes of pleasing the Medici (which turned out to be vain).The tone of the book may be attributable somewhat to this practical intention; the longer work, Discourses, which he was writing at the same time, was remarkably more republican and liberal.He says at the beginning of The Lord's Book that he does not intend to speak of the republic in this book, since it has been discussed elsewhere.People who do not read "Treatise on Roman History" tend to come to a very biased view of his theory.

Since Machiavelli failed to obtain a reconciliation with the Medicis, he had to continue writing.He lived in seclusion and died in the year that Charles V's army sacked Rome. This year can also be regarded as the year of the death of the Italian Renaissance movement. The book "Master of the State" aims to reveal how the principality was obtained, how it was kept, and how it was lost based on historical facts and events at the time.Fifteenth-century Italy provides many large and small examples.Few of the sovereigns were legitimate, and in many cases even the Pope was elected through bribery.The rules for reaching success then were not the same as they were when times became more stable, because acts of brutality and dishonesty like that would have disqualified one in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries , but no one was outraged by it at the time.Perhaps our age is more appreciative of Machiavelli again, for some of the most noteworthy contemporary successes have been achieved by methods as vile as any used in Renaissance Italy.If you want to come to Machiavelli, a connoisseur of political strategy and art, you must always applaud Hitler's arson attack on the Reichstag, the Nazi purge in 1934 and the breach of faith after the Munich agreement.

Cesar Borgia, son of Alexander VI, was greatly praised.Caesar's problem was a difficult one: first, he had to become the only beneficiary of his father's royal ambitions through the death of his brother; He is personally owned and does not belong to the pope; third, he must manipulate the cardinal council so that the next pope will be his accomplice. Caesar pursued this difficult end with great skill; and from his practice, Machiavelli said, the new lord should learn precepts.True, Caesar failed, but only "by accident of fate".It happened that when his father died, he was also dying.When he recovered from his illness, his enemies had rallied their forces, and his enemy had been elected pope.On the day of this election, Caesar told Machiavelli that he had been prepared for everything, "but never imagined that when his father died he almost died himself."

Machiavelli was well aware of his various evil deeds, but he concluded: "So, looking back at all the actions of Duke [Caesar], I can't find the slightest blame; on the contrary, as I said before, I feel that I should Look upon him as an example to be followed by all who have gained great power by fate and by the force of others." There is a chapter in the book: "On the Principalities of the Church", which is very interesting; judging from what is said in the "Treatum on Roman History", this chapter clearly conceals part of Machiavelli's thoughts.The reason for the concealment is, of course, that "The Master's Book" was designed to please the Medicis, and when the book was finished, a Medici had just become Pope (Leo X).He said in "Master of the State" that the only difficulty with regard to the principality of the church is to obtain it, because after obtaining it, it will be protected by the ancient religious habits.Such rulers do not need armies (so Machiavelli said), because "they are supported by a noble cause that cannot be universally accepted by the hearts of the people."They are "praised and defended by God", and "it is probably the work of the arrogant and ignorant to talk about them".He went on to write that even so, it is still open to question as to the means by which Alexander VI extended the pope's secular power in such a way.

The discussions on the Pope's power in the "History of Rome" are more detailed and more sincere.Here, he first ranks famous people into seven moral grades.The first, he says, are the religious fathers; next, the founders of monarchies or republics; and then the men of letters.These are good men, and those who destroy religion, who overthrow a republic or kingdom, and who are enemies of virtue or learning, are evil.Those who establish despotism are not good, including Caesar; on the contrary, Brutus is good. (The divergence between this view and that of Dante shows the influence of classical literature).He advocated the prominence of religion in the state, not on the grounds of its authenticity, but as a social bond; and the Romans were right:

They pretend to believe in divination and punish those who despise divination.Machiavelli had two accusations against the church at the time: first, the church harmed religious belief through its own evil deeds; second, the pope's secular power and the policies caused by it hindered the unification of Italy.These two reproaches are expressed with great poignancy: "The nearer one comes to our religious head, the Church of Rome, the less pious is the faith. . . . Its destruction and punishment are approaching. . . . the priests of the church, are ungodly scum; but we have a greater favor from it, a favor that will eventually become our ruin, and that is, this church has divided our country into quarters According to these passages It would seem that Machiavelli must be considered to have admired Cesar Borgia only for his artifice and not for his ends. In the Renaissance, man was so admired for virtuosity and for acts of fame. Feelings, of course, have always been there; many of Napoleon's enemies enthusiastically admired him as a general. But the quasi-artistic admiration for ingenuity in Machiavelli's Italy far surpassed that of previous and subsequent centuries. It would be a mistake to regard this kind of praise as consistent with the major political goals that Machiavelli considered important. The love of wrists and the patriotic desire for the unification of Italy coexisted in his heart, and they did not blend together. So he It is possible to extol Cesar Borgia's shrewdness and blame him for letting Italy fall apart. It should be imagined that the man who is perfect in his opinion is as clever and unscrupulous as Cesar Borgia, but holds People with different goals. The Master's Book ends with a eloquent appeal to the Medicis to liberate Italy from the "barbarians" (that is, the French and Spaniards) whose rule "stinks". He expects People undertake this kind of career not out of selfish motives, but out of love for power, and more importantly, good reputation.

Regarding the behavior of the lord of the state, "Master of the State" bluntly denies generally accepted morality.If the ruler is always good, he will perish; he must be as cunning as a fox and as fierce as a lion.There is a chapter in the book (Chapter 18) titled "How the Lord Must Keep His Faith".It says that when it is beneficial to keep promises, the leader of the state should keep his promises, otherwise he should not keep his promises.Lords sometimes have to be dishonest. "But one must be able to conceal this quality, one must be a hypocrite who is accustomed to pretending to be a good person, and to be a duplicity. People are all so simple-minded, and so easy to conform to immediate needs, that the deceiver will always find someone who is willing to be deceived. I To cite just one recent example. Alexander VI did nothing but deceive, and he thought nothing of anything else, yet he still found opportunities to deceive. No one was more sure than him, or issued more money than him. There is no one who does not keep promises and oaths more than he does. However, because he understands this side of things so well, his deceit is infallible. Therefore, it is not necessary for a lord to have all the requirements. the above-mentioned qualities [traditional virtues], but it is very necessary to appear to have them."

He went on to say that the main thing is that the Lord should appear religious. "On Roman History" is nominally a commentary on Li Wei's historical works; its tone is quite different from "Bang Zhu Jian".There are whole chapters that look almost like Montesquieu's handwriting; much of the book would have been read with approval by an eighteenth-century liberal.Explicitly expounded the theory of "restriction and balance".The monarch, nobles, and commoners should each have a share in the constitution; "Then these three forces will mutually restrain each other." The Spartan constitution established by Lycurgus is the best because it embodies the most complete Balance; Solon's constitution was too democratic, resulting in the tyranny of Bisistritus.The Roman republic was a good one, due to the conflict between the senate and the common people.

The word "freedom" is used throughout the book to refer to something precious, although it is not entirely clear what that refers to.Of course, the term was inherited from ancient times and passed down to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Tuscany remained free, for there were no castles or gentlemen there. ("Gentlemen" is, of course, a mistranslation, but a happy one.) It seems that he believed that to achieve political freedom, citizens must possess some kind of personal virtue.In Germany alone, according to him, integrity and godliness are still common, and therefore there are many republics in Germany.Generally speaking, the people are wiser and more persistent than the monarch, although Li Wei and most other writers argue to the contrary.As the saying goes: "The voice of the people is the voice of God", and there is no shortage of valid reasons for this statement.

It is interesting to say how in the fifteenth century the political thought of the Greeks and Romans in the republic acquired a practical significance which had ceased to exist in Greece since Alexander and in Rome since Augustus.Neo-Platonists, Arabs, and Scholastics, who were enthusiastically interested in the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, paid little attention to their political writings, because the political institutions of the city-state age had completely disappeared.In Italy the growth of the city-state coincided with the Renaissance, so humanists were able to learn from the political theory of the Greeks and Romans of the Republican era.The love for "freedom" and the theory of "restriction and balance" were transmitted from ancient times to the Renaissance, and mainly from the Renaissance to modern times, although modern times have also directly inherited ancient times.This aspect of Machiavelli is at least as important as the more famous "immoral" doctrine in The Master's Book. It is worth noting that Machiavelli never takes Christian or biblical grounds as the basis for political arguments.Medieval writers had the idea of ​​"legitimate" power, that is, the power of the pope and emperor, or power derived from them.Northern writers even later, as far as Locke, talked about what happened in the Paradise of Eden, thinking that they could thus find evidence for the "legality" of certain kinds of power.There is no such concept in Machiavelli.Power goes to those who have the means to grab it in free competition.His interest in civilian politics did not come from any concept of "rights", but from the observation that civilian politics is not as cruel, arbitrary and turbulent as autocratic politics. Now try to give a synthesis (which he himself did not originally make) of the "moral" and "immoral" parts of Machiavelli's teaching.In what follows I am not expressing my own opinion, but his own, expressed or implied. There are some political good things, and these three are particularly important: national independence, security, and orderly political organization.The best political organization is one that distributes legal power among the monarch, nobles, and the people according to their respective actual strengths, because under such a political organization, the revolution is difficult to succeed, so there may be stability; but for stability For the sake of thinking, it is always wise to give more power to the people. That is the case with regard to purpose. But in politics there is also the question of means.It is vain to pursue a political end by methods that are doomed to failure; even if the end is considered good, comparable means must be chosen to achieve it.The question of means can be dealt with in a purely scientific manner, regardless of whether the end is good or evil. "Success" means reaching your goal, whatever it is.If there is a "science of success" in the world, it can be studied in terms of the success of the wicked, as well as the study of the success of the good-in fact, it is better, because the examples of successful sinners are more numerous than the examples of successful sages.But this science, once established, is as useful to the sage as to the sinner, for if a sage dabbles in politics, he must, like a sinner, succeed in his endeavors. The problem boils down to a question of strength.A force of one kind or another is always indispensable for the attainment of a political purpose.This plain and simple fact is glossed over by slogans like "Justice will triumph" or "Evil will triumph soon."Even if what you think is the right side wins, it is because of the superior power of that side.Yes, power often rests on public opinion, and public opinion on propaganda; and, of course, it is a propaganda advantage to appear morally better than your opponents, and one way to appear moral is to be genuinely moral.For this reason, victory may tend to go to the party with the most adequate morals as the public perceives.We must agree with Machiavelli that this was not only an important factor in the success of the Reformation movement in the sixteenth century, but also in the growth of church power in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.But there are several significant limitations on this.First, those who have seized power can manipulate propaganda to make their own group appear virtuous; for example, in the public schools of New York and Boston, I am afraid that no one can mention the crimes of Alexander VI.Second, there are periods of confusion in which blatant scoundrels succeed; Machiavelli's period was such a period.In this era, there is often a rapidly growing view of human nature for oneself. No matter what it is, as long as it is cost-effective, ordinary people can stand it.According to Machiavelli himself, even in this era, it is appropriate to put on a moral face in front of the ignorant masses. This question can be looked at further.Machiavelli held this opinion: Civilized man is almost always an unscrupulous egoist.He said that if someone wants to establish a republic today, he will find it easier to do it among the mountain people than among the people of the big cities, because the latter kind of people are probably already corrupt.Even if a man is an unscrupulous egoist, his wisest course of action still depends on the people he has to control.The Church of the Renaissance aroused the indignation of all, but only north of the Alps did the indignation lead to the Reformation.When Luther began his apostasy, the income of the Pope must have exceeded what the Pope would have had had Alexander VI and Julius II had been better virtuous; if this is true, it is because Renaissance Italy Human nature is for self-view.Thus statesmen behave better when they rely on a moral public than when they rely on a public indifferent to moral questions; In a society with a system, behavior must be good.Of course, its hypocrisy can always achieve a certain degree of success, but the degree of success can be greatly reduced by appropriate institutions. Machiavelli's political thought, like that of most ancient peoples, has one aspect that is inevitably superficial.His mind is full of great law-makers like Lycurgus and Solon, and it is taken for granted that such a person will create a complete society regardless of the previous social situation.The notion of society as an organic growth over which politicians have only a limited influence is largely a modern one, greatly reinforced by the theory of evolution.This concept is not found in Plato, nor in Machiavelli. However, it may be argued that the evolutionary view of society, though true in the past, is no longer applicable today, and that a far more mechanistic view of the present and future must be adopted.New societies were created in Russia and Germany, almost as if the mythical Lycurgus is said to have created the Spartan state.The ancient law-makers were benevolent myths, and the modern law-makers are terrifying realities.The world has become more like Machiavelli's world than ever before, and modern people who wish to refute his philosophy must do more reflection than it seemed necessary in the nineteenth century.