written by Niccolo Machiavelli and published in 1532, this book gives tons of suggestions on how to be a successful prince, and at first glance seems irrelevent for the non-prince reader. but looking a little deeper than that, this book is full of irony, satire and its actual purpose is ambiguous.
machiavelli had ben imprisoned by the Medici family for supporting an alternate regime, but the Medici family still took the throne. This book is addressed to the Medici prince, which is suspicious in itself as he is giving tips on how to be successful to his imprisoner. the book also gives all sorts of contradictory advice and all in all promotes the appearance of justice, but the actual act of injustice. the dedicatory letter to the Medici prince at the beginning of the book was written after the actual bulk of the book, so its intended audience is still debated today. throughout the book, he never explicitly lists and intended author but instead says "you."
this book lists the successes and failures of tons of princes and rulers throughout history and is still applied today to many rulers (most, i'd say).
setting all post-life utopian arguments aside, is it better to just or injust, in general or when would each of these ideologies have their advantages and rationale?
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This, the Communist Manefesto, all you need now is Mein Kampf for the Trifecta of Evil!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the problem with choosing being feared over being loved is that it eventually causes everyone to be too afraid to do anything to keep your government running, so you eventually either have economic collapse (North Korea) or rebellion (Eastern Europe).
or just take the Michael Scott approach "i want people to be scared of how much they love me." haha.
ReplyDeletethe best advice, opposed to being loved or feared, is to keep your subjects oblivious.
a successful technique seems to be to allow interest groups to ensure that politicians are only looking out for themselves, deny performance in debates to third parties and in presidential speeches pretend that they do not exist ("both parties"), and then keep your population distracted with reality TV and make sure they keep their focus on etymological issues such as gay mariage instead of the war, banking,and the corruption in congress. or something along those lines.