Transcript for:
Machiavelli's Power and Rulership

foreign class welcome to this particular lecture where we are going to go over a few things in Machiavelli's Prince I hope that you enjoyed reading this um especially if you had never read it before it's quite a remarkable piece and it really is a good example of other Renaissance ideas that follow the general theme that we're seeing in the Renaissance where there is a turn inward toward the human itself as Superior as authoritative as individual and individualistic we've seen that in other Renaissance Era readings and we see it even to a greater extent here of course it's important to talk about the context of what this particular piece is and simply put the context is that this is Nicolo Machiavelli's attempt at doing some political Theory I mean this is about how to um well it's how to conquer how to rule how to Reign Over how to control other people which is fascinating in and of itself because we haven't read anything like this in this course so far if anything one of the important themes that we've seen in other texts whether they're more religious bent ones or the more mythological ones where there is still Divinity and deities um or even some of the more fictional ones or more sort of pedagogical ones is that there is divine Authority whether it's God or the gods or laws or even just some sort of abstract Divine entity like Plato's forms or the rightness of virtue and flourishing for Aristotle there for those thinkers there is something beyond the human person that is transcendent over the human person that is authoritative and that is Sovereign and that is right and it's that which we should conform ourselves to people should conform themselves to for being true and just and right incorrect morally speaking but even in terms of just how to live your life but with Machiavelli we don't really see that and he pays some homage to God and after all he's Christian like everybody is frankly in this era in Eastern Europe that's just how it is um especially a name I suppose but you don't really see in Machiavelli at all um nor did we in petrarch and Norway did we in marandola for instance the need to conform oneself to God's truth and righteousness or to anything religious like that I mean his his piece here is really about the person and it's about the strong person it's about um what that kind of person ought to do for oneself and why what they do for oneself in terms of being a prince who conquers other people why that that in and of itself is morally right morally permissible and maybe even a duty to some extent um and what you see here even is some uh discussion that if you read between the lines it seems that maybe part of what he does too is play off of different kinds of Personality stereotypes especially when it talks about the strong ruler and the weaker people I guess to his extent he means that in terms of their resources or their ability to um uh to conquer or not conquer uh or to be conquered um maybe that's the kind of weakness he has in mind but there's also a sense in which too that you know he's he's assuming here that there really are only certain kinds of people that are cut out for being a true Prince a true ruler right a true dictator even although right maybe not best to use that term talking about his work here given how we generally think of what a dictator is in our modern era um very different kind of thing I think than what Machiavelli would have in mind as he's talking about the prince here um but um but but think about too I mean you've read this piece already I hope you read it where he gives all those examples and it's easy to sort of get bogged down in them and I definitely don't want to spend time talking about the examples of the different rulers in past history that he refers to in order to illustrate his particular points but even there right you see how he is criticizing them right this is why this particular ruler failed or this is why this particular ruler was not able to get the peoples conquered in the way that he should have been able to do so even among those who have the position of some type of Prince or some type of ruler right not all of them are good at it some of them are really bad at it so so he seems to to have an idea here really of certain kinds of people and even certain kinds of leaders having the requisite abilities to do that job well well Let's uh talk a little bit about Machiavelli who who he is and then we'll move on and look at some particular passages in this text that I want to draw your attention to and I'll give a little bit of discussion about so he's a 15th century thinker um well born in the 15th and died in the 16th century so right right smack dab in the middle as they say of the Renaissance era in 1498 he became second Chancellor of the Republic of Florence which involved diplomatic work around Italy and France so of course when we think of the country Italy these days we think of it as right one country shaped like a boot on the globe um of course back in the at this time in history right there is no real unified Italy Italy is sort of that region as it is generally understood but it's not all that Unified different cities within the country really are their own countries they're their own Nations they are their own states that are self-governing that's how Florence was so he was a government official for the country of Florence now we'd call the City of Florence and Italy but the Republic of Florence itself but later on there was a very powerful family in the Medici family and they garnered an attack against the Republic's Armed Forces itself and dissolved that government in the early 16th century well because Machiavelli himself worked for the previous administration the previous government that had been taken over well he was out of a job but even more than that because he was loyal to the original government he was exiled he was imprisoned he was tortured life wasn't very good for him but interestingly enough right while all this was going down after his political career had ended he looked back on that whole event the Medici family doing what they did and he came to realize for himself anyway how wonderful that was how incredibly um uh put it to put this way he came to have a whole lot of admiration for the raw power and ability of the medicis to accomplish that um and that in virtue of itself he thought was a good thing and he became persuaded that it was a good thing and so not long after that he wrote this piece called The Prince and it was not published until after he died but he wrote it specifically for Giuliano Medici who was a co-ruler of Florence along with other of his brothers and really what this text does if we can put it summarily is that it explores the legitimacy of authority and Power in other words I think we can go ahead and say give you the punch line do it all that raw Authority and Power in and of itself that is effective it is morally okay it is right because he sees both right Authority and power as essentially good in themselves and really not needing to be tied to moral virtue in order to be legitimate so at this point what I want to do is go through a few of the uh parts of this text and I've got my copy here with me this is that the same copy that I have put up on um uh for you to download so I hope that you have a copy of this or at least are looking at this maybe in another window on your computer screen but I hope that we can go through this together so chapter two I'll start there because it's in this particular chapter and this is going to be on page six that he talks about what to do when one is Con concentrating on conquering a specific kind of monarchy and here he has in mind a hereditary monarchy so I think it's fair to say that a monarchy in general is going to be one where there is a Divine ruler um uh that usually comes about through right the the divine right through a particular lineage or a particular family tree and that is what hereditary monarchy itself would be so for instance a really good example of that would be the United Kingdom that is a monarchy and we know that just recently Queen Elizabeth died and so who is it that takes over her throne now that she has passed away well it's her firstborn son who is now King Charles so that would be an example of a Reddit of a hereditary monarchy a monarchy that is passed down through a family line so what does he have to say about conquering taking over ruling a hereditary monarchy indeed if you want to take it upon yourself to overthrow the United Kingdom right here's here's how you would want to think about how to do that so notice the second paragraph here on this page of chapter two Machiavelli says so I'll begin by noting that hereditary monarchies where people have long been used to the rulers family are far easier to hold than new ones all a monarch need do is avoid upsetting the order established by his predecessors trim policies to circumstances where there is trouble and assuming he is of average ability he will keep his kingdom for life over only extraordinary and overwhelming force will be able to take it off him and even then he'll win it back as soon as the occupying power runs into trouble and then he gives some examples of this so the idea here is that if you want to take over a monarchy that is that first generations and maybe even for centuries has been used to one particular family doing it that that kind of monarchy is easier to hold on to if you take it over maybe one of the reasons why here is because that's what people are used to they're used to being ruled over a monarch and really what does it matter if it's you rather than them so long as you don't upset them so long as you don't um mess up the order that has been established in other words if things don't really look all that different to the to the people the only thing that's different is the person sitting in the throne then you should be just fine regarding that now you're thinking why in a Humanities class we're reading something like this right who really cares about about these old Renaissance understandings of thinking about how to take over political entities well obviously that's not our concern all right our concern and to take us back to our course question what does it mean to be human Our concern is answering that question but notice how even this particular paragraph helps to answer that question what is it that Machiavelli assumes about humanity and assumes about people that would make him think that that statement in this paragraph here is true maybe that people are selfish they're self-serving people really only care about having their needs met to some extent right then this is a very different kind of view or assumption about what a human is as compared to um the Gospel of Luke let's say or compared to Aristotle's ethics and and even his politics um that there rather is a drive towards Excellence there's a drive towards flourishing that's really important and Machiavelli seems to have a different view here that it's sort of status quo is what matters not upsetting things not making them go too crazy here so I think that's an interesting point to recognize furthermore look at the next chapter chapter three I want to spend a little bit of time here going over a few things that I think also help answer our question in terms of how Machiavelli assumes Humanity to be in this third chapter he's talking about mixed monarchies and I guess that what he means by that is um let's say that you are oh I don't know let's say that you are the king of Alabama I'm just going to make up a silly example here to illustrate what I think he's getting at here let's say that you're the king of Alabama let's say that you've been the king of Alabama and your family has been for 200 years and let's say that all of a sudden you Garner your forces and you take over the state of Georgia right to our East now let's say that for the last 200 years Georgia has been a self-governing entity um for the most part Maybe um maybe it's just an entity or a region that's made up of a bunch of individual city-states themselves that's just sort of govern themselves nothing too formal they just they just kind of do what they do but you as King in your realm now have conquered that whole region that is the state of Georgia and now it's now it's part of an extension of the king of your kingship of your rulership well this is what he means by a mixed monarchy because part of that new kingdom is used to monarchy and part of it is not so it's mixed and there's mixed ideas there's mixed feelings and there's even sort of a mixed uh way in which this has to be handled because of um because of the newness of it so look at at chapter three here I guess it's going to be on page seven the first paragraph that begins Machiavelli says when a monarchy is new things are harder if it's not entirely new but a territory added to an existing monarchy let's call this over overall situation mixed instabilities are caused first and foremost by what is an inevitable problem for all new regimes that men are quick to change ruler when they imagine they can improve their lot it is this conviction that prompts them to take up arms and rebel then later they discovered they were wrong and that things have got worse rather than better so indeed even here the assumption is that people are always looking to serve their own interests to indeed improve their wealth to improve what what their interests are concerned in getting so notice a few lines down kind of the middle of that paragraph Machiavelli goes on so not only do you make enemies of those whose interests you damaged when you occupied the territory but you can't even keep the friendship of the people who helped you take power for the simple and this for the simple reason that you can't give them as much as they expected and you can't get tough with them either since you still need them because however strong your armies you'll always need local support to occupy a new territory it tells us something else about his view of human nature doesn't it and even just maybe simple common sense when it comes to dealing with people that when you want to change things when you want to control things when you want things to go your way you need other people to cooperate with you in order to do that so as a ruler it can't really be all about serving your own personal interests although he thinks that that is ultimately the case but it can't come across that way it can't be that you beat people down so much um and and and turned their livelihoods and their Lifestyles into uh servitude or or into the suffering as a result of bad economic policy or anything like that what you have to do is uh realize that you have to have them on your side and so he gives a few examples of that and then on page eight in the bottom paragraph that begins Makaveli says needless to say any territory annexed to the realm of a conquering ruler may or may not be in the same geographical region and stare this share the same language um fair enough I mean this is an example or examples where this wasn't the case was examples of the Roman Empire where there were certain aspects that weren't necessarily connected they were kind of you know landlocked by themselves but in his history is that case or shows that to be true in various forms this obviously is not in the uh uh does not apply to the example I used about you know taking over the realm of Georgia as part of your kingdom of Alabama but but nonetheless that he goes on if it is and the language is shared the territory will be much easier to hold on to especially if it's people are not used to the freedom of self-government so if you're taking over a region that where they they all speak the same language that's going to make things a lot easier and especially if they're not used to sort of running their own lives but there's always been some sort of Chief or there's always been some sort of um a governor over them then what does it matter if it's if it's another kind of Governor or another kind of Chief at the end of the day which is you they'll get used to that they'll be okay then he goes on well then in that case all you have to do is eliminate the family of the previous ruler and your hold on power is guaranteed everything else in the territory can then be left as it was and given that there are no profound differences in customs people will accept the situation quietly enough in other words they'll be fine and then he goes on and gives some different examples of that throughout history in other words what do you do if you take over a land um that is used to some sort of ruler well what you need to do to actually make things most effective efficient and to really in a sense um to quell the violence or to keep it very suppressed so that there's not a whole lot of violence as a result of you're taking over this new land what you have to do is expel the previous governor the previous Chief and their entire family because then if if people start having later on thoughts that uh oh man things will be so much better if if we had Joe again as our local King but you know what we don't have Joe but Joe's son we have him maybe we could install him as our next king and rebel against this this Machiavellian type that has come in and has taken over our land well Machiavelli says or seems to imply that you know allowing those kinds of people to live um could stir up violence it could stir up problems so what you need to do is completely obliterate the family of the previous ruler after all and this is sort of the gist he's saying about this particular passage people are malleable to do rulership I mean this is this is the Assumption here this is this is pretty much what he's saying though I mean people he said will accept the situation quietly enough your hold on power is guaranteed why because people will accept this kind of change again who cares if it's you versus the other people right they're used to serving some sort of Monarch and having that kind of authority over them but notice on page nine the paragraph that begins about three lines from the top but when a ruler occupies a state in an area that has a different language different customs and different Institute institutions then things get tough um one way he then he thinks that one can solve that problem is for the ruler to go live there himself another way he talks about that later on on page nine in the paragraph that begins near the bottom of the page is he says another good solution is then to establish colonies and what he has in mind there is this idea of you know if you're going to go take over this land on the other side of the globe well then send a lot of your own people over there to establish their own their own cities within the people that you've conquered have them sort of uh set up in order to show other people how you live in your own culture and how you are preparing to change them right or or send people over there that are totally okay with you as a ruler because they already know you and they like you and they're used to you and then by example they'll show everybody else right how to deal with with you as a ruler with how to deal with the culture of your own kingdom and all of that right The Colony way is a effective way and he shows all kinds of examples about that throughout the rest of this chapter so he says they're in that paragraph right another good solution is to establish colonies in one or two places these work rather like chains to bind the captured state to your own so in a way right that's it's it's it's it's like you have fastened the people of that new land to yourself they're like chains right people can't get away from them because they become assimilated in some ways to what it is to be ruled under you as he goes on and talks about that these are cheap they don't take a whole lot of expense indeed if you're sending a colony of just regular people over there they're not military right they're not soldiers they don't have weapons they're just going over there to live um and so he says in conclusion at the bottom of page nine moving on to page 10 in conclusion colonies are cheap more loyal provoke less hostility among your new subjects and as I've said those few who are provoked can't fight backed since they'll be dispossessed refugees if you've sent people to start colonies then in a sense you've already created your own land in that new land and people who fight back then will be in a sense won't make any sense because just in virtue of all this they will be have become refugees in their own land on their own territory then he goes on to say something very interesting here on page 10. in this regard it's worth noting that in general you must either pamper people or destroy them harm them just a little and they'll hit back harm them seriously and they won't be able to so if you're going to do people hop to do people harm make sure you needed to worry about their reaction isn't that fascinating so how do you deal with people especially people that you've conquered um you must either make them feel really good about themselves and good about you and so you pamper them right make them feel as though you really care about them and then they won't bother with you or just completely annihilate them and then they won't bother you right either way they won't be a problem but if you sanction them just a little bit he says if you harm them just a little you're just going to make them angry and they'll hit back they will start revolutions or attempt to they will Rebel they will revolt and these are the kinds of things that cause all kinds of disunity and cause all kinds of problems for the prince for the new ruler he goes on to say right you need to do that because even if you were to send an occupying Army rather than establish colonies then things will be expensive and then he goes on a few lines below and says at the end of the day you will provoke more hostility you'll just make people even angrier I noticed this last line of that particular paragraph and these are enemies who can hit back people beaten but still on their own ground um the ones that you have made Angry if they still feel like they have their own land that they can fight for and that they can try to defend right there's something even emotionally and psychologically Salient about that for a lot of people they may try to defend it they will try to uh or they will believe even in their hearts very deeply that it's worth fighting for and they'll do what they have to to try to save it so colonies rather are the better idea right keeping people happy is the better idea or just completely annihilating them so that you don't have to worry about them well he sees the Romans as being an excellent Exemplar of this way of thinking about it so on page 11 the paragraph that begins he says the Romans follow these principles whenever they took a new province that is whenever they conquered a new land and made a new Province part of the Empire itself what did they do well they sent colonists and we've already talked a little bit about that Rome sent people regular people there to set up a city to set up a town and to live in that region as Romans um providing all kinds of benefits I mean one thing you have to realize about the Roman Empire good grief is that they had all kinds of modern technological gadgets and advances and education um to some extent even Plumbing uh water aqueducts Bridges I mean they had all kinds of stuff that they brought to uh very uncouth parts of the world that made people's life easier so it was very influential and Rome would send just regular people that knew how to do these things there and in some ways it attracted the local people to that so they sent those kinds of colonists then he goes on those colonists established friendly relations with weaker Neighbors though without allowing them to increase their power right so relationships were built they undermined stronger neighbors and they prevented powerful rulers outside the region from Gaining influence there so what the colonists did was they went they made relationships with people without allowing those people to gain any more power over them they were able to undermine um people there that could rise up and be stronger as well as those on the cusp of the regions that that could take them over what wouldn't allow them to do that um and they were able to cut off influence from other parts of the world influence from Nations that indeed would like to become an Empire like Rome itself so very fascinating and of course for him it goes on to gives some more examples of that but for him right that is what that is what he admires right this is the foolproof method for him on how to take over a people that themselves have some semblance of uh what it means to be ruled over right which is for the for the vast majority of the world people are ruling over other people so this is the assumption that he has even about Humanity itself let's say that it's natural true all over people and actually that's what he says page 13 a paragraph that begins down at the bottom after he's gone through and given this example of Lewis of France he concludes that discussion by saying this the desire to conquer more territory really is a very natural ordinary thing and whenever men have the resources to do so they'll be praised or at least not blamed but when they don't have the resources you carry on regardless then they're at fault and deserve what blame they get if Lewis goes on concludes sort of his discussion here about Lewis if Lewis was in a position to capture the kingdom of Naples with his own forces that he should have gone ahead and done it this is a fascinating statement for a few reasons again right we're seeing really his view of human nature here that there is a um inherent sort of pre-programmed disposition of The Human Condition or at least of a good leader at least to want to add more territory to one's own lands um to take over other nations to take over other people of course there's all kinds of examples we could give where that didn't go so well where it was really bad you know think of Hitler think of Stalin maybe even think of sort of the modern Russian State and Putin right this desire to to take over and add more to what his country already has but for Machiavelli that's a very natural that's a very human thing I mean what how could we answer the question what does it mean to be human for Machiavelli to be human is to want more it is to gain more this is natural it's ordinary as he puts it but it's more than just stating a fact about what the nature of humanity is or what this one aspect of human nature is he goes beyond the is to now describe the ought that is because our nature is this way we ought then to satisfy that desire we ought to go for it when men have the resources to do so they will always be praised or at least not blamed in other words it's a praiseworthy thing to do morally speaking and he goes on and says that Lewis actually should have done this so he says that there's or suggests that there is a moral requirement even incumbent upon him to do so if he had the resources for doing it but what did Lewis do page 14 the paragraph that begins about five lines from the top Lewis made five mistakes he eliminated the weaker States uh weaker States actually would have been good to keep around because because they're weak they would have needed Lewis they would have needed this new monarch they would have been loyal to him so he he got rid of the people that would have been loyal to him he enhanced the power of one of Italy's stronger States so he in other words made them stronger to rebel and to revolt and to rise up against him and to cause problems for him he brought in an extremely powerful foreign King well that's that's not good if if you're the one supposed to be taking taking over stuff he didn't go live in the territory that he acquired in other words he was a ruler by distance he didn't invest invest himself into the local culture in the local territory and he didn't establish colonies there right he was trying to uh pardon this expression of putting it but he was trying to run a run a foreign country or run a land that was far away from his own merely by uh through Zoom right or through Skype at a distance and it was not so well I want to skip up now I think we've covered that enough uh to chapter five where he talks about how to govern cities and states that were previously self-governing and I think that this is very interesting especially if I were to throw out um a scenario to you right now so let's assume that hopefully this doesn't freak you out too much and I will not I will not let you really know how I think about some conspiracy theories but let's assume at some point as some people think is inevitable if we don't get our act together in this country we will eventually become Chinese Chinese will take us over they will set up their own government here let's say that they are completely Machiavellian in how they do this and how they think about it well how do you govern that right how would they govern us knowing that um we ourselves are self-governing right that that's how we operate here in the United States we elect representatives that take care of the business but ultimately it comes down to us we govern ourselves through their representation and through the laws that they pass by our consent to some extent well notice how he starts off this particular chapter five this is Page 19. Machiavelli says when the States you invade have been accustomed to governing themselves without a monarch and living in Freedom under their own laws well that's like the US isn't it then there are three ways of holding on to them the first is to reduce them to Rubble right that would be the easiest thing to do just completely annihilate that state and then really you will have no problems right because there is no strength that they have left there's no resources there's no military there's no Weaponry there's no nothing just to completely annihilate them the second is to go and live there yourself I guess the idea he has there um again right is is for this Prince this new monarch to set himself up as being vested locally there where people can see it for themselves that their new ruler lives there he is among them and the third is to let them go on living under their own laws make them pay you a tax and install a government of just a few local people to keep the state as a whole friendly since this government has been set up by the invading ruler its members know they can't survive without his support and will do everything they can to defend his authority once you've decided not to destroy it the best way to hold a previously self-governing city is with the help of its own citizens and he goes on to describe some examples of this I think what's interesting about that is there's all kinds of examples of this last one I know we read recently um uh the Gospel of Luke and of course the first few chapters of that talk about the story of this guy named Jesus and and the reason or the context in which he was born where there was particular Governors and then uh and the Kings and all of that in Israel of that time the reason why I think of that when I read this this third part that Machiavelli is talking about is because um right we realize that that particular region of the world was under the authority of the Roman Empire and there was a governor from Rome that was sent there to govern he lives there among them and his name is his name was Pilate but he was a Roman himself and he really was just sort of just you know keeping his watch over things he wasn't ruling with an iron fist necessarily the way that Rome uh understood the best way to rule over these Israelite people was to let them have their own government and they did I mean they even had their own King right Herod who really wasn't a king according to the standards and uh criteria of the Old Testament scriptures themselves that that people of that time in that location right the Jews would have been uh saw as authoritative for them but nonetheless right they had their own government they had a Sanhedrin of Elders they had a uh they had their King Herod right so um they're sort of self-governing even though Rome owns them and owned Rome uh runs them but they could see their own leaders they could see their own government taking place and although there had been some skirmishes and some revolts first you know a couple hundred years things are relatively quiet in 80 70 though there was a group that decided well we're tired of this and they tried to revolt but uh they quickly got squashed down by the Romans wasn't wasn't much of a fight really but that's that's what I think of as an example when I read this and you know if if if if another dictator was to come and take over our country I don't know if it would look all that different I think that's probably the most practical thing to do is yeah let them pass their own laws let them elect their own Representatives let them even you know have their own Executives so to say uh but uh but will control the Department of Treasury will control the military um and we'll control uh technology and all these other kinds of things but let people have some semblance of their old way of life even though we own it and we run it let's not have things look too differently so I think that's fascinating again that says something else about how Machiavelli thinks about human nature if you don't disrupt people too much then that man make them think that their that their life is going well and that that to some extent they have control over it other than you're not going to have any problem you'll be a good ruler at the end of the day in chapter six it's fascinating I could spend hours here and I won't but in chapter six Machiavelli goes on to talk about um certain leaders specific leaders and the various qualities that they had that sort of naturally allowed them to be great leaders as he puts it on page 22 these are the people that have specific qualities um so it's not by luck that they came to be good leaders or conquer lands but it's it's as if they had specific giftings to be good leaders and one of these is Moses and it's fascinating he talks about Moses of course in our course we read about Moses and Torah um read what has traditionally been um cited as indeed his writing all the books of the Torah that he that he wrote or at least he dictated right that this comes from him um and talks about the qualities that Moses had to lead his people out of Egyptian domination and to lead them really um into becoming their own nation of people as an independent state as an independent nation and Country at that time in that part of the world of course what's fascinating is that he says something that even Moses himself would probably disagree with given what we know about what Moses wrote and that well let's just read read from the top of page 22 and it's just a few lines down that they get to the point that I want to talk about he says but to turn to those who became rulers through their own qualities rather than by luck no doubt the most impressive are Moses Cyrus Romulus they suis or Earth or Theseus sorry and such like figures and though we can hardly say much about Moses since he merely carried out God's orders all the same we have to admire him for the grace that made him worthy of God's attention I think that's that's interesting because for Machiavelli it's about Moses's qualities that make him a really good or made him a really good leader not as Moses would say because God called him to do that or because he was divinely appointed to do that indeed he seems Machiavelli seems to think that there was something inherent in Moses Moses himself that made him Worthy uh for God to look at him and appreciate him and want him to do the particular work that he did again I think that that's that's a contradiction with the text of Torah itself but it's very telling again it's it's very telling for what it tells us about Renaissance thinking it's about the individual it's about the person what is it that they have going for them this is what we're going to think about that's what we're going to focus on we won't focus on Transcendent realities if there are any will not even postulate them what we're concerned about is what can we do as individual human beings what is so great about our humanity and so it's Machiavelli using that lens or maybe he doesn't even realize that he has that lens but it's through that lens now that he's looking back at history in other words he's looking back at history in a way that the people who made that history weren't even looking at it themselves right he's imposing this different sort of view on all of that and trying to come up with these ideas that he's coming up with here well notice on page 23 now we are starting to look a little bit more at this regarding this topic of this chapter where he begins to talk about the qualities of leader and talking about how that are states that are won by the new rulers own abilities themselves or qualities and forces um so we're looking at the specific uh characteristics of the prince or of the ruler in these cases there are several things I'm going to look at here notice at the top of page 23 he knows that there's it's not always easy when you have a really good leader and a really good prince who does this at the top he says that there will be initial difficulties but they depend in large part on the fact that in order to establish their government and guarantee its security they have to impose a new administrative system and new procedures here we have to bear in mind that nothing is hard to organize or more likely to fail or more dangerous to see through than the introduction of a new system of government I mean we've got examples of that even in our own time right when we look back at military intervention in different parts of the world where new government have been set up even in places where they have never had democracy that we have people there that have lived by a kind of monarchy type system for millennia and Western forces go in as democracies um it's a huge shock to the system to the sort of cultural memory of how people organize themselves and what they do so this is this is very different he goes on the person bringing in the changes will make enemies of everyone who is doing well under the old system while the people who stand to gain from the new Arrangement will not offer wholehearted support partly because they are afraid of their opponents who still have the laws on their side and partly because people are naturally skeptical no one really believes in change until they've had a solid experience of it again right he's he's making a lot of points here about human nature itself and what it means to be human has to really be understood well in order to have the best strategy for how to control or govern or rule over people people are naturally skeptical when you bring in change right because we know what works we know the reliability of old systems and usually when we change things it's the quirks of those systems not the entire system itself so you have to be careful about this right people like the groove that has been cut for them and the groove that they are comfortable in so notice the the larger paragraph there sort of uh that begins just below halfway through page 23. he says to get a better grasp of the problem we have to ask is the leader introducing the changes relying on his own resources or does he depend on other people's support that is does he have to beg help to achieve his goals or can he impose them if he's begging for help he's bound to fail and will get nowhere if for no other reason I think from Rock Valley because the leader looks weak now and you can't have a weak leader if he's begging people to support him but he goes on but if he's got his own resources and can impose his plans then it's unlikely he'll be running serious risks this is why the Visionary who has an armed force on his side has always won through while unarmed men even your your visionary is always a Louver the loser not a Louver a loser if in other words if you've got power backing up your strength and determination and your will to rule over people then you will be a success but if you but there's something psychological about it apparently I mean but if you don't have that power people won't take you seriously and then he goes on because on top of everything else we must remember that the general Public's mood will swing in other words people are fickle what does it mean what does it mean to be human that's another thing it's fickle it's fickleness you can change people's minds about this he goes on it's easy to convince people of something but hard to keep them convinced this is why often political pundits will say that the national memory is very short right some politician may have done something really horrible and then in six months time people have will have totally forgotten about it and reelect them so Machiavelli goes on so when they stop believing in you you must be in a position to force them to believe so if they stop believing that you really are all-powerful and can take care of things you need strong might you need the ability to sanction the ability to punish the ability to make examples of people in order to force them to believe this is probably why Kim Jong-un in North Korea is incredibly successful in governing and controlling his people because he has the ability to force them to believe which is probably why um whenever you look at uh those examples of when someone within the UN family has died there'll be millions of people in Pyongyang which is North Korea's capital that will uh hang out in the streets and will be crying their eyes out as the funeral procession takes place is it because they are very sad at the passing of the leader well maybe with some that they are but I've read a lot of testimonials from former North Koreans that know they were glad that they died but they realize that if they didn't show extreme remorse at the death of that royal family member then they would be punished for it in other words in Machiavelli's words they believe that that dictatorial family has forced them they are in a position to force these people to believe in their power well I'll stop right there I think we've looked at enough relevant tests I just want to make a few concluding points about this some takeaways from this text again as we think about our course question what does it mean to be human so what are some takeaways from this well I think one takeaway we could say is that a well-run state is a function of a strong effective military that's pretty much what Machiavelli's getting at there are cases where um and he showed some of them where you know if you take care of people then as long as you keep the status quo going things are fine you don't need to necessarily annihilate them although sometimes you might um but having that military there having an effective efficient military that could pout at any time um essentially the assumption is that that's going to keep people in line from revolting or from trying to go against you as as a leader in whatever place it is that you rule over that threat always needs to be there to keep people in line secondly one's Authority is legitimized by one's will Prince becomes the authority by successfully exerting his will to power Contra divine right so I stay Contra divine right because generally speaking and I've already mentioned this without I'll repeat it just just for now we generally think of monarchies throughout history as being uh monarchies of family that is you know like with Queen Elizabeth and like with King Charles when one dies then the next in that family line takes over well he seems to deny that whereas most people would have thought that that is what that is what legitimizes one's power is because well they're the descendant of the previous monarch for Machiavelli that's not the case at all that what legitimizes one Authority is not Divine family tree but merely one's will one's will to exert this kind of power and to successfully do it in other words what makes it morally permissible for a particular Prince to be the prince well because he has successfully exerted his will to power he has successfully accomplished the Conquering of a people that morally justifies what he does and what he has done that gives him the authority in other words I won the battle therefore I get the authority to do this so it's not about morality per se some sort of uh morality that itself is is real and thus means that or teaches us that you shouldn't kill people you shouldn't conquer people just for your own purposes uh Machiavelli seems to deny that no that's that's not the case at all this is what this is what the world is after all it's natural for people to want more and to acquire more land especially in the case of some type of monarch so that's just reality speaking of reality third point when governing perception is reality in other words maybe things aren't going that well with you as the prince with you as trying to conquer people but if they don't know the truth about that then things are okay all that they need to do is perceive that things are going well all they need to do is perceive that you are powerful right and the military is one way to a strong military is one way to exercise that as we've seen so people need to believe it whether it's true or not right I mean that was one of the points that he made um people need to believe indeed that you're in power people need to believe even if you force them to believe in in your power whether or not it's true doesn't matter it's merely about the belief of it fourth Point unless you take care of people well annihilate them after all humans are only after their own self-interest anyway um so if you can't meet their self-interest you might as well just kill them get rid of them because uh then they will just be a problem then they're going to complain then they're going to uh have thoughts of assassinating people in your uh in your government maybe even you yourself they may try to revolt they may try to to conspire a rebellion against you such as what happened you know in the late 18th century in France the conspiracies among the lower classes together to revolt against the elites of that Society I think what Machiavelli would say is that the monarchs of that time at France should have just annihilated their people then they would have had no no trouble I mean they wouldn't have had any people but then they wouldn't have had the trouble of the Revolution itself the next point so long as most of your people are living well cruelty when needed will not threaten your throne if you need to make an example of a few people even of a few families that are conspiring and show your might and your force that this is what happens when people revolt against the king it might make some other people angry well he didn't have any right to kill that family he doesn't have any right to make an example of them but you might be less likely to do that if pay your bank account's full you got plenty of food in the fridge you've got a pretty good job your kids are in good schools you've got a nice car right if things are going relatively well even if some injustice according to our understanding of that or unfairness according to our understanding of that is happening to other people or we would be less likely to complain um if you need as a king to be cruel to certain people it's not going to make everybody else too angry so long as they're doing well the next Point even if cruel your strength will be respected far more than your weakness what was the problem with many of these leaders in the examples and I didn't go through all those examples and you can read that on your own and I hope you do what is it about those leaders that um even aggravates to some extent or a noise Machiavelli himself well their weakness that they don't start from from a position of strength and they don't have this confidence in their own strength even if you are cruel right even if you are a jerk even if you are an absolute beast and a tyrant Makaveli seems to think that still the strength that you have in that is respected far more than the weakness that other leaders convey another Point desire to be feared rather than loved but strike a good balance between the two and that's that's a good sort of summation of a lot of these things we've read and talked about in this text that you want people to fear you rather than to love you but a little bit of both goes a long way right they don't want to cross you they don't want to mess with you if you are their their King their Monarch they're Prince um but at the same time it's good if they appreciate or at least have some sense of gratitude for what they're able to have because you allow them to have it and allow them to live in that particular way and then lastly this is one of the more interesting things I think about a text like this Machiavelli suggests that because it is natural to want to conquer other lands and peoples this is where he talks about that natural desire that that people have to want more right because it's natural to want to increase your domain to increase your Empire to increase your state doing so is virtuous right I mean that's what you ought to be doing so he seems to have an understanding of morality that itself is based on just how things are what the desires themselves dictate therefore that is what's morally right now I think what's interesting about that too is is it you know we start seeing that kind of talk in the Renaissance area and when you see it here and of course Machiavelli is talking about it in terms of um statecraft and in terms of politics and political philosophy to some extent but think about having how that even that particular point in our era some few hundred years later has now exploded into all other kinds of Realms that just because I have a desire for some kind of thing that desire sort of self-legitimates or it legitimates itself it legitimizes itself that the desire itself should be followed upon it should be acted out it should be exercised merely because it's an internal desire I have that's tied up to my psychology and my emotions it's what I feel that I want and therefore I should do that or even to some extent therefore I am that I am to be identified part and parcel with that desire or with emotion so what is to be human in our day as we think about that really picks up on some influences from this particular era indeed how how this particular issue begins here and then it's developed even further as people like Rousseau and Freud and others will pick up on this idea and will develop it even further and further and further until we get to its Fuller development Even in our day so anyway I hope you've enjoyed this very interesting text I'm always fascinated by it I always love reading it and thinking about it and until next time have a great rest of your day