| Political Morality?
By Andrew Curry
Special to The Washington
Post
Horizon Section, January
13, 1999
The name Niccolo
di Bernardo Machiavelli evokes the essence of immorality. To label someone
a Machiavellian is to accuse him of putting convenience and success ahead
of principle. This unsavory reputation grew from one work in 1513, The
Prince, a little handbook packed with advice on how to get power and keep
it. Remarkably apt in the current climate of political scandal, it remains
avidly read.
As a statesman
and writer caught up in the vicious intrigues of Renaissance Italy, Machiavelli
was a participant in power politics and a shrewd analyst of the way power
worked. The Prince became one of the most discussed works of the era, exciting
some and shocking others -- as it does even now -- with its raw portrayal
of power.
Even Tupac Shakur,
the late rap superstar, drew on Machiavelli's
reputation, releasing his
last album under the pseudonym "Makaveli."
The Prince "became
a symbol of a way of acting in politics that's
commonly understood to be
amoral, if not immoral," says Bruce Douglass, a professor of government
at Georgetown University. "That's probably an incorrect characterization.
If you look carefully at the work, it's more that Machiavelli is proposing
practices that would be immoral in ordinary life.
"However, as
many people know -- perhaps most people know -- political life and the
affairs of nations require something which is a bit different. What Machiavelli
does in The Prince is give expression to that in a somewhat graphic and
unqualified way."
Indeed, Machiavelli's
image has undergone a makeover in the last few decades. The work for which
he is chiefly remembered now is more widely recognized as only one chapter
in the story of a poet, playwright, adventurer, military leader, statesman
and pioneering political scientist who rose from obscurity to the heights
of governmental celebrity, only to fall into ruinous shame.
Born on May
3, 1469, just outside Florence, Machiavelli was in a perfect position to
observe some of the most tumultuous times Italy had known since the fall
of the Roman Empire. Italy then was not a united nation but a conglomerate
of independent city-states, of which Florence was among the most prominent.
Machiavelli
came from a distinguished family with a long history of government service.
Niccolo was the oldest son of one of the clan's poorest members -- his
father Bernardo was born illegitimate and incurred so many unpaid debts
that he was barred from public office. Though little is known about Niccolo's
early life, it is clear that he received a solid, if not first-rate, education
in law and the classics, and he joined the powerful lawyers guild as a
young man.
Since 1434,
the Medici family, Italy's richest and most powerful clan, had dominated
the Florentine political scene. By the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
who became head of the family in 1469, the Medicis' influence had spread
throughout the country via alliances and strategic marriages.
Their power
was consolidated after 1478 when a failed attempt on
Lorenzo's life by members
of an opposing faction -- supported by the pope -- sparked a bloody pro-Medici
riot. The clash ended with the lynching of the Medicis' most prominent
opponents and rivals, who were hung from the walls of the Palazzo not three
blocks from 9-year-old Niccolo's home.
But such control
was not to last. Lorenzo died in 1492. His son Piero took power and quickly
lost it as the French conqueror Charles VIII swept through Italy. Piero
bought Florence's safety by giving away most of its territories, a decision
so resented in Florence that he was forced to flee.
With the Medicis
gone, the ascetic monk Fra Girolamo Savonarola whipped Florence into a
God-fearing, anti-Medici frenzy for four years. In what Machiavelli later
would analyze as an inevitable backlash, Savonarola was excommunicated,
hanged and burned in 1498. Florence's government shifted again, finally
opening the way for Machiavelli to step into the spotlight.
At age 30, he
was named secretary to the Florentine governing council, a distinguished
position he held for almost 14 years. He was essentially Florence's top
bureaucrat, carrying out council orders, representing Florence on diplomatic
missions and organizing a militia. He gained experience and respect as
a statesman and became a close and trusted adviser to the heads of the
republic.
The job took
Machiavelli on diplomatic missions throughout and beyond Italy. He traveled
to France three times, meeting with King Louis XII and went to Rome to
meet with Pope Julius II, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and, perhaps
most importantly, the infamous Italian warlord Cesare Borgia, who was to
become one of Machiavelli's models of a ruthless prince.
But at the height
of Machiavelli's career, the Medici family returned to power, overthrowing
the elected Florentine government in 1512 and eliminating potential troublemakers.
Less than two months later, Machiavelli lost his position. Things soon
became worse.
A list of supposed
anti-Medici conspirators drafted by two young
Florentines included Machiavelli's
name. Sought by the authorities, he surrendered and was imprisoned in the
dungeons of the Bargello, Florence's prison, and tortured. Most likely,
his interrogators used the strappado, tying Machiavelli's hands behind
his back and hoisting him off the ground to hang by his wrists and wrenched
arms.
After 22 days,
he was released, still proclaiming innocence. There was no evidence that
he had been involved in a plot.
Suspected of
treason and granted only limited freedom, Machiavelli
retreated to a small villa
he owned outside of Florence. Relatives and friends, afraid to be associated
with him or in political trouble themselves, pushed him away. "Everything,"
he wrote in a letter to a close friend, "was totally wrecked."
Desperate, he
decided to write a book to gain the Medicis' favor, and he completed this
peace offering in just a few months in 1513.
The Prince emerged
from his experience in prison and the ruin that his life had become. Alone,
under virtual house arrest, he lost faith in human nature and decided that
man could always be counted on to be weak and self-interested.
"One can generally
say this about men: that they are ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers,
avoiders of danger, greedy for gain; and while you work for their good
they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their
lives and their sons . . . when danger is far away; but when it comes nearer
to you they turn away," Machiavelli wrote in The Prince.
For him, man's
weak nature was a constant as unchanging as the bright sun that rose above
his beloved Tuscan hills. A strong prince who understood and accepted that
could gain power and do good. To the thinkers of the Renaissance, full
of faith in humanity and the power of the human mind, this view was shocking.
The lessons
drawn by Machiavelli were even more scandalous to his contemporaries. "It
is much safer to be feared than loved when one of the two must be lacking,"
he wrote.
"Men are less
hesitant about harming someone who makes himself loved than one who makes
himself feared because love is held together by a chain of obligation which,
since men are a sorry lot, is broken on every occasion in which their own
self-interest is concerned; but fear is held together by a dread of punishment
which will never abandon you."
Consequently,
"A wise ruler . . . cannot and should not keep his word when such an observance
of faith would be to his disadvantage and when the reasons which made him
promise are removed. And if men were all good, this rule would not be good;
but since men are a sorry lot and will not keep their promises to you,
you likewise need not keep your promises to them.
"A prince must
not worry about the reproach of his cruelty when it is a matter of keeping
his subjects united and loyal; for with a very few examples of cruelty,
he will be more compassionate than those who, out of excessive mercy, permit
disorders to continue, from which arise murders and plundering; for those
usually harm the community at large, while the execution that come from
The Prince harm one individual in particular."
Scholars today
are quick to note that these maxims make up only part of Machiavelli's
philosophy and were not intended as ethical pronouncements but as practical
and realistic advice.
"I think Machiavelli
says nothing that he disbelieved, but [The Prince] isn't a full statement
of his beliefs," Douglass says. "It's a very sober, realistic, even cynical
book, but it's all in the genre of advice.
"He's saying
to the intended audience for the work, 'Here's what you need to do to get
and keep power.' If I tell you there are a lot of hard things you need
to do to get power, I don't think that's negative, it's just realistic.
It's pretty hard-boiled."
To Machiavelli's
contemporaries, however, such statements were
outrageous.
Francesco Giucciardini,
a Florentine historian and Machiavelli's friend, published criticisms of
Machiavelli's two most basic premises: that men were by nature bad and
that the ancients were suitable models for modern leaders.
Later, Machiavelli
was translated into the French by Innocent Gentillet, who was often called
the anti-Machiavel and who wrote in 1576 that Machiavelli invented "totally
wicked maxims and built upon them a science not political but tyrannical."
Machiavelli
first dedicated The Prince to Giuliano de'Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent
and brother of the new head of the Medici family, Giovanni de'Medici, who
became Pope Leo X in 1513.
Giuliano was
the Medicis' choice to rule Florence but died before he could do so and
before Machiavelli could present the book. Machiavelli kept it for several
years, revising and altering it. Finally, he decided to dedicate it to
Giuliano's cousin Lorenzo de'Medici, grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
hoping that the young ruler would be pleased.
"Accept this
little book, then, I beg your Magnificence, in the spirit in which I send
it; for if you consider it and read it with attention, you will discern
in it my surpassing desire that you come to greatness," Machiavelli wrote
in 1517. "And if from the summit of your lofty station, your Magnificence
ever turns your eyes to these low places, you will perceive how long I
continue to bear the burden of Fortune's great and steady malice."
No one knows
whether Machiavelli gave Lorenzo de'Medici his work. One story, possibly
apocryphal, says Machiavelli appeared at court to present his book while
another visitor was presenting Lorenzo with two hunting dogs. The 20-year-old
prince was said to be far more interested in the hounds.
Whatever happened,
the effort failed. Machiavelli's book was ignored, and he again withdrew
to his villa and immersed himself in writings of ancient historians and
philosophers. He wrote three comic plays, several works of fiction, a history
of Florence in verse and several long poems on lighthearted topics.
Machiavelli's
comedies are among the first Italian dramas to combine realistic characters
and the classical structure familiar today and often are seen as the best
Italian dramas of the Renaissance. They were spectacular successes, winning
competitions and letters of praise from his friends.
His more lasting
legacy, however, are his biographies and political analysis, including
Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, also written in 1513. This presented
the most powerful statement of his philosophy that the lessons of the past
could be gathered and applied to Italy in his day.
In the form
of a critical commentary on the work of Roman historian Titus Livius (59
B.C.-17 A.D.), Discourses set out to turn successes and mistakes of past
politicians into valuable lessons, bolstered with Machiavelli's experiences
on diplomatic missions to some of the most important kings, princes and
warlords of his time.
One of the most
important themes of Discourses was republicanism, the philosophy that later
would inspire America's Founding Fathers and that shaped the government
of Florence before the Medicis' return to power.
Machiavelli's
republicanism owed much to the model of ancient Rome. He believed that
a state should be ruled by its own citizens or their elected representatives,
free from external authority and the tyranny of hereditary monarchs or
rulers.
"There are implicit
in that ideal things that people commonly affirm and embrace today, like
the rule of law, civic mindedness, patriotism, the willingness to sacrifice
for one's country," Douglass says. "Those are the kinds of things Machiavelli
believed in, and he was very much a devotee of republican ideas of the
Romans as the remedy to the defects of current Italian politics."
Unlike The Prince,
Discourses was intended as a strictly private document and was circulated
only among Machiavelli's close friends. It often came dangerously close
to treason, advocating independence and self-rule at a time when the Medicis
were trying to extend their family's influence over Italy's city-states.
Had authorities known that Machiavelli favored a government of the people,
he might have found himself in jail again.
He also took
on the Roman Catholic Church, castigating corrupt priests whose abuses
had disillusioned many believers.
"We Italians
owe this first debt to the church and to the priests -- we have become
irreligious and wicked; but we owe them an even greater debt still, which
is the second reason for our ruin: that the church has kept, and still
keeps, this land of ours divided," Machiavelli wrote in a chapter unflinchingly
titled "How Much Importance Must Be Granted to Religion, and How Italy,
Without Religion, Thanks to the Roman Church, Has Been Ruined."
It was a response
to secular tendencies in the church and the increasingly close relationship
between the clergy and politics, most notably when the head of the powerful
Medici family became pope, something that many intellectuals resented.
From the Vatican
in Rome, the pope controlled a three-pronged empire: the spiritual guidance
of every soul in western Europe, a significant amount of political power
in the form of papal states and land throughout Italy and Europe, and the
church's colossal financial holdings. As the clergy's power grew, many
people began to look at priesthood as less a spiritual calling than a comfortable
and even lucrative career.
With Discourses,
Machiavelli conceived a new discipline -- political science.
"Machiavelli
was original most of all in his claim that statecraft could be erected
into a science," Herbert Butterfield, a Cambridge University professor,
wrote in 1962. "[He] distinguished himself by claiming that, in the study
of history, one could discover not only the causes but also the cure of
the ills of his time."
Machiavelli
died of a stomach ailment in 1527 at age 58. Fittingly, it was the same
year that the Medicis again were expelled from Florence. His friends published
much of his work in 1532, prompting immediate reaction. In 1557, The Prince
became one of the first books placed on the Roman Catholic Church's Index
of Prohibited Books.
Machiavelli's
infamy soon spread abroad. In France, his legacy was seen in the St. Bartholomew's
Day massacre of Aug. 24, 1572. Catherine de'Medici, great-granddaughter
of Lorenzo the Magnificent and widow of King Henry II of France, was thought
to have ordered the execution of all Protestant, or Huguenot, religious
leaders in Paris in an attempt to suppress dissent.
Allegedly with
her approval, Catholic mobs butchered more than 3,000 Huguenots in one
day, and the violence spread throughout France. Machiavelli's ideas were
blamed for inspiring the violence.
In England,
Machiavelli's reputation preceded the first English translation of The
Prince in 1640. Seventy years earlier, "Machiavel" had been used as a slur,
and the name is mentioned in the works of Elizabethan dramatists Christopher
Marlowe, Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare, usually to conjure images
of cunning and deceit.
Others, however,
saw in Machiavelli not a lover of tyranny but a teller of truths. Francis
Bacon (1561-1626), often considered the father of the scientific method
and one of the most influential forerunners of the Enlightenment, wrote:
"We are much beholden to Machiavel and others that write what men do and
not what they ought to do."
In the 20th
century, on occasions when politics and international relations become
less a battle between right and wrong than a search for effectiveness,
Machiavelli's advice is prized.
"The minute
you enter public life, life gets more complicated," Douglass says. "If
you're thinking, even with the best of motives, of getting and keeping
power, well, sometimes getting and keeping power requires compromises with
the ideals that you would like to follow.
"Maybe sometimes
it's necessary to tell a half truth, a lie to maintain power, and maybe
that power is important for a larger purpose. Now, I know that'sstandard
Realpolitik reasoning, but it doesn't make it any less true to call a spade
a spade."
Andrew Curry is a news aide
at The Washington Post.
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