The first I heard of Machiavelli was when I was a junior in high school. My government teacher described him as being someone who believed that cruelty was always justified as long as it got results. I believe the example he used was "Machiavelli thought that instead of having a loving relationship with your wife you should beat her to make her fear you, because fear is a more effective method of control then love". That is not an exact quote but it was something along those lines, the main point being that Machiavelli would approve of beating his wife to maintain control of her. Now I respect my old teacher who gave this example to try to make his students understand what Machiavelli was all about, but I thought and still do think it's a very crude and inaccurate interpretation of Machiavelli's work. I don't think this characterization is an isolated incident either, it reflects a larger more mainstream view of Machiavelli which I believe is flawed.
Indeed one only has to do a simple internet search to find Machiavelli’s infamous quote “Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. "shortened down to "it is better to be feared then to be loved" To me this seems completely taken out of context. Within the very same passage Machiavelli more elaborately demonstrates his views on the subject of fear by saying "Nevertheless a Prince should inspire fear in such a fashion that if he does not win love he may escape hate. For a man may very well be feared and yet not hated, and this will be the case so long as he does not meddle with the property or with the women of his citizens and subjects. And if constrained to put any to death, he should do so only when there is manifest cause or reasonable justification." Is this not the very thing that government, or any body that imposes a law does? Make any who would seek to break the law fearful of the consequences, but at the same time avoid the hatred of the people? So then it could be said that a society with any laws at all is Machiavellian.
Why then do people use terms like "Shocking" to refer to Machiavelli's delineations on princely life? I think comes back to the fundamental ignorance and misunderstanding of Machiavelli by the mainstream culture. I admit that when I first heard of the generalizations of Machiavelli by my teacher and others, I came to think that Machiavelli must be a complete fool. What kind of idiot thought you could just abuse people constantly and it would work out? That way of thinking, using brutality to achieve ones ends is tried and tested throughout history and always fails in the end. So when I actually read some of Machiavelli's work I was surprised to see that my understanding of him was wrong. Machiavelli didn't advocate mindless destruction to achieve ones ends, nor did he make any mention of what anyone should do in their personal lives. Rather he laid out a thoughtful, logical perspective of how a prince should operate in order to be successful. He seemed to advocate not that force should predominate life nor that it should always be the primary method of conflict resolution, but simply that force in addition to prudence was required to be a successful prince. Essentially he seemed to be saying that being a prince requires brawn as well as brains, and that to survive in a world where your enemies could be mercilessly brutal to you it was sometimes necessary to be mercilessly brutal to them as well.
The concept that most people seem to get wrong is that just because Machiavelli promotes using unorthodox tactics sometimes, that doesn't necessarily mean he is an evil or mean spirited person. After all, every politician must make choices that are in the interest not only of himself but the national good. In making such choices sometimes there is no universally right answer, they are required to choose between bad and worse.
Then again, are those really accurate terms to define things? In our culture people tend to define things in black and white, something is either right or wrong. Good or bad, up or down. Perhaps the core issue is that this is a foolish way to look at the world. I tend to find that most things have elements of both good and bad blended together. It is no different when one has to make hard choices. One may find that each choice has an element of good and an element of bad, and that they must choose the one that leads to the greatest sustained good.
Vocab:
Prudence: The quality or fact of being prudent.
Delineation: Something made by delineating
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