Critical Essays

Machiavelli the Devil

Few writers have inspired the kind of personal hatred that Machiavelli has throughout the
centuries, and few works have been as vilifiedor as popularas The Prince.
Machiavelli has been condemned as a defender of tyranny, a godless promoter of
immorality, and a self-serving manipulator. Today, almost 500 years after The Prince was
written, the dictionary still defines "Machiavellian" as "of, like, or characterized by the
political principles and methods of expediency, craftiness, and duplicity set forth in
Machiavelli's book, The Prince; crafty, deceitful, and so on." One popular, though untrue,
story holds that "Old Nick," a slang term for the Devil, is derived from Machiavelli's first
name, Niccol.
Machiavelli's reputation as a diabolical figure began almost immediately after publication
of The Prince. In 1559, not only The Prince but all of Machiavelli's works were placed on
the Catholic church's "Index of Prohibited Books," presumably because of Machiavelli's
perceived offenses against Christian ethics. Machiavelli has often been accused of being
an atheist or even actively anti-Christian. His thinly veiled contempt for the papacy and
the political ambitions of the Catholic church is evident in The Prince, and in the
Discourses, he states that Christian piety robs its adherents of the energy necessary for the
creation of a good society. Much of The Prince denies or even negates the moral basis of
government that Christian thinkers insisted upon. The medieval Christian notion that
good government is ordained by God for the promotion of virtue and the protection of the
faithful against evil is distinctly absent from the world of The Prince. Perhaps more
importantly, the quality that Machiavelli values most highly, virt, is not a moral quality
at all. Infamous criminals such as Agathocles or outrageously cruel rulers like Severus
can still possess virt. Debate continues as to whether Machiavelli can be called a
Christian thinker or whether he adheres to some other standard of morality, such as those
of the pagan Classical authors whose work he draws on. Some critics have proposed that
Machiavelli simply substitutes an entirely new moral standard, one that is centered on the
state, rather than on God or on pagan ethics.
While Machiavelli was officially banned in the Catholic world, he was also hated by the
Protestants. In 1572, the Catholic leadership of France attempted to wipe out France's
Protestant population, the Huguenots. In several weeks of massacres beginning on St.
Bartholomew's Day, an estimated 50,000 Huguenots were killed. The power behind the
throne of France was Catherine de Medici, an Italian and a Catholic, and a member of the
family for whom Machiavelli had written The Prince. Long-dead Machiavelli took blame
for the incident, as it was supposed that Catherine had looked to his philosophies in
planning the massacres. In Protestant England, Machiavelli became a stock character of
evil on the theatrical stage. For example, in Christopher Marlowe's play The Jew of
Malta, the character of "Machiavel" presents the prologue introducing the play's
villainous title character, who gleefully follows Machiavellian precepts. To be so
universally hated, however, Machiavelli also had to be widely read, as Marlowe's
Machiavel points out: "Admir'd I am of those who hate me most. Though some speak
openly against my books, Yet will they read me. . . ."

Of the many books specifically refuting The Prince, two deserve special mention. The
first, written in 1576, was the Discours sur les moyens de bien gouverner contre Nicolas
Machiavel by Innocent Gentillet. Gentillet, a Huguenot author protesting the St.
Bartholomew's Day massacres, did more to establish Machiavelli's devilish reputation
than did The Prince itself. The most famous response to The Prince came from Frederick
the Great, King of Prussia. In 1740 he wrote, with the help of the French philosopher
Voltaire, the Anti-Machiavel, a vigorous condemnation of Machiavelli's principles.
Frederick, like many other royalists, feared the implication in The Prince that anyone who
was strong enough to seize power was entitled to keep it, seeing it as an invitation to
regicide. Ironically, Frederick would prove to be a true Machiavelliantreacherous,
ruthless, and enthusiastic in his pursuit of power.
Modern scholars have applied a variety of interpretations to Machiavelli's work. Some
view The Prince as an anti-Christian work, a celebration of Classical pagan philosophy,
while others have attempted to portray Machiavelli as a Christian moralist, pointing out
the political evils of the world around him. Some see The Prince as a book of despair, an
anguished chronicle of fallen human nature, while others find in Machiavelli a clear-eyed
realist and an accurate observer of the political sphere of life. Some have explained The
Prince's apparent immorality as amorality, a morally-neutral scientific analysis of the
workings of politics, without approval or disapproval. More than one writer has proposed
that The Prince is in fact a satire, a warning of what may happen if rulers are allowed to
pursue power unchecked. In this view, Machiavelli is the passionate defender of
republicanism, the champion of liberty, who describes the workings of tyranny so they
can be resisted. Others find in The Prince a blueprint for totalitarianism, carried to its
logical and horrible conclusion in regimes like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.
Bertrand Russell called The Prince "a handbook for gangsters," and Leo Strauss called
Machiavelli "a teacher of evil."
In more recent times, popular interest in Machiavelli's philosophy has focused more on
money than on politics or morality. In an age in which democratic governments
predominate, the last arena in which princely power can be pursued with abandon is that
of business. Modern business executives seeking advice on effective leadership have
resurrected Machiavelli, along with a host of other military and political strategists. One
can find any number of contemporary advice books purporting to offer Machiavelli's
insights, including What Would Machiavelli Do? (a devilish subversion of the popular
catch-phrase "What would Jesus do?"), which may or may not be a satire.

HRV:
Kritini Eseji
Machiavelli vrag
Prijanji
Sljedei

Malo je pisaca koji su inspirirani kakve osobne mrnje da Machiavelli ima kroz stoljea,
a malo djela su kao ocrnila-ili popularno-kao The Prince. Machiavelli je bio osuen kao
branitelj tiranije, a bezbonom promotora nemorala, i self-posluivanje manipulator.
Danas, gotovo 500 godina nakon to je princ je napisao, rjenik i dalje definira
"makijavelizam" kao "od, kao to je, ili obiljeen politikim principima i metodama
svrsishodnosti, lukavosti, i prijevara utvrenim u Machiavellijeve knjizi, The Prince,
lukavih, prijevare, i tako dalje. " Jedan popularan, ali neistinite, pria dri da je "Stari
Nick," slang izraz za avla, proizlazi iz prvog imena Machiavellijeve, Niccolo.
Machiavellijevo ugled kao avolski lik je poeo gotovo odmah nakon objavljivanja The
Prince. 1559., ne samo princ, ali sve Machiavellijevih radova postavljeni su na katolike
crkve "Indeks zabranjenih knjiga," vjerojatno zbog Machiavellijevih uoenih kaznenih
djela protiv kranske etike. Machiavelli je esto bio optuen da je ateist ili ak aktivno
anti-kranski. Njegovo tanko prikrivene prezir papinstva i politikih ambicija Katolike
crkve je vidljivo u princa, a diskurs, on tvrdi da je kranska pobonost krade njegove
pristalice energije potrebne za stvaranje dobrog drutva. Velik dio Prince uskrati ili ak
negira moralni temelj vlasti da kranski mislioci inzistirao. Srednjovjekovni kranski
pojam koji dobro vlada odreen od Boga za promociju vrlina i zatitu vjernika protiv zla
je izrazito odsutna iz svijeta The Prince. Moda je jo vanije, kvaliteta koja Machiavelli
vrijednosti najvie visoko, indi, nije moralna kvaliteta uope. Infamous zloinci poput
Agathocles ili drsko okrutni vladari poput Severa i dalje moe imati Virtu. Rasprava se
nastavlja o tome da li Machiavelli moe nazvati kranski mislilac ili da li se pridrava
neki drugi standard moralnosti, kao to su one od poganskih klasinih autora iji rad je
crpi. Neki kritiari su predloili da Machiavelli jednostavno zamjenjuje potpuno novi
moralni standard, onaj koji je usmjeren na dravu, nego na Boga ili na poganskim etike.
Dok Machiavelli je slubeno zabranjen u katolikom svijetu, on je mrzio od strane
protestanata. U 1572, Katolika vodstvo Francuske pokuao unititi Francuske
protestantsku stanovnitva, hugenota. U nekoliko tjedana masakra poinju na dan sv
Bartolomeja, procjenjuje 50.000 Hugenoti su ubijeni. Mo iza prijestolja Francuske je
Catherine de Medici, talijanski i katolik, a lan obitelji za koje Machiavelli je napisao
Princ. Long-mrtav Machiavelli je kriv za incident, jer je trebalo da Catherine je pogledala
svojim filozofijama u planiranju masakre. U protestantskoj Engleskoj, Machiavelli je
postao lik dionica od zla na kazalinoj pozornici. Na primjer, u Christopher Marlowe
drame idov Malte, karakter "Machiavel" predstavlja prolog uvodi Predstava je
zloinaka naslovni lik, koji je radosno slijedi makijavelizam propise. Da bi se tako
univerzalno mrzio, meutim, Machiavelli takoer morao biti mnogo itao, kao Marlowe
je Machiavel istie: "Admir'd sam od onih koji su me najvie mrze Iako su neki otvoreno
govore protiv moje knjige, ali e me itati... .. "
Od mnogih knjiga posebno pobijanja Princa, dvojica zasluuju posebnu spomenuti. Prvo,
napisao 1576., bio je Discours sur les moyens de bien gouverner contre Nicolas
Machiavel strane Inocenta Gentillet. Gentillet, hugenot autor prosvjeduju Sv Bartolomej
dan masakra, nije vie uspostaviti Machiavellijevih vrag ugled nego to je uinio i sam
princ. Najpoznatiji odgovor na Prince je doao iz Fredericka Velikog, kralja Pruske. 1740.

napisao je, uz pomo francuskog filozofa Voltairea, anti-Machiavel, snaan osude

Machiavellijevih naela. Frederick, kao i mnogi drugi rojalisti, bojao implikacije u princa
da svatko tko je dovoljno jak da osvoji vlast ima pravo da ga zadri, gledajui ga kao
poziv na ubistvo kralja. Ironino, Frederick e dokazati da se istina makijavelizampodmukao, nemilosrdna, i oduevljen u svojoj potrazi za moi.
Moderni znanstvenici su primijenjene razliite interpretacije u Machiavellijeve rada. Neki
pogledati Princ kao anti-kranski rad, a proslave Klasine poganske filozofije, dok su
drugi pokuali prikazati Machiavelli kao kranski moralist, istiui politike zla u svijetu
oko sebe. Neki vide Princ kao knjiga oaja, u tjeskobnim kronika pale ljudske prirode,
dok drugi smatraju u Machiavellija jasan-eyed realist i precizan promatra politike sfere
ivota. Neki su objasnili Princ je jasno nemoral kao amoralnost, moralno neutralan
znanstvene analize djelovanju politike, bez odobrenja ili neodobravanja. Vie od jednog
pisca je predloio da princ je zapravo satira, upozorenje na ono to se moe dogoditi ako
su vladari doputeno nastaviti mo neoznaenim. U tom pogledu, Machiavelli je
strastveni branitelj republikanizma, prvak slobode, koji opisuje djelovanje tiranije, tako
da se moe oduprijeti. Drugi pronai u Prince nacrt za totalitarizma, na njegovo logian i
stranog zakljuka u reimima poput nacistike Njemake ili staljinistike Rusije.
Bertrand Russell pozvao Princ "prirunik za gangstere", a Leo Strauss zove Machiavelli
"uitelj zla."
U novije vrijeme, popularni interes Machiavellijeve filozofija je usmjerena vie na novac
nego na politiku ili moralu. U dobi u kojoj demokratske vlade dominiraju, posljednja
arena u kojoj kneevski snage moe se provoditi s odustati je da je posao. Suvremene
poslovne rukovoditelji koji trae savjet o uinkovitom vodstvu su uskrsnuli Machiavelli,
zajedno s mnotvom drugih vojnih i politikih stratega. One mogu pronai bilo koji broj
suvremenih savjeti knjiga je navodno ponuditi Machiavellijevih uvid, ukljuujui i ono
to bi Machiavelli uiniti? (Vraji subverzija popularne uhvatiti-fraza "to bi Isus
uiniti?"), Koji se moe i ne mora biti satira.