Hello Sarah,
From time to time I wallow in Anglophobia, but you’ve reminded me of one of England’s great glories: its slang terms like “chuffed.” In its Brit sense of puffed up with delight and pride, this hasn’t made its way to the New World. May you speed its passage.
I can’t disagree with any of the connections you’ve nicely made among NM, Clinton, Jeb Bush, death row inmates, and the pope, so let me move into Wrapping Up the Proceedings mode, thus:
1) We agree that Michael Ledeen and Maurizio Viroli together give a picture of Niccolo Machiavelli’s life and thought that is quite different from the, well, “Machiavellian” image he has in modern culture. NM advocated doing everything that was necessary for a ruler or a state to prevail, including all necessary evils. But he was against unnecessary evil, plus any evil that couldn’t be rationalized the way military violence is as serving some proper goal. As Ledeen puts it:
Machiavelli isn’t telling you to be evil, he is simply stating the facts: if you lead, there will be occasions when you will have to do unpleasant, even evil, things or be destroyed. If you are lucky, these occasions will be few and far between … For the rest, he wants you to be and do good, convinced as he is that the proper mission of great leaders is to achieve the common good, to fashion good laws and enforce them with good arms and good religion.
This version of Machiavellianism would fit a variety of grim-but-necessary episodes in the past: Abraham Lincoln’s imposition of martial law in the Civil War, Winston Churchill letting Coventry be bombed so that the Germans wouldn’t know the Allies had broken their codes, and other hoary examples–even the inclusion of Stalin’s Soviet Union among the “Allies” against the greater evil of the Nazis. These wartime cases are the most vivid because the necessary evil involved is particularly flagrant, but the same tradeoff occurs in other kinds of leadership. For example, whoever gains the dubious honor of being the next president will soon have to stiff-arm supporters and cronies who are hoping for big jobs–or will if he wants any chance of success in office. (Should there be a President George W. Bush, it would be delightful to observe his first discussion with Katherine Harris about her career plans. By the way, I think Ron Rosenbaum’s new piece about Ms. Harris is about the best thing that’s come out of the Florida morass.)
No doubt scholars and political theorists would roll their eyes in contempt for this “revelation” about Machiavelli. But it’s valuable in a pop culture where, as What Would Machiavelli Do? indicates, the man’s name has come to mean sheer unprincipled scheming. So we need some other name to fill that role. Iago? Roy Cohn?
2) We agree that Maurizio Viroli may lay it on a little thick with his “Smile” metaphor but that his book does a wonderful job of suggesting that “Machiavellian” should have more of the connotations of “Rabelaisian.” Even “Clintonian.” If our current president enjoys hanging around with Vernon Jordan, think how he would have loved NM. The book also passes one of the hardest of all tests, that of changing the way you think about a familiar subject. At least to me, the name Machiavelli was just shorthand for a certain political view. After reading this book, it will be hard not to think of the ambitious, licentious, often-disappointed but ever-striving figure portrayed here.
Who can’t empathize with the NM in the following scene: In disgrace and quasi-exile, NM pours out his theories of government in The Prince–and sends the manuscript to a close friend who is in a position to pass it on to the pope and other big shots. The friend sends a tepid reply–and then does nothing with the book. Eventually NM lashes back, “So, I am going to stay just as I am, amid my lice, unable to find any man who recalls my service or believes I might be good for anything.” Amid my lice! How can we not respect this man?
3) We agree–OK, I claim and you haven’t disagreed–that someone, sometime should look into the fad of business books based on wisdom, real or purported, from the past. To the best of my knowledge, the trend began with a wave of Sun Tzu on Management books about 15 years ago. Or maybe that’s just when I started noticing. I expect to see “Jesus on Downsizing,” “Newton on IPOs,” etc. any day.
5) And, of course, we agree that somehow NM should have an answer to Florida. You’ve done an interesting job of casting characters. I’ve had trouble making the roles and names fit.
It’s clear that the field includes at least one major non-Machiavellian. This would be Jeb Bush. One of NM’s tougher sounding doctrines is that it’s better for a leader to be feared than loved. By at least publicly doing the “right” thing–not egging on the legislature, not standing next to K. Harris as she certifies the votes–this Gov. Bush has acted as if he cared about appearances (“loved”), not just about results (“feared”). And it’s also clear that there are plenty of “bad” Machiavellians–simple schemers.
But maybe the alarming truth is that most of the participants are “good” Machiavellians, in their own eyes. They’re all doing things that, on calmer days, they would recognize as “evil” in some sense. The Republicans beating the Democrats to court, despite their advertised hatred of legal chicanery. James Baker making arguments he’d ridicule if they came from the other side (as Slate’s own editor has detailed). Handlers shuttling Dick Cheney from morning talk show to prime time interview a week after his fourth heart attack! The Democrats dragging the affair out for weeks. Al Gore claiming that he “only” cares that there be a fair count, not that he win. They’re all fighting for “justice” as they see it. I suppose this, too, fits NM’s larger perspective: Conflict is inevitable and eternal, and “virtue” includes knowing how to defend yourself.
So can the Wisdom of Machiavelli makes us feel better about this political swamp-fest? Well, yes, in that no one’s being burned alive in the public square as the political losers were in his day. Let’s take political progress where we can, and feel chuffed about it.
Looking forward to the next British political sex scandal to distract attention from our shores, and looking forward to your reports on it,
Jim F.