The Prince by Nicollo Machiavelli - Essay Example

?Western Civilazation Machiavelli. The book en d The Prince by Nicollo Machiavelli is directed towards a high born audience, who are used to wielding power and making people do what they want. This makes it a rather-one sided view of society, and it favors the rich at the expense of the poor. The main reason why I would not like to live in the kind of society that Machiavelli describes is that he has a very negative view of human nature. He advises the rulers to undertake all sorts of dubious practices in their efforts to retain control of all the power and resources, and at the same time he assumes that the ordinary people are resentful, greedy and lacking in moral fiber. This is clear in his advice that princes should refrain from touching the property of other people. He justifies his advice with the statement: “because people sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony” (Machiavelli 55). I do not agree with this analysis of human nature, because I have seen how many people give up the pursuit of wealth and honor in order to struggle for peace and justice. I would not like to be ruled by a person who always thinks the worst of me. Another feature of Machiavelli’s world view that impacts upon the ordinary person is the fact that he thinks it is better for a prince to rely on fear than to rely on love. This implies that the rules of society in such a kingdom would be based on threats and punishments rather than on a relationship of affection between the people and the ruler. Fear is not a good basis for any human relationship because it distorts the way people behave, and makes them want to avoid punishment as their first objective, rather than consider what the most proper or moral course of action would be. Machiavelli maintains that “a wise prince should rely on what he controls, and not on what he cannot control” (Machiavelli 56) and this shows that he does not believe in letting people use their free will. Rules would want a robot-like obedience in their courtiers, and this would make it hard for ordinary people to express any opinions that are different from the prevailing views. I think this is dangerous, because rulers who use power in this way are too distant from everyday life, and they cannot always know what is best. I think any country, or even any group or family, needs to allow different opinions to be expressed, so that fuller understanding can be gained and better decisions can be made. There is no reason why the prince’s view should always be the right one. I believe that living in this kingdom would have made the ordinary people cynical about power, and suspicious of anyone who was in a high position in society. The real problem with Machiavelli’s view of power is that he seems to think that military strength and power is enough on its own to guarantee stability: “If a despot could bring all of Italy under his rule, he believed, the country would benefit from effective government the same way that individual states had done” (Lewis 265). This may indeed be true in the short term, but later examples of history such as the rise of Hitler and Stalin show what happens when a despotic leader becomes too strong. Millions of people are murdered and the will of the ordinary person is crushed. This is no way to run a state and that is why I would not like to live under a prince who follows Machiavelli’s advice. 2. The Black Death The spread of plague across Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century affected every aspect of life. It must have been a terrible experience for ordinary families to see it coming closer and gradually taking the lives of men, women and children in an arbitrary manner. In those times medical knowledge was inexact, and people were not sure what caused it and had no way of curing it. The most immediate effect was the killing of a quarter of the population, which devastated essential industries including food production and waste disposal, but an important secondary effect was “a long-enduring crisis of confidence in the holiness of the popes” (Lewis 245). Because of the largely religious world view of the time, with people across Europe believing in one of the three main monotheistic religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, there was a natural tendency to see things in terms of divine wrath and retribution. Since the Christian Church was divided by schisms, with two separate popes competing for power, and tainted by greed and corruption, people naturally linked these matters with the terrible plague, and concluded that God was angry with the Church and wanted people to repent and mend their ways. This was the spark that set in motion moves that later resulted in the Reformation. The bubonic plague was not unknown in Europe before it hit with such devastation in the fourteenth century, but the new concentration of people in towns and cities and the more extensive network of trade routes that had developed by this period favored its rapid spread across vast areas. Lewis notes that the loss of population was devastating for a few decades, but in time there was recovery from the loss of workers to keep the economy going. In one respect the plague had an unexpected positive effect: it reduced overcrowding in the cities and made surviving people focus more on their health. It was much more difficult, however, for people to recover from the psychological aftermath of the plague: “Death became a universal obsession” (Lewis 247). This meant that people were fearful, and many of them became more religious, undertaking programs of penance to try and placate what they perceived to be an angry divinity. Another important consequence was also the feeling across Europe that “the end of the world was at hand” (Lewis 247). This perspective changed the way that people viewed the earthly world, and caused them to reflect more on spiritual and moral values. A flowering of literature and the arts followed from this, in which writers tried to make sense of human suffering. It is not often remembered that the plague did not just run its course and disappear, but that it “continued to flare up locally until the late seventeenth century” (Lewis 247) which meant that its lurking presence cast a shadow on Europe. The fear of the plague, and the necessity of casting out people who succumbed to it, because of risk to others, strained family and social relations and left a lasting impression on people for centuries. 3. The appeal of humanism. The whole point of humanism was to appreciate the faculties and powers that human beings possess and to enjoy the fruits of their intellectual labors. One reason why it appealed to people was that it harked back to the glorious days of ancient Greece and Rome. The statues, paintings and literary relics of this period inspired medieval people to imitate the arts and sciences of these older civilizations, and this provided a welcome alternative to the doom and gloom of the Christian view of the human race: “This idea of human excellence – virtu, as the Italian humanists called it- was generally earnest, high-minded, and optimistic about human nature” (Lewis 289). Clearly there were deficiencies in the ascetic, sin-obsessed teachings of some Christian preachers and people yearned for something positive and life-affirming to latch on to. The work of Petrarch and others in gathering up old manuscripts from ancient times enabled a new emphasis on literary studies and allowed scholars to rediscover the knowledge of the past that had lain dormant all through the years of Christian ascendancy. The great attraction for scholars was to find out new areas for research and incorporate new ideas into their own writings. Literary works like Boccaccio’s Decameron explored pre-Christian history and legends, discovering topics such as “sensual escapades, deceits and clever revenges” (Lewis 290). These topics were frowned upon in Christian circles for moral reasons, and the humanist approach opened up a much broader and more interesting range of emotions and motives. The rediscovery of the Greek writings of Plato also galvanized scholars and led to an enthusiasm for education among the middle classes under the umbrella of the “academy” concept, which was a sort of elite and private teaching institution where the best minds met to debate the topics of the day and hone their thinking and speaking skills. The humanists had found an intellectual approach that had ancient credentials but for them was also fresh and new. They were able to counteract the deadening force of scholasticism which was “a system of knowledge based on authority and reason” (Lewis 292). This was a major step change in European society because people began to be more critical about what they read, and what they observed. They learned to challenge all teachings, and question everything, using their own human minds and the evidence of their senses to work things out for themselves. An important contribution that the humanist way of thinking brought to Europe was also the ability to see both the good and the bad in contemporary beliefs and customs. The likes of Erasmus, for example, could discern the value of Christian principles as well as the folly of some of the everyday practices that were going on at the time in Christian churches. His criticism of the money-grubbing clergy was one example of humanist analysis that had great effect: “In a thousand years of denunciation of Church corruption, no one had said anything more powerful” (Lewis 294). Humanism was attractive because it provided a much needed counterbalance to the overwhelming and often corrupt dominance of the clergy. It allowed people to sort out what was valuable and what was damaging, and find new ideas which encouraged them to get a good education, read more books and learn to think for themselves. References Lewis, Gavin. WVIV Vol 1. Boston: Cengage. Machiavelli, Nicollo. The Prince. New York: Penguin, 1999. Read More