Machiavelli in hell Book

Five stars! A delightfully current read. There is a great deal on Trump, Syria, etc. This book is everything that a Pulitzer Prize winner should be.

Machiavelli was just a good guy, and a significant (p. 299) political and moral philosopher, trying to figure out how to make the best of difficult times. "The state has its constitutional perfection, its true and perfect end, in a country where the common good is best observed, that is, in a durable independent republic where law is respected and women honored, where high office is open to all citizens, where social and economic equality obtain, where freedom to enjoy the gains of liberty and industry and to pass them on to one's children is assured - in a "perfect republic," one what that will run "the whole course ordained by heaven." This is the point of it all" (p. 193).

Machiavelli also reflects the move from the aristocratic "man-on-a-horse" to courtiers, and presages the Enlightenment view of human nature. See p. 291.

He is a pre-Reformation Catholic and believes (p. 378, 379, 381) that grace can and must be earned through political action for the common good.

He recognizes "But first of all, confining oneself to ideas, one can point out, that heredity and hereditary claims to rule have no divine support" (p. 381). In this he is a liminal figure between the Late Middle Ages and modernity.

He would be a great guy to have a few glasses of wine, and a good meal, with.

3 The Heavenly Host

"A god who can be a friend, like a man to a friend," as Exodus puts it, has human qualities" (p. 62).

4 The Way of Evil

p. 73. Niccolo the moralist writes of himself as a good man, urges others toward right conduct, and recognizes it as his duty to teach good.

p. 75. The Prince maintains that " one cannot deviate from that to which nature inclines you,"

Yes! You have autonomy to be who you are. You do not have free will to chose to be someone else.

". . . but when these populations assault they "must kill everyone, because they want to live on that which the others were living on." A war involving a migrating or invading population "is cruelest and most terrifying" (p. 85).

5 Clergy and Country

p. 90. Dante and, after him, the scholarly Marsilius of Padua had blamed the papacy for Italy's civil wars and foreign invasions.

p. 101. Without recourse to God and religious devotions, a state cannot be built or stand or be virtuous.

"By losing divine essence, man lost an original nature and obtained a human nature of evil tendency but capable of moral choice" (p. 107).

""I believe that the greatest good that one can do, and the most gratifying to God, is that which one does for one's country." That is the heart of his credo" (p. 114).

6 The Fool of Love

"Syphilis has arrived and is taking giant strides" (p. 127).

"There may be some truth to what his enemies were alluding to when he was Secretary, that he finds to much fault with Florence. Niccolo admits that, "It is true . . . . I am contrary, as in many other things, to the opinion of [Florentine] citizens." One thing is clear. He seems to be on the trail of larger game (p. 149).

"Several pages later, Niccolo repeats with greater force a warning to be found also in "The Prince." "May princes know then that they being to lose [their] state at that hour in which they begin to break the laws and those customs and usages that are ancient and under which men have lived for a long time" (p. 150).

Given the current Administration, I would have to hope so.

7 The Point of it All

"Wars of conquest that dispose of enemy commanders and not infrequently, it may be supposed, the heads of conquered regimes, may be cruel, but wars that involve a migrating population and the killing off or driving out of all the inhabitants of the invaded state, are 'cruelest and most terrifying'" (p. 163). Also p. 166 for more on Syria, etc.

"Without readiness for war, there is neither peace nor liberty" (p. 173).

"In all of this there is no attribution of cause specifically to economic needs or station. Rather, it seems the if men are in no position to oppress, they try not to be oppressed. If they are in a position to oppress, they oppress" (p. 183). Also p. 184.

There is a discussion (p. 191 - 192) of the giving of an abortifacient, to an unknowing woman, by a priest in Machiavelli's "Mandragola," a comedy play. "the piece of flesh has no sensation." There is no evidence that Catholic Italian Renaissance audiences were offended, or believed that life begins at conception.

"He asserts that political and economic freedom generate greater power and riches, a higher birth rate (a brief excursion into politico-demographic theory), and more dynamic men (p. 188).

8 Can Men Govern?

"Thus planning a colony on poor soil will keep its inhabitants hard at labor and far from a corrupting luxury" (p. 198).

Hence North vs. South America.

"Given the power that fortune wields over men, their chance of attaining political objectives through their virtue, reason, courage and altruistic or patriotic motives does not seem worth betting on" (p. 205).

"Neither fortune nor cycles, neither necessity nor naturalism, then forge unbreakable chains for men's rational pursuit through politics, country, and the state, of the common good" (p. 215).

9 The Prince New, and Other Sinners

"In the ruin of its Nobel class Florence had "stripped itself" of fighting quality" (p.228).

Machiavelli is writing at at time when do to changes in weapons technology (the Scottish longbow and gunpowder), the 100 (1337 - 1453) Years War, and plague; the aristocracy has lost much of its "man-on-a-horse" status and courtiers are on the rise.

10 The Truth About Human Things

"No other great philosopher, no great philosophical school before Niccolo, holds that men are evil-prone by nature or stresses that this evil is magnified and distorted in desire, mind, and perception, and compounded by choice" (p. 264).

In this Machiavelli begins the move from Plato and Aristotle to Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer ("the survival of the fittest), John Stuart Mill, etc. (AKA The Enlightenment).

"Augustine's City of God does most to elaborate the implications for human nature of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The enormity of Adam and Eve's offense provoked God to change human nature permanently for the worse. The punishment of the first humans passes on to their issue as something natural and congenital" (p. 265 -266).

So God made me the the "human nature" of a sinner, but I have free will to be something other than I am?

11 The Mirror of the Prince New

""Because this is a general rule that never fails: that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised . . ."" (p. 276).

"The twin procedures of knowledge, we soon find out, are reading and experience" (p. 281). See also p. 288, second paragraph.

12 To Be or to Seem to Be

"A prince should conduct himself so as to be praised by his own people and friendly rulers" (p. 293).

The Un-Golden Rule is some small gift to moral philosophy.

" The one requirement of all qualities employed as means is that they further the common good" (p. 307).

"The inculcation of virtue was typically to being when the prince was young. . . . His personal salvation was at stake" (p. 315).

Here Machiavelli is a liminal figure between the ancients and modernity.

13 The Reform of Hell

"Conversely, without his plays, stories, letters, and verse, we should have no notion of the humor and fun of this man:

14 The Goodly Company

"From The Prince to the Florentine Histories and beyond, our moralist points the finger of shame to one group - the princes old" (p.350).

15 And Great Shall Be Their Reward

"He does not have to pretend to be religious, thereby succumbing to the devil's temptation, because he is already in a state of grace" (p. 365).

"Our writer reposes great faith in reading, specifically in the active kind of careful, non-fanciful, intelligent reading that has imitation and usefulness in mind, and that embraces the most worthy examples and imparts experience vicariously" (p. 369 - 370.). Also p. 366 and the index.

"Our political philosopher wants not only to modify the Christian rites but also to change the objects of veneration of those rites, wants to pass from saints to heroes" (p. 378).