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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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politics
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Machiavelli had some useful points.
like the whole, "if you rule through fear to keep people in line, they'll take your head off the moment you're weak" observation.
oh. he was a total asshole. But even he respected the need for representation and to constrain the elites from doing shit. At least, he was later on. (See Discourse on Livy)
I'm just saying, assholes like trump being all Machiavellian seem to forget the whole "we know how behead" aspect of being an assholish monarch.
Was he an asshole? Or was he writing a commission with malicious compliance? For a historically verified asshole?
One interpretation is that he was commissioned to write a bland moral guide for a young prince, but got all satirical and close to the bone.
Machiavelli wanted a Republic, another inyerpretation is he put in a bunch of bad advice in the hopes of them taking it and being overthrown.
Not to be too pedantic, but "The Prince" was intended as a sincere operating manual for governing (not a satire in any way).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince
The shocking lack of morality in the book is what made it rather infamous. It was not a joke at all.
This part's interesting