/lit/ - Literature

>>3157016
Reality has no bearing on political policy though.

Policy is made according to consensus, not according to truth.

Everyone AGREED that there were WMDs in Iraq, therefore Iraq was invaded, resources were acquired, enemies were neutralised. The truth of the matter turned out to be irrelevant. All that matters is seeing your will imposed on the world through the methods of power-politics. Right and wrong are distractions, truth and falsehood are conceptual traps for the philosophers. It is much more efficient to instead focus your energies on bending the state of affairs in the world to FIT truth as it exists in your mind's eye, rather than trying to convince everyone that your vision is the truth of the world.

>>3086173
>Not having a minimalist décor
>2012

Libraries are a dime a dozen, you can hang out there if you like it so much. For me, in the home they're just decorative clutter that take up time and effort to be sorted and managed, and if improperly cared for can pose serious health and fire risks over long periods of time. And most personal libraries tend to be rather dreary, I've been in plenty of academic offices over the years where they serve as little more than backdrop, I'd rather have a nice plant or the extra space. Either way I think it's much cooler to have a digital device that stores more books than anyone could ever hope to read in a lifetime, a veritable library of Alexandria in the palm of your hand, than it is to have a couple of battered charity shop paperbacks and dull academic texts stacked unread on a shelf.

>>3037773
Oxon. History

Good overall, but I can feel my ADD kicking in. I'm reaching that stage where I'm interested in everything that isn't what I'm studying at the moment. Would preferred to have specialised sooner rather than spend an entire year fucking around ticking boxes for compulsory curriculum subjects, but I guess not everyone knows what they want to do when they come to university.

>>2999150
It's sort of somewhere in the middle. Machiavelli thinks that principalities are sometimes a necessary evil in order for a Good Republic to renew itself and be refreshed and born anew. It's not that he strictly endorses the rule of princes, but he merely accepts them as an inevitable fact of political life and the cycle of state politics. Machiavelli is fundamentally an idealistic Republican, he's a Roman Republic fanboy, who thinks that the best kind government for the city-state is always ideally a Republic. However he also thinks that it's possible (and probably best) for a prince to rule well, in such a way that he eventually brings about a Republic for the common good. And that's what the Prince is, a guidebook for the creation of an ideal, manful and above all COMPETENT ruler who can guard the city-state in times of trouble or discord.

The reason someone might get the impression that Machiavelli dislikes princes and principalities, is from the fact that his only experience with princes derives from him being deprived of office, tortured and exiled when the Medici put an end to the Florentine Republic. So he might bear a personal grudge against Medici princes, but still he recognises them at most as a necessary evil. Hell, he even says that he LIKES Cesare Borgia, and sees many Roman virtues in his character.