/lit/ - Literature

Probaby one of the more dumb memes pseuds say.

>>16660808
Very machiavellian of him

It was magic

>>16660808
I read it as he was being brutally honest about what's required from a non-republic government.

>>16660878
But he was a republican himself

>>16660903
Hence the brutal honesty when the non-republic came to town. As a way of saying:
"Alright, so you wanna be the big boss all by yourself, here's what lies ahead of you, a bunch of two-faced, underhanded bullshit, because that's just the natural state of affairs when power is singular"

>>16660857
Nice

>>16660878
That is an interesting reading which I thought of too while reading it. It's sort of, "you want to rule as a prince? fine, this is the logical conclusion of it." I think this is similar to Strauss' reading?

For what it's worth, Mattingly has a good essay on the topic and Lord Acton has a magisterial essay on the reception history of Machiavelli up to his own time. Almost nobody has read it as satire, historically speaking.

>>16660919
Stupidly didn't read your post before writing >>16660932 but should have, I think you have it right too, and preempted me.

I have a strange feeling that Machiavelli could have been a communist if he was born in 20th century after reading about him

>>16660983
Should read Pocock's Machiavellian Moment, civic humanism/republicanism was fucking awesome

>>16660808
It’s a really good way of knowing who’s opinion to discard. I wonder if this interpretation of Machiavelli was thrown out to the public to keep dummies off the scent.

>>16660808
Prince was just him trying to gain favour from the new monarchy in Florence. He was scared of getting punished for being an active republican

>>16660919
Then you realized he admired Ceasare de Borgia and suddenly this doean't make sense.

>>16660919
Its effect depends on its distribution, or how common knowledge of it is. If only a few know the substance of it, it's a handbook. If it's common knowledge, it's an expose. The key point is that it records with unflinching accuracy what people actually do to get and keep power, as opposed to what they pretend to be doing as part of that process. It is a profoundly republican book, and couldn't have been written by someone otherwise inclined, regardless of its posturings as a private address. It's ironic only insofar as plain description is in the detachment required for it, which isn't the usual sense of the term--sustained high contrast between denotation and connotation in characterizing.

>>16660808
Machiavelli was a complete moron that didnt understand anything about politcs, he was always on the losing side and had to survive on the charity of his enemies
No idea why anyone takes this idiot seriously, even he said all he wrote was lies

>>16660878
>I read it as he was being brutally honest about what's required from a non-republic governmen
>"I have never said what I believe or believed what I said," he wrote near the end of his life. "If indeed I do sometimes tell the truth, I hide it behind so many lies that it is hard to find."

>>16660857
kek

>>16662187
If all he wrote was lies then why do you believe what he wrote?

>>16662207
>then why do you believe what he wrote?
I dont
>>16662196

>>16660857
excellent, very good