Niccolo Machiavelli

So when we're looking at great leaders.

I think it just, one of the ways we resist patriarchy is really exploring, like, our first is Machiavelli.

Machiavelli and his whole human complexity.

And by looking deeper into his character, not just his, like, avatar, we actually, one of the things that my colleague Gwen concluded is the prince that he wrote is something that we think as this, like, book about leadership is actually a satire.

And so I think that's kind of like a punchline that's historically been missed.

Not that there's anything wrong with asking for those things, but she was the first to ask for forgiveness.

Machiavelli calls it all but certain that she was Mary Magdalene, sister of Martha and Lazarus, pointing to the church's July 22nd office, and Christ promised that her act would be told wherever the gospel is preached.

Cornelius Salapidae quoting St. Gregory, "...that which she had given up to the service of sin, now she offers for the glory of God." And St.

Cyprian, she used her hair for a napkin, her eyes for a pitcher, and her tears for water.

And we got to be careful with that because I think people can become easily self-righteous.

And there's a kind of danger that can enter in there where we think the ends justify the means and we become kind of a reverse form of Machiavelli.

But notwithstanding that caution, those who are among the righteous, who hold to God's principles, who believe in righteousness, they are going to rise up on wings like eagles, and they will not grow faint in the execution of righteousness and restoring the way God would have a society to run.

I think that would be a reasonable way of saying it in under five minutes.

Two.

To illustrate the limitations of this period, let us take Machiavelli, one of the most original thinkers that Italy ever produced.

There are certain fundamental principles underlying Machiavelli's science of politics, which he has indicated incidentally in his unsystematic way, but which are essential to the comprehension of his doctrines.

The first is that at all times, the world of human beings has been the same, varying indeed from land to land, but always presenting the same aspect of some societies advancing towards prosperity and others declining.

Those which are on the upward grade will always reach a point beyond which they cannot rise further, but they will not remain permanently on this level.

Similarly, declining states will ultimately touch bottom and then begin to ascend.

Thus, a good constitution or social organization can last only for a short time.

It is obvious that in this view of history, Machiavelli was inspired and instructed by the ancients, and it followed from his premises that the study of the past is of the highest value because it enables men to see what is to come, since to all social events at any period, there are correspondences in ancient times.

He once told a girlfriend that if she wanted to understand him, she should read about Michael Corleone in The Godfather.

While his mother gave him a Bible to read, his father gave him Niccolo Machiavelli's political treatise, The Prince, seemingly the blueprint for the Italian underworld.

Albert found the book fascinating.

After serving 14 years as a secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria in the Florentine Republic, Machiavelli had fallen out of power in 1512.

He wrote that religion and morals have no place in the rise to power.

A prince cannot indulge in the virtues of goodness because, to hold power, he must be a lion and a fox.

The church was more anxious for the accomplishment of its private ends than for the liberation of Italian territory.

Machiavelli describes the views of the best political thinkers of his age when he argues that the truest hope of regeneration for Italy lies in the exclusion of the clergy from civil offices.

It was a constant weakness to the Guelph party that it had the pope as its leader.

But in the course of a minute and fretful struggle the objects of both parties had been confused and half forgotten.

It's like, okay, but what was the tell? Okay.

And he says, all right, this is a very, like in this style of scholarship, this is really, it does, it goes all the way back to Machiavelli actually.

It's like, well, I'll tell you what, here's what I didn't tell you already.

And then surrenders another piece of information and he goes, all right, so we know, that there was infiltration on the part of the de Gaulleists in 1958.

organization.

So.

Creativity matters and the big takeaway from Machiavelli's The Prince is, you know, sometimes you have to behave altruistically in order to, you know, get what you want from a power politics standpoint.

Stabilizing the bureaucracy.