While reading Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, one sentence really got my attention, which is:
“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
In summary, Machiavelli thinks that a prince must always appear good, but be prepared to be evil if necessary. I think this quote is the punchline of the whole book, and a short summary of Machiavelli's ideas. If one should check the history of kings and leaders, one would see that the good kings' works were not appreciated compared to some horrible but reassuring leaders. Actually, one can see the same principle in every aspect of life. Take lectures, for example. Most probably, we've all experienced that "the good teacher" eventually loose the attention of the class and after a while, very few attempts to listen what teacher says. In the end, the teacher cannot control the class, and thus the lecture gets ruined. On the other hand, in "the bad teacher"s class, nobody makes any noise, everybody pretends to be listening, but also nobody likes or respects that teacher either. So the brilliant teacher is the one who is wise, knowledgeable, and tolerant but also the one who can cease the noise in the class and throws the student who ruins the lecture when needed. So, in my opinion, the case for teacher also applies for the leader, ofcourse sometimes in harsher and more brutal cases since politics is way more serious field than education. All in all, I am in a similar opinion with Machiavelli, a politician ought to be cruel when needed, and also should know when to stop being evil, as in lion/fox allegory given above.
This part with foxes and lions flew over my head completely, so thank you for writing about this. I agree that it sums up Machiavellianism pretty well (Wikipedia defines it as "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct", which is basically being a fox and a lion at the same time).
ReplyDeleteI don't really agree with the teacher example though - you're supposed to completely obliterate your enemies as the lion according to Machiavelli, because otherwise they might strike back. It wouldn't be very nice if a teacher decided to break their students completely.
I also admired the line about being cunning like a fox but also standing your ground like a lion but this statement I think is meant for politics and politics alone (or being a leader). A teacher may have to stand his/her ground but I don't think that he/she has to be cunning and look for traps that may have him overruled. I would have also liked to see more about what Machiavelli had to offer and his opinions about this topic. But the idea of giving your opinions through an allegory was great along with the way you expressed how you felt about the topic
ReplyDeleteBest wishes