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In taking his bearings from men โas they are, and not from how they ๐๐ข๐โ๐ก ๐ก๐ ๐๐,โ Machiavelli โ like Hobbes and other modern political philosophers who followed him โ builds his (prescriptive) teachings upon the โaverageโ or ordinary person (under extreme or emergency conditions) rather than upon exceptional specimens (under โnormalโ conditions, like Aristotle did). The principal aims of the modern regime become โpeace, prosperity, and security of the state or commonwealth,โ replacing โthe cultivation of virtueโ by the fortunate, leisured few. The โage of Quantityโ begins and that of Quality enters a steady decline. Practicality, economic prosperity, utility, mass entertainment/education, and technics take precedence over piety, speculative philosophy, and those rare excellences that required the โhothouseโ conditions provided by aristocratic culture, leisure, and liberal education.
If Plato, Aristotle, and even Dante were custodians and advocates for ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ก๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ค๐กโ๐ (philosophical, aesthetic, spiritual) and for ๐๐ข๐๐๐๐ก๐ฆ, Machiavelli and Hobbes are, more properly speaking, champions of โthe greatest good for the greatest numberโ (quantity). In this respect, despite โ or due to โ their rejection of classical and Christian notions of personal virtue and goodness (in order to better secure the order and stability of that unruly beast, the state or regime), they are friends of the people. The exceptional specimens are left to fend for themselves under the โliberalโ systems devised and implemented by modern political thinkers and actors.
In thinking about and coming to terms with Machiavelli, I want to avoid falling into the trap of a charged dualism โ an either/or opposition โ with crass, leveling, profane, โmass-mindedโ quantity on one side and noble, precious, sacred, rare, and fragile quality on the other. Certainly one way to temper my susceptibility to this seductive dualism is to acknowledge that I am composed not only of rare and exceptional, but common and base elements. By admitting that I have a โdogโ in both sides of this fight (a smelly, mongrel cur and a well-groomed and perfumed Afghan hound?), I check my natural impulse to identify solely with the โhigherโ element and distance myself from the โlowerโ half, projecting that rejected side onto a convenient, scruffy shadow figure or scapegoat. Another protective move is to recognize the inevitable, collective pendulum swing โ or enantiodromia โ that is continually underway, providing a homeostatic check against โpathologicalโ extremes. The outer/political contest or agon between elites and masses, the noble and the base, patricians and plebes, the one percent and the ninety-nine percent, are but various versions or forms of this multifaceted, self-regulating interplay of โoppositesโ that, together, make up life.
Microcosm (my individual psyche โ as playground or battlefield) reflects and reproduces in miniature the macrocosm, or collective, total โworldโ in which I find myself as a tiny spark or seedling. The more completely I am able to open the window of my mind โ allowing as much of this โwholeโ to enter as I can withstand without being overwhelmed or crushed โ the more I am able to align and reconcile โmicrocosmโ with โmacrocosm.โ This expansive, deepening, and grounding process of opening up to and connecting with the whole is chiefly enabled by my letting go of or transcendence of truth-distorting biases and governing assumptions that stand in the way of enlarged vision. I am, in a sense, always struggling to โget out of my own way.โ
Machiavelliโs little book continues to speak โloudly and clearlyโ to millions of rapt readers today. This sort of power โ to reach into and speak so compellingly and disturbingly to so many persons โ can only be attributed to Machiavelliโs indisputable success as an exposer or unmasker of many aspects of human nature that most of us prefer to keep in the dark โ or which we deny outright, but with a vehemence which suggests that Machiavelli has hit a nerve. Freud and Nietzsche would follow in this line. Comedians like George Carlin, Chris Rock, and Louis CK owe their discomfiting notoriety to their โMachiavellianโ talent for unmasking and articulating those hidden or buried โparts of shameโ in human nature and institutions.
When I write about Machiavelli and the impact his writings have had upon modern life and consciousness, how much of what I think and say is informed by an accurate and adequate knowledge of his writings, on the one hand, and how much comes from โMachiavelliโ as a kind of legendary, diabolical figure or caricature, on the other? Much the same question might be asked in connection with Nietzsche (with his writings I am somewhat better acquainted) or Plato (who I should know better)? I find that many persons, when they speak of Nietzsche, are talking about a cartoon figure โ a reduced and oversimplified โmaskโ that scarcely does justice to the actual thinker.
What about Jesus, for Christโs sake!!? How many people, down the centuries, have taken a select handful of Jesusโs purported one-liners and parables and built their entire conception of him and his teachings from these meaty little morsels? Weโre getting the select morsels second- or third- or fourth-hand, anyway, right? But letโs suppose we could cut right through the doctored and corrupted ancient documents, through the reported words of the apostles, and get tape-recorded conversations, interviews, sermons, by the God-man himself, what then? To the extent that he is introducing something shockingly new and spiritually revolutionary, our accurate grasp or comprehension of what he is saying will be blocked or hampered to the extent that our ears and our understandings are snugly attuned to those very norms and assumptions he is overthrowing and supplanting with his new โ but perhaps timeless, eternally true โ vision.
Now, letโs go back to Machiavelli โ perhaps the first authentic Antichrist figure in the West (who had the audacity to sign his own name to his โteachings of evilโ). Sorry, Nietzsche! You got scooped. Letโs ask ourselves: Which is the most important โMachiavelliโ? The โlegendaryโ figure โ the cartoon figure that is a composite sketch formed by five centuries of judgments by both smart and dim โreactorsโ who never actually read him? Or, perhaps the Machiavelli that emerges from a more or less careful and thorough study of all his published works? Or โ finally โ the actual man, Niccolo Machiavelli, in face-to-face, open conversation โ peer-to-peer, friend to friend โ with no tricks or concealments?
