Machiavelli's Ideal Prince example essay topic

In Niccolo Machiavelli's the Prince, he is conveying to the reader and also to the Medici family, his views on how Princes should run their states. As one gets further into the reading they will find the Machiaveli's ideal Prince is a harsh and fierce individual that must be able to execute actions that might be considered intolerable, but however, must be done in order to ensure an effective rule. He begins by discussing Hereditary states. Hereditary states are states that are ruled for many years by an already established family. During his discussion of these types of states, he concludes that it is easier for a prince to prosper in this setting as opposed to a principality. He continues that when a prince comes to be in a hereditary state he only had to maintain previous habits and simply make them apply to present times, which is easy since his subjects are already loyal to the existing family.

He then begins to explain the down side princes face while trying to maintain rule over principalities and so forth. Most of his instructions are self explanatory and he writes them as if they are common knowledge. His instructions consist of, using's ones own troops, siding with the general people more than the nobles, inducting fear along with belief in its people but also avoid being despised and hated. He also thought that honesty should always be overlooked if it would benefit his throne. The prince should be a good negotiator, cool, calm, appear trustworthy, but also ruthless and place more importance upon the result than the action.

His ideal ruler is a mix of the many he mentions including Ferdinand of Argon, Alexander the Great, certain Roman Emperors, and Cesare Borgia. He had a strong dislike for the previous Italian princes. The fact Machiaveli has taken the time to write this book leads me to believe that Italy was in desperate times. Its faith was up in the air and a certain individual decided to express his opinions as well as concern. After examining the tone of the book I discovered that Machiavelli isn't just simply writing his thoughts as expressed opinions but more along the lines of facts or laws.

While providing possible roads that a prince can travel within each different conflict, sarcasm is heavily conveyed through the choices or roads that he views as being the wrong ones. More often than not he leaves his ideal Prince with no middle ground to travel with statements such as "Men must either be pampered or annihilated". This statement also reveals that Machiavelli feels that men are simple creatures whose desires can be easily met. Further into this section of the reading he says, "People are by nature changeable. It is easy to persuade them about some particular matter, but it is hard to hold them to that persuasion. Hence it is necessary to provide that when they no longer believe, they can be forced to believe".

This statement as well as others shows that throughout the book, Machiavelli makes a lot of assumptions about what people will do as oppose to what they might do. I feel that a large area of his writing is in error because human nature cannot be generalized. Of course one can speculate on what majorities will or will not do but in the end there will be a few to step up and break molds. Then again, he wrote hi book in a time where people had less options than what exist today. With these limitations it might be possible for one to predict the actions of people. Machiavelli's ideal prince is an individual that is emotionless.

He must be an individual with little temptations and few distractions. "A prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war, its methods and its discipline, for that is the only art expected of a ruler. And it is of such great value that it not only keeps hereditary princes in power, but often raises men of lowly condition to that rank". Machiavelli's prince goes against the whole renaissance man perspective and travels along the line of an individual whose only "talent" is to ensure the stability of the state that he governs. His Prince is starting to take the shape of a militant person who gives orders for the benefit of the entire population. In some cases his performance van be compared to an android who blindly follows orders, or gives them in this case, without the ability, or desire even, to make the necessary adjustments based on the uniqueness of the situation or individual for that matter.

Whether or not Machiavelli intends for his ideal prince to be a cruel individual is beyond speculation because he expresses how he feels about this matter frankly throughout the book. Upon further examination one may find that his prince is a person of little or no personality. A person with no compassion or true friends in exchange for the certainty of being an efficient ruler". Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved...

Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present". Currently we live in a nation where few, if any, fear their "prince". In Machiavelli's defense, he does explain that the job of a prince isn't for everyone. His prince must be a combination of two beast a fox and a lion. "A prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.

Those who rely simply on the lion do not understand what they are about". In this statement, Machiavelli is trying to say that when a prince is dealing with people he must break his promises from time to time because some promises might leave him vulnerable. He should also break his promises if the situation makes them become irrelevant. He later concludes that the prince should not use promises as a tool to rule with continued generalization, "But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived". Many politicians use Machiavelli's writing techniques to get their point across. He uses aphorisms which often seem to have a lot of wisdom in them.

An aphorism is a saying that makes the person try to sound wise and sound like the saying is accepted. Also, he lists an argument that someone might have to his idea and proves why they would be wrong. using ones own troops, siding with the general people more than the nobles, inducting fear along with belief in its people but avoid being despised and hated. The prince should appear trustworthy, but also ruthless and place more importance upon the result than the action. This causes a great deal of controversy since human nature does not allow for someone to function effectively when not loved by the people he governs.

Many people have opinions on the way we should be governed but few if any other than machiavellian, have claimed the authority to write a straightforward book on the subject. Infact, he finds his opinions so factual that he neglects to establish himself as an authority before proceeding into the book. The author of a book on how to play basketball would start off by describing his prowess as a basketball player so that his statements can have more merit The absent of this in Machiavelli's Prince further reiterate his feelings about the past princes if Italy..