The Prince - Niccoló Machiavelli
Written in 1513. Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat who was fired, tortured, and exiled by the family this book was written for. This is a book that is so interwoven into our thinking that I was worried the points presented would feel obvious.
The core argument presented in this book, one he meticulously crafts chapter by chapter, is that the previous paradigm of ruling by virtue is not only ineffective, but a lie as well. Every political thinker pre-Machiavelli presented ruling as a test of virtue and ethics in the Christian sense. Within my own reading, this is presented best in Alexander the Great - famously tutored by Aristotle himself on ethics. The idea of "Philosopher King" was what was presented by the rulers to the citizenry. Machiavelli does not argue against virtue, but he argues that virtue has it's place.
The book begins with the taxonomy of states. This was the part in my notes that I was worried was too internalized to have any value. It felt quite obvious, but as you go deeper it becomes obvious why that is, especially if you imagine yourself in the historical context of the book. The historical examples I found to be dense, and were best read at face value. I did not attempt to gain context until after the first reading.
As it grew deeper into the ethical and philosophical nature of a ruler, I found myself being more interested. A lot of the prior chapters exist to build a base for the outlandish-for-the-time statements he would make. One of the most interesting points was in Chapter 18 where he notes that the classic virtues are not necessary to have, but it is necessary to appear to have them. I would tend to agree, but in a democratic society that now leverages virtue's counterfeits at scale through social media feeds, it feels more and more like this isn't the case - that neither is required.
I found the final chapters especially interesting. Throughout the book he makes certain claims on religion and flattery. The final chapter seems to invoke the opposite of all the claims he made, as a gift to the Medici. He invokes God, fortune, and glory to make his point that the Medici are destined to return. It feels as though he is testing whether the Medici absorbed the lessons they just read.
Throughout the book, I found that the core tension was between virtù and fortuna, and that these were his most interesting insights. Fortune is, to Machiavelli, everything outside of one's control. He compares it to a flooding river - you cannot stop it but you can prepare for it next time. His comparison of fortune to women, preferring the young and bold, seems to have claimed our collective consciousness as well. With virtù, it felt almost similar to the discussions we see of agency now. I find that through time there are two main "virtues" that the pendulum swings to. One is ethical, the other is agentic. Depending on the innovation of the era, the pendulum swings. What Machiavelli references with virtù is the agentic side - the capacity to read a situation and act decisively within it. I find that this is what has always been valued in America and that is explicitly why we have been so successful.
This book was bold for its time but has proved its correctness with each reader's reaction lessening over generations. Over time, power has seemed to come more and more into the light. The book's brevity is both its power and its weakness — too short to make its general claims defensible when you bring specifics, but long enough to make you believe the thesis. I found that thesis to be correct, and it continues to prove itself.
I feel that without enough historical context I could not come to my own conclusions or argue for or against any points strongly. Definitely worth a reread after more of his work and more surrounding work. Also, I got em-dash happy here but I wrote it I swear.