We recently
toured Rome and Italy, where we viewed many of the splendors of the Italian
Renaissance. Works by Michelangelo, Titian, and Rafael were prominent. The
spirit of Leonardo da Vinci loomed in the background. These figures and others
like them are considered among the glories of the Italian Renaissance. But
perhaps the most important person to emerge from the Italian Renaissance was
not a painter, sculptor, or poet. He was a Florentine diplomat sent
involuntarily into exile from Florence to a country estate, where he took up
his pen and began writing. He drew upon his deep knowledge of ancient history
and Florentine history. He drew upon his extensive practical experience from
many years as a Florentine diplomat. After his death, one of his works, On
Principalities, was published. Immediately, it was subject to
mistranslation, misunderstanding, and abridgment. It became known as the
Courtier's Koran (and this is not a compliment). Who was this person? Niccolò
Machiavelli. His name has become familiar through the centuries since the
publication of The Prince (as the title was misleadingly translated into
English) as a purveyor of sinister political advice. Almost every major
commentator addressing all him him him him him him him him the history of
political thought has grappled with Machiavelli’s works and wrestled with his
legacy. In this book, Philip Bobbitt enters the fray.
Philip
Bobbitt is a professor of law at Columbia University with continuing ties to
his original teaching position at the University of Texas. In addition, he has
served in foreign-policy positions under both Republican and Democrat
administrations. Finally, and most recently, he has published two major works
on law, strategy, and international relations: The Shield of Achilles
and War and Consent. Compared to those two books, his foray into the
world of Machiavellian studies is brief and succinct. However, Bobbitt has a
compelling hypothesis and makes a strong case in favor of his interpretation.
Bobbitt
argues that The Prince is a short detour from Machiavelli's longer work,
the Discourses on Livy, which helped create the intellectual climate
that allowed the resurgence of Republicanism in the Western world. Bobbitt
argues that The Prince and the Discourses should be read as one
book on the state (il stato). Instead of Machiavelli writing a “mirror
of princes” work like his predecessors, Machiavelli is attempting something
else. In The Prince Machiavelli aims to establish a practical ethics for
establishing a state (principality). After the establishment of the state,
Machiavelli recommends a transition to a republican form of government.
Machiavelli undertakes this intellectual project in the hope that Italy will
one day unify into a single state under a republican government, a hope that
was not realized until several centuries after his death. In forwarding this
argument, Bobbitt does not see Machiavelli as a teacher of evil, but as an
astute student of political realities that is willing to weigh the consequences
of action and not pay mere lip service to ethical guidelines that don't deal
with the reality of those grasping for political power.
I found
Bobbitt's argument convincing. Most who read Machiavelli have to admit that he
has insights into the behavior of those grasping or seeking power (i.e., all of
us). His classic query is to whether it is better to be loved or to be hated, a
question that has a practical ring to it for personal relations as much as for
political rule. Many readers over the centuries have felt that in taking any
advice from Machiavelli one was somehow lowering oneself in a dastardly way,
but this is not (necessarily) so. Machiavelli tries to establish the guidelines
for founding a state (or regime or scheme of power) that can be later
transferred into a more stable republic.
Bobbitt's
argument about Machiavelli makes a lot of sense, but it also leaves many
unanswered questions. The review of the book by Garry Wills in the New York
Times suggest that Bobbitt’s book tacitly approves of a powerful state that
will limit civil liberties and unduly aggrandize the regime. Wills seems to
believe that Bobbitt’s argument grants license to the Dick Cheneys of the world
to do as they will in protection of the state. I didn't read Bobbitt as making
that argument, although I am curious to go back and look more closely at The
Shield of Achilles and especially Terror and Consent to learn how
Bobbitt draws these lines. Bobbitt does ignore the question of when
Machiavelli’s ethics of The Prince should no longer apply. In other
words, a newly formed principality, according to Machiavelli and Bobbitt, must
work under different set of guidelines than an established republic. However,
to what extent can a republic or should a republic revert to the ethics of a
principality when under threat? Indeed, history seems littered with examples of
political leaders who grasp for power when external forces threaten. The
identification of an external threat is the oldest trick in the playbook for
extending political power. According to Machiavelli and Bobbitt, how do we sort
out the legitimate expediencies that Machiavelli might consider legitimate from
those that would prove harmful to a republic? Our own republic has undergone a
serious decline in civil liberties under the terrorist threats of the last 20
years, and before that, under the threat of communism. Despite the warnings of
people like George Kennan, throughout the Cold War the US too often mimicked
our adversaries in paranoia, state security, and limitations on freethinking.
The same thing can be happening in the current age, although Al Qaeda and
Islamic fundamentalism don’t pose the ideological threat that Marxism once held
as an attractive messianic religion.
For anyone
who is remotely interested in Machiavelli and the world in which he lived and
acted, I highly recommend Bobbitt's book. Bobbitt is not a Machiavelli scholar,
but he has done his homework and marshaled his arguments in a way that is
convincing and appealing. I hope his next book will address the application of
Machiavelli and Machiavellian principles in today's world and how we can
distinguish between the legitimate uses of power and their easy corruption.
