Nicki Mach
Lets explore the importance of Machiavelli’s influence on power today.
- The Executive
- The Princessa
- Quotes revisited
- Final note
Notes:
The work of Niccolo is alive today: In corporations and governments around the world. Thanks to the human desire for power the precedents of power set by Niccolo have been rooted out and taught over the decades. Two recent texts that are worth mentioning are: The Executive, a worthwhile piece designed for today's executive, much like the Prince was designed for it’s recipient in the 17th century. It depicts the power principles for attaining, maintaining and neutralizing power at the level through Machiavellian means. (Web site available to those who would be interested.”
The other work is (of course) The Princessa, by Harriet Rubin, proclaimed to be Machiavelli for Women. I quote, “While women have been socialized to avoid conflict, to be peacemakers, caretakers, and nurtures, Rubin shows how these very skills - sensitivity, emotional depth, and selflessness - can be codified into a new strategy for power.
Henry Kissinger said: "There are some situations in which the more the survival is threatened the narrower the margin of choice becomes, unless you say you would rather have your society destroyed than to pursue marginal means."
(Previous Quotes now with Parenthesis.)
Just a final note that is important to remember: Machiavelli would not have supported the general maxim that the end justifies the means; he believed that one particular end (liberty) dictated the means. He was not amoral and unscrupulous: he simply believed that our morality (the church of the time) was dangerously dogmatic, impractical and irresponsible. For these reasons it must be concluded that Machiavelli was not per se Machiavellian.