The Mendacious State

Continuing yesterday’s Machiavellian subpoena . . .

The author of The Prince has been criticized on many fronts – primarily by those who have not understood him – but one critique stands Everest-like: the one recognizing Machiavelli as the man responsible for the creation of the modern state. In his foundational book, The Myth of the State, Ernst Cassirer extends Machiavelli’s logic to its ultimate conclusion, and discovers the state as an institution with a life of its own, wholly separate from the nation and its people. The prince was always recognized as a flesh and blood person, whose legitimate function was to assure the survival, not only of the nation, but of himself as well. To achieve those ends, the successful prince “ought to know how to resemble a beast as well as a man.” [The Prince, chapter 12] But Cassirer saw that in the modern world, where nations had come to be ruled ostensibly by democratic principles, the heirs of the prince, charged with the same responsibilities, were expected – at least by the naïve masses – to behave all the time as civilized humans, and never as beasts. In order to be successful on both counts (i.e., to himself and to the nation) the modern "prince" -- the state -- is forced to disguise himself as a good guy. If to protect the nation the “prince” sometimes behaves as a beast, he faces the doubly difficult task of continuing to appear to the people as a moral human.

This task is relatively easier when the nation is involved in an openly declared war. Time-honored custom has acclimated human beings of all nations to the necessity to behave like a beast when the nation’s life is at stake. But when minor skirmishes “along the border” or “in the ghettos” fall short of an all out life-threatening situation, the state finds itself hard-pressed to act as it must while seeming to remain human. To counter this difficulty, the tactics employed to enforce the rule of law have been elevated to the same level of violence as those employed in time of war. Predictably, this promotion leads to unintended incidents such as those that occurred in Waco and Ruby Ridge, and in Philadelphia where the “law” burned to the ground an entire city block in order to “smoke out” a minor malefactor in one apartment. But so long as these events are recognized as “incidents,” and not business as usual, the state is generally held accountable for its actions.

We can thus understand the “war on drugs,” the “war against terrorism,” and perhaps even the “war against ‘godless’ communism.” All words possess emotional counterparts, and “war” is a more powerful emotional stimulant than mere ”law enforcement.” If the perceived needs of the state, as they appear in the minds of those warm-blooded humans who are in charge, dictate bestial behavior in what is actually only a “border dispute,” they call it war and proceed as if the nation’s life were at stake. Machiavelli – no mean observer of human nature – saw that princes, being human, were as likely to act for personal reasons as for the good of the nation. “For when men are no longer obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition, which passion is so powerful in the hearts of men that it never leaves them.” [Discourses on Titus Livius, Book I, chapter 37.] We should not expect the leaders of modern democracies to have changed so remarkably that they should behave differently than did the princes of Machiavelli’s time. We go to “war” when the politics of the moment require it.

We should thus, as I said yesterday, not judge our leaders by their lies (or by their bestial behavior), but rather by our assessment of whether they have acted in accord with the genuine needs of the nation. Only The Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, or what goodness. We can only judge of men's actions by the observable effects they produce as the causes of the state’s behavior. Sometimes that relationship is difficult to see. We are fortunate that in the current situation, the leaders of the American state have caused so much true destruction, against all reasonable judgments, that we know the course we are to take. Now, we need only the will to take it.