Mousiavellian Mendacity
The punditry has snidely accused Karl Rove, the political advisor to the current occupant of the White House, of being a modern Machiavelli. This is generally regarded as a terrible thing to say of a man. Machiavelli did indeed offer some fairly strong advice to those in power. He encouraged Princes to murder their opponents rather than confiscate their property; to be stingy with one's own property and generous with what belongs to others; that it is not virtue that leads to happiness, but the prudent use of virtue and vice; that if you intend to kill someone, do not say, "Give me your gun so that I might kill you" -- just ask for the gun, then use it as you will. Carefully examined in the context of Machiavelli's responsibilities, all of this makes great good sense. You should, for example, kill and not rob, since those who have been robbed, but not those who are dead, can think of revenge.
Mr. Rove must, though, have a different view of his responsibilities than Machiavelli had of his. The current occupant hired Rove to guide him in his relations with the electorate, a more restricted portfolio than possessed by that old Italian. Machiavelli was offering advice on all matters of state, not merely those the Prince would have to exercise in dealing with his subjects.
In that regard, Leo Strauss observes in the introduction to Thoughts on Machiavelli, that if Machiavelli were to be thought of as a patriot, he was "a patriot of a particular kind . . . more concerned with the salvation of his fatherland than with his soul." If we attribute to Mr. Rove and his master a similar commitment, we might better understand how the principles of Christianity can be made consistent with robbing the poor, bombing the innocent, and generally behaving in a manner wholly unChristian. If Rove and his masters have acted properly in conflating those abominations with the survival of the state, then the behavior of the current occupant can easily be understood. Machiavelli might say, the Prince must behave in any manner necessary to assure the survival of the state. If God judges the Prince by his behavior, and not by his aims, then his soul is forfeit.
This makes all together too much sense. The people can hardly behave in a moral fashion if they are continuously beseiged by evil doers. The Prince must, if necessary, act immorally to assure the people the safety they need in order for them to be moral. He must even lie to the people if they are incapable of grasping the imperatives driving him to action. So, we should not judge our leaders by their behavior as such, but only by the effectiveness of their leadership.
If we are fighting wars in places that are unrelated to the survival of the state, then we should hold accountable those who led us into those wars. If our finances are crumbling, and no good reason exists by which the destruction can be justified (or even excused), then those who made the decisions that put the nation into the straits of poverty must be held accountable. If the nation has accumulated more enemies than friends, if we are not feared so much as we are hated, if we have squandered the benevolence heaped upon us after the tragic happenings of 9/11, if in sum our leaders have managed to create dangers where before none existed, then those responsible must be asked to step aside for more qualified leadership.
Of course, the next bunch may not do so well in resolving the difficulties created by the current occupant and his cohorts. The nation is in a very bad way. We are debtors -- the greatest debtors in the history of the world -- and yet we have managed to devalue our currency and thereby the trustworthiness of our bond. We are importers -- again, the greatest in history -- and yet by the same devaluation we have increased the prices of the goods we import, primarily oil. We are working people -- perhaps the most efficient in history -- and yet we have sought to disproportionally tax the worker -- who is, incidentally, also the major customer of the goods we produce. We are a mismanaged lot of good people, served by men whose immoral behavior on our behalf has served only to make us worse off.
Forgive their lies. Those are the stock in trade of all Princes. Try them for their incompetence, and if they are guilty, turn them out and hope for the best from those who replace them. Elect competence.
Mr. Rove must, though, have a different view of his responsibilities than Machiavelli had of his. The current occupant hired Rove to guide him in his relations with the electorate, a more restricted portfolio than possessed by that old Italian. Machiavelli was offering advice on all matters of state, not merely those the Prince would have to exercise in dealing with his subjects.
In that regard, Leo Strauss observes in the introduction to Thoughts on Machiavelli, that if Machiavelli were to be thought of as a patriot, he was "a patriot of a particular kind . . . more concerned with the salvation of his fatherland than with his soul." If we attribute to Mr. Rove and his master a similar commitment, we might better understand how the principles of Christianity can be made consistent with robbing the poor, bombing the innocent, and generally behaving in a manner wholly unChristian. If Rove and his masters have acted properly in conflating those abominations with the survival of the state, then the behavior of the current occupant can easily be understood. Machiavelli might say, the Prince must behave in any manner necessary to assure the survival of the state. If God judges the Prince by his behavior, and not by his aims, then his soul is forfeit.
This makes all together too much sense. The people can hardly behave in a moral fashion if they are continuously beseiged by evil doers. The Prince must, if necessary, act immorally to assure the people the safety they need in order for them to be moral. He must even lie to the people if they are incapable of grasping the imperatives driving him to action. So, we should not judge our leaders by their behavior as such, but only by the effectiveness of their leadership.
If we are fighting wars in places that are unrelated to the survival of the state, then we should hold accountable those who led us into those wars. If our finances are crumbling, and no good reason exists by which the destruction can be justified (or even excused), then those who made the decisions that put the nation into the straits of poverty must be held accountable. If the nation has accumulated more enemies than friends, if we are not feared so much as we are hated, if we have squandered the benevolence heaped upon us after the tragic happenings of 9/11, if in sum our leaders have managed to create dangers where before none existed, then those responsible must be asked to step aside for more qualified leadership.
Of course, the next bunch may not do so well in resolving the difficulties created by the current occupant and his cohorts. The nation is in a very bad way. We are debtors -- the greatest debtors in the history of the world -- and yet we have managed to devalue our currency and thereby the trustworthiness of our bond. We are importers -- again, the greatest in history -- and yet by the same devaluation we have increased the prices of the goods we import, primarily oil. We are working people -- perhaps the most efficient in history -- and yet we have sought to disproportionally tax the worker -- who is, incidentally, also the major customer of the goods we produce. We are a mismanaged lot of good people, served by men whose immoral behavior on our behalf has served only to make us worse off.
Forgive their lies. Those are the stock in trade of all Princes. Try them for their incompetence, and if they are guilty, turn them out and hope for the best from those who replace them. Elect competence.
posted by Benedict S. at 6:59 PM
7 Comments:
Recently I have realized in greater clarity that America is at war with itself and in particular at war with it's leadership. In my memory it seems like this war stretches back to the 1960's when Johnson expanded the "conflict" in Vietnam and it reached a crecsendo in the 1970's when Nixon squandered his presidency on a bunch of third- rate cat burgulars who had little or no effect on the outcome of his succesful bid for re-election. Ford was more or less a pinch hitter and Carter , while a good man, seemed ill-equipped for the level of leadership the presidency requires; perhaps he was just too honest for the job.Somehow Reagan seemed able to evade major attacks on his integrity even through the heat of the Iran- Contra debacle;and Bush the first seemed to ride the crest of Reagan's popularity through the first Gulf War until he wiped-out in the trough of two major mistakes. GB I's second mistake was that he did something politicians do all the time, he raised taxes after saying that he would not; ironically, his first mistake and a source of major criticism at the time was that he didn't finish off Saddam Houssien when he had the chance.These two mistakes lead to the election of "bad-boy" Bill Clinton who, through his own foolish personal behavior, managed to provide fodder for an escalation of the war against the presidency that had been in a virtual cease-fire throughout the 80's. Don't get me wrong, I think the American people got what they deserved when they elected a guy who ran on the slogan" Character doesn't matter", I also believe that the entire episode regarding blue dresses and chubby interns was in no means cause for impeachment.What the not-so-loyal opposition did to Clinton, however weakened the country, and yet, he still served 8 years in which we enjoyed relative peace and relative prosperity. Now onto Bush II, a man who had the misfortune of being president when the most devasting attack on our own soils occurred on 9/11. In the aftermath of those horrific events the American people were hot for revenge, and Bush gave us what we wanted when he sent troops into Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban, and then into Iraq in answer to Houssien's decades long saber-rattling and posing as a possessor of weapons of mass destruction.Let's be honest Houssien either had WMD's or he did a great job of pretending that he had them; at any rate the entire world believed that Houssien, who began his efforts to obtain weapons-grade plutonium way back in the eighties and had used nerve gas on his own countrymen, was in possession of WMD's.Now the war wasn't over in a week, the WMD's were not found, and terrorist from outside Iraq have poured into that country in an effort to forestall all chances of stabilization in Iraq. Should our leaders have foreseen these events? I believe that any student of history will tell you that almost every revolution has spun-off a counter-revolution; so yes they should have foreseen these events. But at this point we need to finish the job in Iraq before we bring our boys home. The attacks on the presidency, the conspiracy theorist, and the popular press with thier revelations that threaten national security are not helping the cause for peace, nor are they hastening the return of our brave soliders. We are at war, the sooner the war is resolved the better. When the war is over there will be time to address the questions that need to be answered, but for now the US had better get its act together and form a united front so that we can defeat an enemy that will utterly destroy us if they are given the opportunity.
Yes, you're right CE. The village is only half destroyed. We need to finish the job before leaving.
Nevertheless, a fair summary (up to the present, where I think you go wrong). The current administration cannot deal with the problems. The solutions -- if they are to come -- will depend on a reunitimg of the great world powers around the notion of civilization. Look at one simple fact: the Taliban is alive and well and living in Pakistan. The current occupant has made an altogether too cozy a compromise with that Moslem nation's dictator for any pressures on his part to be taken seriously.
Current occupant has not only lost faith with the American people. The world doesn't trust him either. Time for a change.
Which world powers can we depend on? Russia and China are profiteering off Iran's nuclear ambitions. France is nearly gone, overrun by anarchists and weak-knee politicians. Germany has been MIA. The only other power we can depend on is Britain. The rest of the world broke faith with us long before the current occupant took office, our nation has been hated around the world for quite a long time.
As to the village, its only hope is that we succeed. That is what all Americans should hope for because success in Iraq is crucial to our future as a nation.
As an after-thought, I went back and reread part of your post. I realized that the world powers, if they did unite, would need to unite with a show of force because our enemies are not going to respond to diplomacy.At this point, war is our only course of action....
Now all we need to do is fight to win!
It's not that America is at war with itself,the blame lies entirely at Bushs doorstep.
To believe that the US government has the right to dictate what
freedoms we can and cannot exercise when in fact they are stewards of
these freedoms and it is not theirs to give and take away as they see fit.
To believe that US government has the right to wage war so that they
can supposedly bring peace to the world. Peace has never been bought at the end of a gun and what we are doing is isolating ourselves from the rest of the world and setting an extremely dangerous precendent to all generations that come after us. We cannot guarantee the morality nor
justification of administrations that follow this one and it is folly to set such a dangerous precedent to future administrations and hope that
they will exercise any kind of judgement just because they received a popular vote. History is replete with popularly-elected governments
that have abused their powers and used them to further their own agendas rather than the agendas that are for the good of their own people.
To believe that ignorance is strength and the less that people question what the government is doing the better we will be. So many questions remain as to the actions of this government, especially since 9-11 that
it's not even funny. Prior administrations have been less than stellar as well and we as the citizens of this country have the right and the duty to question suspicious activities by the government, whoever it is
and no matter what kind of "terrorist threat" we are under. The government exists for the people, not the people for the government.
When the current administration is gone and go to their respective
ranches to collect their fat pensions, it is We the People that have to deal with the broken economy and shattered alliances that they leave behind. When Rumsfeld is gone and Cheney and Bush are gone and the next administration takes over, it is We the People that have to deal with those problems and I will guarantee you that if conflict should arise after these clowns are gone, they will not be taking up arms to defend this country despite the conflicts being directly caused by actions that they took while they were in office. We are going to have to fight and die for their mistakes.
We the people are under attack from a foriegn enemy who will utterly destroy us if we are given the chance. Somehow, since 9-11 we the people have forgotten that. For the last 40 years America has been riped apart by those within our borders who would see this country, no matter who is in charge tumble. Certainly our Constitution does not allow our government, our leadership to run amuck; but we do not have a government that has run amuck of the law. You may disagree with the policies of this government, that is the right of every American, but not suggest that the President has broken laws and lied to the American people is ungrounded and it does our cause, the cause of freedom great harm. This nation is indeed in a form of civil-cold war, if we are not careful while we continue to push our own personal partisan agendas the house of cards will come tumbling down and we will find ourselves occupied by a force that will strip us of our freedoms and then of our lives. Wake up, our survival depends on a united America!
CE: The masthead of our local paper, The Madison County Eagle, carries a quotation from (who else) James Madison. "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." Note well, that of all the areas in which the polls have found the current occupant deficient, his abuse of due process -- as in the unauthorized wiretapping of citizens -- is the only one in which the people seem to approve of him. It has even been said that his choice of Gen. Hayden as CIA director was motivated by a desire to see that favorable issue brought back into the headlines. The rights of the people have, in this case, been abridged and silently encroached, so much so that even an astute observer such as yourself does not see the danger.
As for the nation being in a state of "civil-cold war," I find that a desirable state, one that I believe we should perpetuate no matter who is in power. (I believe Ms. Robin said as much, though I do not wish to seem to be seeking a majority here.) As another of our founding fathers once said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Perhaps (reading ahead to yesterday's blog) the adminitration would like to characterize the natural vigilance of the people as a "civil-cold war" and thereby justify increased levels of violence in its suppression. In any case, to the extent that the power of the people to seek redress and to peacefully assemble and express their thoughts, must never be abridged, not even by innocent sycophants of the powers that be.
Lies from our administration:(1) Saddam Hussein was partly responsible for the attack against us on September 11th, 2001, so a good way to respond to that attack would be to invade his country and forcibly remove him from power.
(2) Saddam was working closely with Osama Bin Laden and was actively
supporting members of the Al Qaeda terrorist group, giving them
weapons and money and bases and training, so launching a war against
Iraq would be a good way to stop Al Qaeda from attacking us again.
(3) Saddam was about to give the terrorists poison gas and deadly
germs that he had made into weapons which they could use to kill
millions of Americans. Therefore common sense alone dictated that we
should send our military into Iraq in order to protect our loved ones
and ourselves against a grave threat.
(4) Saddam was on the verge of building nuclear bombs and giving them to the terrorists. And since the only thing preventing Saddam from acquiring a nuclear arsenal was access to enriched uranium, once our
spies found out that he had bought the enrichment technology he needed
and was actively trying to buy uranium from Africa, we had very little time left. Therefore it seemed imperative during last Fall's election campaign to set aside less urgent issues like the economy and instead focus on the congressional resolution approving war against Iraq.
(5) Our GI's would be welcomed with open arms by cheering Iraqis who
would help them quickly establish public safety, free markets and
Representative Democracy, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US
soldiers would get bogged down in a guerrilla war.
(6) Even though the rest of the world was mostly opposed to the war,
they would quickly fall in line after we won and then contribute lots of money and soldiers to help out, so there wouldn't be that much risk that US taxpayers would get stuck with a huge bill.
Now, of course, everybody knows that every single one of these
impressions was just dead wrong.
mouse said here:As for the nation being in a state of "civil-cold war," I find that a desirable state,Hooray for that.
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