Rethinking Masculinity and Femininity in Niccolò Machiavelli's Thought (original) (raw)
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Machiavelli as Misogynist: The Masculinization of Fortuna and Virtù
2020
Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, although revolutionary in the field of political theory due to its construction of Realist thinking, carries inherently problematic elements that are based principally on Machiavelli’s misogynistic tendencies. Accordingly, Machiavelli’s misogynistic tonality culminates in a deeply gendered usage of virtù (virtue) and fortuna (fortune). His dichotomized portrayal of virtù, described as masculine and dominating, and fortuna, as feminine and weak, does much to fortify sexist intonations and an androcentric modality of thinking that ultimately results in Machiavelli’s work being quintessentially misogynistic. In this paper, we seek to extrapolate how Machiavelli’s usage of virtù and fortuna are intrinsically gendered, and how his projected bias is problematic in contemporary times. This analysis is divided into three main parts. We begin by highlighting the application of the gender lens in the following analysis and its value. The first section provide...
Pimps, Cuckolds, and Philosophers:: Machiavelli’s Literary Self-Presentation
Political Science Reviewer, 2022
S upposing Fortune is a woman-what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that Niccolò Machiavelli, insofar as he was a philosopher, was very inexpert in his dealings with women? Machiavelli upholds virtù, the essential quality of man, as a means of conquering Fortune and guaranteeing success in human enterprises. 1 The Greeks conceived of virtue as graceful submission to the caprices of Fortune's ever-spinning wheel. In place of such stoicism, Machiavellian virtù substitutes virility, courage, and cunning. Machiavelli advocates a virtue that dictates action-moral or immoral-in the face of necessity. The virtuous is defined as that which facilitates political success, and the virtuous man must know how to acquire (power, money, fame, love) in order to succeed. 2 In The Prince, Machiavelli famously explains that one need not submit to Fortune but instead can conquer her by "beating her and striking her down" (Prince XXV). 3 The young and impetuous man, the prince, exercises virtù by opposing
MEDITATIONS ON MACHIAVELLI: SEX AND POLITICS
2021
Everyone knows something about Machiavelli’s political thought. It’s been a long time since his masterpiece, “The Prince”, was written and we are still confused about what he really wanted to say with his writings. His words are not always clear and he seems to be contradictory many times but his thought is the base of modern political thought. In this work, we are going to focus on the key words that we repeatedly find in the lines of his writings to try to better understand what he wanted to hand down to those who wanted to become a prince at that time. What really is “virtue”? And what about “Fortune”? Which type of relationship are there between these two? Why do we all love and hate at the same time this author?
Intellectual History Review, 2017
Niccolò Machiavelli looks at us with an ironic smile. He escapes us, deceives us and at times even mocks us: "For some time now, I never say what I think, nor do I think what I say, and even if I tell the truth sometimes, I hide it among so many lies, that it's hard to find it again." 1 That ironic smile hides a tragic figure. Usually well hidden, it reveals itself in the moments of deepest desperation. "So if I sometimes laugh or sing,/", he wrote soon after being tortured and imprisoned, "I do it because I have just this one/ Way of giving vent to my bitter cry." 2 I want to uncover what lies at the heart of this tragedy using Machiavelli's own interpretative technique. Uncovering a complex, at times deceitful figure is a problem that Machiavelli himself faced repeatedly in his years as Florentine Secretary. Whether it was Cesare Borgia or Caterina Sforza, Machiavelli had to interpret the gestures and words of statesmen that were masters of deception. The strategy he developed to uncover these statesmen's intentions was based on the analysis of human passions, on uncovering the fundamental trait that defined a man's character. I apply Machiavelli's strategy of interpretation to Machiavelli himself. I do so by relying extensively on his letters and his comedies. Machiavelli would have envied the wide access that we have to the most private works of our subject of study. Had he had access to similarly private works by Cesare Borgia, his job as the Florentine envoy would have been much easier. Through this work of interpretation of human passions, I will uncover the irreconcilable disconnect which shapes Machiavelli's tragedy. On one hand, he relates to his objects of desire by entirely abandoning himself to them, regardless of how unachievable they are. On the other, to obtain these objects of desire his analytical mind develops strategies which take pride in their adherence to what he called the "effectual truth of the matter." 3 His incapacity to reconsider his objectives in light of the means at his disposal and his tendency to transfer all of himself into his objectives determined Machiavelli's successes and failures. He repeatedly failed when he had to set his own goals, or when he approached a problem with empathy. He succeeded when he was given precise and limited objectives and when he understood that he did not share the goals of those he was studying. The next section discusses how other scholars have struggled to understand the fundamental disconnect at the heart of Machiavelli's tragedy, focusing on the final exhortation of The Prince. The third section describes Machiavelli's interpretative strategy. The fourth section applies this strategy to his personal writings in order to understand what passions animated him, and then uses these passions to interpret some famous passages of The Prince. The fifth section looks at his political successes and failures and explains them in light of this fundamental disconnect between goals and means. The final section asks whether Machiavelli was aware of this fundamental disconnect. Looking at his comedies and at his epistolary exchanges with Francesco Guicciardini, I conclude that he was ironically self-aware. How could a realist embrace such unrealistic goals? Machiavelli most famously embraced an unrealistic goal in the concluding exhortation of The Prince. This was far from being the only time he did so, but by focusing on the interpretations of The Prince's twenty-sixth chapter I can review the literature relating to my central problem. After being kicked out of power, exiled and tortured by the Medici, why was Machiavelli appealing to the Medici themselves to liberate Italy from the barbarians? Did he think that such an enterprise was feasible? If so, why did he reach a conclusion which, by virtually all accounts, was utterly implausible? We can identify three ways in which readers of Machiavelli have reacted to this puzzle. First, many scholars simply ignored the final chapter of The Prince. As early as 1523 the Aristotelian Agostino Nifo published De Regnandi Peritia, a heavily plagiarized version of the still unpublished The Prince. Nifo transformed The Prince into a scientific treatise on all forms of government. In such a scientific treatise, there was no space for an exhortation to liberate Italy from the barbarians. The final chapter was thus excluded from Nifo's plagiarised work. 4 Those who, like Nifo, interpreted Machiavelli as the founder of a neutral science of politics, could not explain why The Prince ends the way it does. For instance, the German scholar Hermann Conring, who
Accusations of "Machiavellianism" abound. The term is a forceful condemnation of a political opponent, suggesting unparalleled deceit and inevitable treachery. Despite this association, politicians ranging from Emmanuel Macron to Steven Bannon still refer to their knowledge of Machiavelli to imply political skillfulness. While Machiavelli has become an integral part of our everyday political vocabulary, we lack a sense of what he said and how it has been interpreted. Machiavelli has been called many things: master of statecraft, teacher of evil, quintessential republican, and radical democrat. These many Machiavelli's often tell us as much about the thinker engaging with the work of Machiavelli as they tell us about the Renaissance Florentine himself. This course reads Machiavelli's core political texts alongside debates that have unfolded through his work. We will follow the ways his thought has informed conversations about the role of the people in the polity, ideas of morality and politics, the nature of political knowledge, and the relationship between war, power, and authority, among other issues. Revisiting the debates around Machiavelli's political thought alongside the original text provides us not only with a chance to dispute earlier interpretations but also offers a map of major concepts in political theory. Drawing on the interventions of his many interpreters, we will consider how Machiavelli might speak to our contemporary political moment. Where do love and fear arise in our political life? How do we build a polity that can endure? Who is the new Prince, and what would it mean to apply this concept today?
Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover, Or A Man by His Book: In Defense of Niccolo Machiavelli
In contemporary discourse, the figure of Machiavelli has become the caricature of the unethical politician, who serves self-interest regardless of moral implications. However, this representation of his character is hasty and not founded upon the realities of historical evidence. This paper will argue that popular contemporary perceptions of Machiavelli and " Machiavellianism " are misguided, by examining its validity vis a vis biographical and textual evidence within Machiavelli's works, and the influence of external actors and forces.
In his book, The Prince, written in 1513, Niccolò Machiavelli argued for the autonomy of politics from religion and ethics, essentially creating the discipline of political sciences. His ideas enjoyed a great popularity in the following centuries, and were admired, and more often criticized and also despised, by a large number of philosophers and politicians. Our purpose in this paper is to examine the reception and interpretation of Machiavelli's ideas in Europe in the interwar period, in particular in the authoritarian ideologies of fascist political actors.