"Everything You Know About Machiavelli Is Wrong"

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

So Mark, pop quiz. If I told you there's a guy who wrote The Ultimate Guide to Being a Ruthless Dictator, advocated lying to your friends, and basically said murder is cool if it helps you stay in power, uh, what would you call him?

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Uh a sociopath, a bond villain, someone I definitely don't want at my kids' birthday party.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Right? But what if I told you this guy was actually trying to save democracy, protect his city from tyrants, and was basically the most patriotic civil servant you could imagine?

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Then I'd say you're describing two completely different people.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Nope. Same guy, Niccolò Machiavelli.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Wait, wait, wait. The Machiavellian Machiavelli, the dude whose name literally means evil schema in every language.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

That's the one. And today, we're gonna prove that pretty much everything you think you know about him is wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Mike, this is like that time at the Getty when you told that tour group the bust was definitely Augustus's, and the UCLA classics professor in the group just slowly shook his head.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

We're not talking about the Getty.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

You bought me coffee to make me stop talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

We're really not talking about the Getty. We're talking about Machiavelli.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Okay, Mike, I gotta admit, this is a tough sell. When someone does something sneaky at work, we call it Machiavellian. When a politician lies, same thing. The guy's name is literally synonymous with being a manipulative jerk.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I know, right? But here's the thing. That reputation, it's one of history's greatest PR disasters, and it started almost immediately after he died.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

How immediately are we talking?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Well, The Prince, his most famous work, was published in 1532, five years after he died. By 1559, the Catholic Church had put it on their index of forbidden books.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Wow, they really didn't mess around.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

And it gets better. In Elizabethan England, Machiavel became a stock villain character in plays. Like there would literally be a character called McKeeavil who would show up twirly's mustache and announce his evil plans. Behold, I am evil, and here is my evil plan.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

So he's basically the historical equivalent of a WWE heel.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Exactly. But here's what nobody bothers to ask. Why did he write these things? What was actually going on in his life? And most importantly, was he actually wrong?

SPEAKER_02 2:30

I mean, Monica would say he was wrong. She has very firm views on lying.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Monica has very firm views on most things.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

That's why you married her.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

That's exactly why I married her. But we're not psychoanalysing my marriage. We're rehabilitating Machiavelli's reputation.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Alright, so before we defend the guy, we should probably figure out who he actually was. Paint me a picture.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Born in Florence, 1469, Renaissance, Italy. So we're talking art everywhere, political intrigue, backstabbing, literal and metaphorical. And Florence is basically the epicenter of it all.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

The New York City of the Renaissance.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

More like Silicon Valley, innovation, money, power, everyone trying to disrupt everyone else, and Machiavelli. He wasn't born rich. His family had seen better days. But he was smart, really smart. And in 1498, at age 29, he lands this incredible job doing what? Secretary to the second chancery of the Republic of Florence. Basically, he's the guy running foreign policy and defense.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Wait, at twenty-nine? That's like making someone who just finished grad school the Secretary of State.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Right. And he was brilliant at it. For 14 years, he's travelling all over Italy and beyond, negotiating with kings, popes, emperors. He meets some of the most powerful people in Europe. He's not some armchair philosopher theorizing about power, he's watching it happen in real time.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

So he's actually in the room where it happens.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Exactly. He's seeing how deals get made, how alliances crumble, how rulers succeed and fail, not how it should work in some ideal world, but how it really works when lives are on the line.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Okay, so what happened? How does Mr. Secretary end up becoming Mr. Evil Mastermind?

SPEAKER_00 4:09

1512. The Medici family, who had been kicked out of Florence, they come back with an army, and they're not happy. They overthrow the Republic, and Machiavelli, he's out, fired, suspect, unemployed. Suddenly he's got more time on his hands than your son Ronald.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Oof. Low blow.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Too soon?

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Ronald's trying. The theatre arts degree was a choice.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Anyway, it gets worse for Machiavelli. In 1513, there's a conspiracy against the Medici. Machiavelli's name shows up on a list of potential conspirators, and we're not sure if it was even accurate, but that's enough. He gets arrested, tortured.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Tortured? Like actually tortured.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

The strapado. They tie your hands behind your back, hoist you up by your wrists, then drop you. Dislocates your shoulders. They did it to him six times. Jesus. And through all of it, he maintains his innocence. He didn't confess because there was nothing to confess. Eventually they let him go, but he's done. His career is over. He's exiled to his little farm outside Florence, basically under house arrest.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

So this is where he writes The Prince.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yep. 1513. Same year as his torture and exile. And this is crucial. He's not writing it because he's some evil genius who wants to teach people how to be tyrants. He's writing it as a job application.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

A job application?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

He's trying to get back into government service. He dedicates the prince to Lorenzo de' Medici, basically saying, Look, I understand how power works. I can be useful to you. Please, I just want to work again.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

That's actually kind of heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

It really is. Here's what he wrote in the letter to his friend Francesco Vittori in December 1513. He's describing his daily life in exile. When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold, I strip off my muddy, sweaty workday clothes and put on the robes of court and palace. And in this grave address I enter the courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Wait, he's literally changing clothes to read books?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yes. He's so desperate to maintain his dignity, to feel like he's still part of the world of politics and ideas, that he puts on fancy clothes just to sit alone and read Livy and Tacitus, and then he says, I am not ashamed to talk to them and ask them the reasons for their actions, and they, out of their human kindness, answer me.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

That's actually devastating.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Right? This is a guy who went from negotiating with kings to talking to dead Romans in his study while wearing his good clothes because it's the only way he can feel like himself, and he's doing this every night, desperately trying to process what went wrong, trying to understand why good people lost and bad people won.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

So the prince comes out of that.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Exactly. It's not evil genius stuff. It's the work of a broken, exiled patriot trying to make sense of why his republic fell. And here's the kicker. While he was writing The Prince, this dark practical handbook for rulers, he was also writing something else. What? Discourses on Livy. It's this long, passionate defense of Republican government, democracy, civic virtue, citizen participation, the whole thing. It's literally the opposite of The Prince.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Wait, so he's writing how to be a tyrant and why democracy is great at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yes. In the morning he's writing about how princes should be ruthless and calculating, and in the afternoon, he's writing about how republics are superior to monarchies and citizens should govern themselves.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

That seems contradictory.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Or maybe it makes perfect sense. Maybe he's saying, Here's the world I want, a republic with virtuous citizens, but here's the world we actually live in, where sometimes you need a strong man to get through a crisis. It's not contradiction, it's context.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Huh. So before we go further, did the job application work?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Nope. The Medici basically ignored him. He spent the rest of his life, another 14 years mostly in exile, riding, hoping for another chance that never really came. He dies in 1527, relatively poor, relatively forgotten, the great schema who everyone thinks was pulling all the strings. He spent half his life unemployed and begging for his old job back.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Well that's just tragic.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

It really is. But his ideas, those outlived him, for better and worse. So let's talk about what he actually said in the Prince, because I bet it's not what you think.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Okay, I'll bite. What does the Prince actually say? Because I'm pretty sure it's all about stabbing people in the back and ruling through fear.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Well, there is some of that, but context matters. Let's start with the most famous quote It is better to be feared than loved.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Right. Classic evil dictator stuff.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Okay, but here's the full quote. Upon this a question arises whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved. It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved when of the two, either must be dispensed with. But it is necessary to know how to avoid the reputation of cruelty.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Huh. That's actually different.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Right? He's not saying go be a monster. He's saying, look, if you had to choose between being loved or feared, and sometimes you do, fear is more reliable, but above all, don't be hated because that's when they overthrow you.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

So it's more like risk management?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Exactly. Remember, Machiavelli had spent 14 years watching rulers succeed and fail. He'd seen nice guys finish last because they couldn't make hard decisions. He'd seen cruel tyrants get overthrown because everyone hated them. He's trying to map the middle path.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Okay. What about the lying? I'm pretty sure he advocates lying to everyone about everything.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

He does advocate deception in certain circumstances, but again he's specific about it. Here's what he actually says. A prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Okay, that still sounds pretty bad.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Does it? Think about it. He's saying that if circumstances change, if keeping a promise would destroy your state and harm your people, then you're not bound by that promise. That's basically every peace treaty that's ever been renegotiated. That's Winston Churchill allying with Stalin against Hitler, even though he hated communism.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

Fair point.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

And here's the thing, he's not saying lie to your own people or betray your friends. He's talking about statecraft and war, where deception has always been part of the game. We call it military deception or intelligence operations today, and we give people medals for being good at it, but when Machiavelli says it out loud, he's the bad guy.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

That's actually a really good point. We do this stuff all the time, we just don't like admitting it, which I guess is the whole Machiavelli problem, right? He admitted it.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Exactly, and that's really what made people uncomfortable. He said the quiet part loud. He described how politics actually works, not how we wish it worked.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

So what else is in there that people misunderstand?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Well, there's the whole thing about cruelty. He's got this line that really upset people. A prince must not mind incurring the charge of cruelty for the purpose of keeping his subjects united and faithful.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yeah, that sounds pretty bad.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

But look at what he's actually arguing. He's saying that sometimes a leader has to make decisions that seem cruel in the short term, like executing a few conspirators, to prevent a civil war that would kill thousands. It's literally the trolley problem 400 years before anyone formalized the trolley problem.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Wait, so do you let the train kill five people or do you pull the lever and accept responsibility for killing one?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

And Machiavelli is saying, pull the lever, save the five, take the hit to your reputation. That's what leadership actually is.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Okay, but there's got to be some really dark stuff in there, right? Like, what about that line about wiping out entire families of your enemies?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Oh, you mean where he talks about how if you conquer a city, you should either treat them really well or completely destroy them with no middle ground?

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Yeah, that one.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Okay. That one is pretty dark. Here's the actual quote. Men ought either to be well treated or crushed because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot. So he's saying if you're gonna make an enemy, make sure they can't come back for revenge. Either win them over completely or eliminate the threat completely. No half measures.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Which is still brutal.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

It is. And here's where we need to pump the brakes and remember context. He's writing in Renaissance Italy. This is a place where cities regularly get sacked, entire populations get enslaved or massacred, ruling families get wiped out. This isn't theory. This is stuff he's personally witnessed.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

So he's describing the reality of his time, not advocating for it as an ideal.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Well, he's doing both, kind of. He's saying this is how the game is played in the world as it actually exists, and if you want your city to survive, here's how you need to play it. He's not happy about it. Nowhere in the prints does he say this is the ideal world or that cruelty is good in itself.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

So he's like a political realist.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Exactly. That's the perfect word. He's the father of political realism, the school of thought that says you have to deal with the world as it is, not as you wish it were. And that's uncomfortable because it means admitting that nice guys often do finish last in politics.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Okay, but Mike, I gotta push back here. Because, right, I get that he's being realistic about how power works, but doesn't this just become an excuse? Like every dictator in history has said they had to be cruel for the greater good?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

That's okay, that's actually a really good question.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Stalin said he was being realistic. Mao said he was being realistic. At what point does realism just become permission to be a monster?

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Hold that thought, we're gonna come back to that. Because you're right, and it's one of the core problems with Machiavelli, but first, we need to understand the world he was living in because that context is crucial.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Okay, you keep mentioning Renaissance Italy like it's some kind of hellscape. Paint me that picture. What was actually going on?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Oh man, it was chaos. Beautiful, artistic, culturally rich chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Imagine if New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Miami were all independent city-states, constantly at war with each other, and also Spain, France, and Russia kept invading, trying to grab territory.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

That sounds exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

It was. And Machiavelli lived through some of the worst of it. In his lifetime, he saw France invade Italy four times, Spain three times, the Holy Roman Empire kept meddling. The Pope had his own armies and was fighting wars.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Wait, the Pope had armies?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Oh yeah. The Papal States were a major military power. Pope Julius II, who was Pope while Machiavelli was writing, literally led troops into battle in full armor. They called him the warrior pope. There's a famous story about him besieging a city, and when his advisors said they should wait for reinforcements, he said no and personally led the assaults on the walls.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

The Pope. In armour, storming city walls.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yep. And before him was Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, who had at least seven illegitimate children and basically ran the papacy like a crime family. He made his son Cesare a cardinal at age 18, then Cesare gave up the cardinalate to become a military commander and tried to conquer central Italy for himself.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Okay, so when Machiavelli is writing about ruthless political scheming, he's literally watching the Pope do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Exactly. And Cesare Borgia, Alexander's son, this guy is like the poster child for everything Machiavelli talks about in The Prince. In fact, Machiavelli knew him personally and was kind of impressed, horrified both.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

How so?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Okay, so Cesare is trying to carve out his own kingdom in central Italy. He's smart, ruthless, charismatic, brutal, and Machiavelli met him several times on diplomatic missions and watched him operate. There's this famous story that Machiavelli uses in The Prince.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Oh, I think I know this one.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

So Cesare appoints this guy, Ramiro de Orco, to govern one of his territories in the Romagna region. Ramiro is absolutely brutal, super cruel, terrorizing people, but he gets the job done. He pacifies the region, establishes order through fear.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Then, once everything's under control, Cesare has Ramiro arrested and executed, has his body cut in half and displayed in the town square of Cesena with a wooden block and a bloody knife beside it.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

What?

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Why? Because now everyone's happy. Ramiro did all the dirty work, everyone hated him, and now Cesare looks like the good guy who brought justice. The people who were terrorized get their revenge, and Cesare gets all the benefits of Ramiro's cruelty without any of the blame. It's absolutely brilliant and absolutely horrifying.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

That's wow. That's genuinely dark.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

And Machiavelli literally uses this as a case study in The Prince. He's like, see, that's how you do it. Let someone else be the bad guy, then get rid of them and look like a hero. He's not making this up. He's literally describing what he saw successful rulers doing.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

And this is the alternative to what? Being nice and getting conquered?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Well, yeah, uh the alternative was being someone like Piero Soterini, Machiavelli's boss. Good guy, honest principled, wanted to do everything by the book, believed in republican virtue and citizen participation.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Let me guess. It didn't work out.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

When the Medici came back with their army in 1512, Soterini refused to take decisive action. He didn't want to risk a bloodbath. He wanted to negotiate, find a peaceful solution, preserve Republican norms. He thought if he just followed the rules, reason would prevail.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

And the Medici just walked in.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yep. Overthrew the Republic, installed themselves as permanent rulers, tortured Machiavelli, and basically ended Florentine democracy for good. All because Soderini was too principled to make hard decisions. And Machiavelli watched this happen and thought, this is the problem with being too idealistic. Good people lose when they won't adapt to how power actually works.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Okay. So Machiavelli watched his boss lose everything by being too nice.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Right. And I think that really shaped how he saw politics. He loved the Republic, we know this from his other writings. But he also recognised that sometimes to protect good things like democracy and freedom, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty. You can't just hope that virtue wins. Sometimes virtue needs enforcement.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Sure. Okay. But and Valerie would kill me if I didn't say this. At what point does getting your hands dirty become becoming the thing you're trying to stop? That's like Cesare Borgia terrified people and had his enforcer cut in half. Soderini tried to preserve Republican values and got overthrown. Is there really no middle ground? Does power really require you to be a monster?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Okay, we're definitely coming back to that, but first let me explain what Machiavelli was actually trying to achieve, because I think people misunderstand his intent entirely.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Alright, so we've established that Machiavelli was living in basically Game of Thrones and he was describing real strategies that real rulers were using. But here's what I don't get. If he loved democracy and republican government, why write a guide for princes at all? Why not just write about how to preserve republics?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Okay, this is where it gets really interesting, because there are basically three main theories about what Machiavelli was actually trying to do with the prince.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

I'm listening.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Theory one, the traditional view, he was genuinely trying to advise Lorenzo de' Medici and get his job back. The Prince is exactly what it looks like: a handbook for how to acquire and maintain power. He wants to be useful to the new regime.

SPEAKER_02 19:57

That's what I always assumed.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Theory two, the satire theory, he was actually writing satire. Some scholars think he deliberately made rulers look bad by exposing all their dirty tricks. It's like a warning to citizens about how princes actually operate behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Like a modest proposal book for politics.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Exactly. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Enlightenment philosopher, actually believed this. He said the prince was really a book for Republicans, not princes. That Machiavelli was trying to teach citizens how to recognize and resist tyranny by explaining how tyrants think.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Huh. That's kind of brilliant if true.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Right? And there's some evidence for it. In the discourses, Machiavelli is openly Republican and talks about how citizens should be vigilant against princes. So maybe the prince is him saying, here's how they'll manipulate you, don't fall for it.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

What's theory three?

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Theory three is kind of a middle ground, and it's what I find most convincing. Machiavelli was being sincere but situational. He genuinely believed that different situations required different approaches to government. Meaning? Meaning when you have a strong functioning republic with educated, virtuous citizens, great. That's the ideal, and that's what he describes in the discourses. Democracy, civic participation, rule of law, all of it. But when your city is conquered, or your republic has fallen, or you're surrounded by hostile powers and on the brink of annihilation, then you need a different playbook.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

So the Prince is like emergency procedures?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah. It's it's the political equivalent of in case of emergency break glass. When everything's on fire and enemies are at the gate, you can't worry about perfect democratic processes or maintaining Republican virtue. You need someone who can make fast, hard decisions to save the state. And once the state is saved and stabilized, then maybe you can go back to Republican government.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Like FDR during World War II.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Perfect example. FDR did things during the war that would be completely unacceptable in peacetime. Internment camps, massive economic controls, huge expansion of executive power, basically ignoring Congress for years. years, but the the the country was facing an existential threat.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

And after the war, most of those powers were rolled back.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Exactly. That's the theory. The prince is for crisis mode. The discourses are for normal times. But, and here's the crucial question that you keep asking how do you make sure the emergency powers actually end? How do you know when someone's really saving the Republic versus just using necessity as an excuse to become a tyrant?

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah, that's exactly my question.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

And honestly, Machiavelli doesn't have a great answer to that. Which is one of his biggest blind spots.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Okay, but before we get to the blind spots, I want to understand something else. You keep saying he said the quiet part loud. What exactly was so shocking about what he wrote?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Okay, so this is fascinating. What made the prince so controversial wasn't that rulers didn't already do the things he described. They absolutely did. What made it shocking was that he separated politics from religion and morality in a way nobody had done before.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Explain that more.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

So in your personal life Machiavelli says you should absolutely be honest, kind, generous, all that good stuff. Christian virtue is good for individuals, but if you're responsible for protecting thousands of people and being perfectly virtuous means your city gets conquered and everyone dies, then you have a different responsibility. Political ethics are different from personal ethics.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

That's actually a really modern way of thinking about it.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Right? And this is 1,513. Nobody's separating these things yet. Everybody else is still writing these idealistic treatises about how princes should be like philosopher kings, perfectly virtuous and wise, guided by God and scripture and Machiavelli's like yeah that's nice but here in the real world Exactly he literally says and I'm translating from Italian here many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality but how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live that he who neglects what he's done for what ought to be done sooner affects his ruin than his preservation.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Damn that's pretty clear.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Right? He's saying stop living in fantasy land. Stop writing these books about ideal princes who don't exist. Deal with reality tell rulers how to actually survive not how angels would govern. So that's why the church hated him that's exactly why the church hated him because the church's whole power structure was based on the idea that political authority comes from God, that rulers should follow Christian morality that faith should guide governance. Machiavelli basically said nah politics is its own thing with its own rules. A prince should appear religious but shouldn't let religious morality interfere with necessity. Oh they must have loved that they did not in fact here's what he says in the Prince he says a prince should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity and religion and nothing is more necessary than to seem to have this last quality.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Wait, seem to have religion?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yep. He's not even subtle about it he's saying act religious because people like that but don't actually let religious principles stop you from doing what's necessary.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Which is I mean you can see why this upset people that's basically saying religion is a tool for manipulation.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Okay so if Machiavelli was just being realistic and practical, why did he get such a terrible reputation? Like why is Heichy the bad guy when he's just describing what everyone else was already doing?

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Great question. And the answer is because he said the quiet part loud and because it was politically useful to make him a villain. Explain Okay, so here's the thing all the stuff Machiavelli describes in the Prince rulers were already doing it popes were doing it kings were doing it. Everybody who had power was lying scheming making ruthless decisions. But they weren't writing it down and admitting it Exactly there was this whole tradition in political philosophy called mirrors for princes these idealized treatises that described how rulers should behave in a perfect world total fantasy but politically safe fantasy.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Like leadership books in the business section that nobody actually follows?

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Perfect analogy everybody buys them everybody nods along and then everybody goes and does whatever actually works. But Machiavelli was the first guy to actually write down what actually works. He exposed the gap between the official story and reality. And people freaked out oh yeah but not for the reasons you might think it's not like rulers were upset because he revealed their secrets they already knew this stuff. The problem was that he revealed it to everyone else. He broke the magician's code.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Oh so it's not that he was teaching princes to be bad he was teaching citizens to recognize when princes were being bad.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Possibly which brings us back to that Russo theory maybe the prince really was a warning disguised as advice. But either way the result was the same he made powerful people uncomfortable by describing their actual methods.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

And the Catholic Church came down on him hard.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Oh absolutely put him on the index of forbidden books in 1559 banned Catholics from reading him both because he said critical things about how the Church operated politically and because the Prince separates politics from religion and morality which the Church had been claiming were inseparable? Right. The Church's whole argument was that political authority comes from God, that Christian morality should guide all governance. Machiavelli basically said politics is its own domain with its own necessities. Sometimes you have to do things that violate Christian ethics that's pretty revolutionary for 1513 It was. And then during the Protestant Reformation both Catholics and Protestants hated Machiavelli because he suggested that religious morality might not be the best guide for political action. So he managed to unite the two sides of the Reformation in their hatred of him. So he pissed off everybody pretty much and then in Elizabethan England he became this stock villain character in plays. There'd literally be a character called Machiavelli or Machiaville who would show up in the prologue and be like I am Machiavelli I am evil watch me scheme like a cartoon character. Basically Skeletor Machiavelli became Skeletor yes exactly and that reputation just stuck. By the 1600s and 1700s Machiavellian meant evil and scheming and nobody was actually reading his work anymore. They just knew he was the bad guy. It became like a 500 year old meme that got completely out of control.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

And the irony is that all the stuff people criticized him for rulers kept doing anyway?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Right, they just didn't admit it. They kept writing and reading those mirrors for prince's books about ideal virtuous rulers and then in private they'd scheme and plot exactly the way Machiavelli described. The only difference is they didn't say it out loud.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

So Machiavelli's crime was honesty.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

His crime was uncomfortable honesty. He told people how power actually works and people hate that. We want to believe in noble leaders guided by virtue. We don't want to know about the deals and compromises and occasional cruelties that actually keep states functioning.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Okay but here's where I need to push back again because yes fine Machiavelli was being realistic and honest about how power works but doesn't that just become permission? Like how is this different from might makes right? It's not exactly No seriously Mike because here's my problem you keep saying Machiavelli loved republics and wanted democracy but the prince reads like an instruction manual for autocracy. Be feared not loved. Crus your enemies completely appear virtuous but don't let virtue stop you. That's not emergency procedures that's just despotism with better PR.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Okay that's you're not entirely wrong.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

And here's the darker thing every single dictator in history has claimed they were being realistic. Stalin said he was being realistic about class warfare. Mao said he was being realistic about imperialism. Pinochet said he was being realistic about communist threats. They all had their emergency their necessity at what point does realism just become an excuse?

SPEAKER_02 29:56

That's actually the core tension in Machiavelli and you're right to call it out.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

But I think there's an answer to it and we're going to get there. But first we need to talk about why Machiavelli is more relevant today than ever because his ideas are everywhere in modern politics whether we admit it or not.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Okay so here's my question. Let's say you're right about what Machiavelli meant. Does any of this matter now? I mean we don't have warring city states or popes with armies.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

Oh man Machiavelli is everywhere in modern politics we can literally see his principles playing out right now in international relations, domestic politics corporate strategy everywhere. Give me examples Okay so international relations Machiavelli argued that states don't have friends they have interests that alliances shift based on utility not affection that you can't trust other states to act morally they'll act in their self-interest. That's basically modern foreign policy exactly the whole school of political realism in international relations which every foreign policy student learns comes directly from Machiavelli. Hans Morgenthau the guy who basically founded this school of thought in the 20th century explicitly built on Machiavellian principles. So like uh why the US allied with Stalin during World War II even though we hated communism perfect example we didn't team up with the Soviet Union because we loved them or shared their values we did it because we had a common enemy and it served our interests pure Machiavelli and then as soon as the war ended we immediately pivoted to treating them as adversaries again.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

What about domestic politics?

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Oh it's everywhere think about political campaigns Machiavelli said it's important to appear to have good qualities even if circumstances sometimes force you to act against them. So every politician ever Yeah but seriously politicians constantly have to balance appearing moral and principled while also doing pragmatic sometimes ruthless things to win elections and pass legislation. LBJ is the perfect example. Right? He could be incredibly ruthless intimidating people cutting deals twisting arms occasionally threatening or ruining people who got in his way but he used that ruthlessness to pass the Civil Rights Act, create Medicare, expand voting rights he got his hands dirty to achieve good ends.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

So the ends justify the means?

SPEAKER_02 32:25

Well that's the eternal debate right and Machiavelli would say it depends. If your ends are genuinely good protecting your state helping your citizens preventing a worse outcome then yes sometimes harsh means are justified but if your ends are selfish or destructive then no amount of political skill makes you virtuous What about in business?

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Because Monica complains about her work politics all the time.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Oh corporate strategy is basically applied Machiavellianism. That stuff about knowing when to be feared versus loved that's modern management theory. Good managers know when to be friendly and collaborative and when to put their foot down.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Valerie would say that's just being manipulative.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Valerie would say a lot of things. But here's the thing it's not manipulation if everyone knows the game it's strategy. Companies bluff about their plans hide their weaknesses use misdirection. Apple under Steve Jobs was brilliant at this total secrecy strategic leaks controlling the narrative.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Okay but doesn't this all sound kind of cynical? Like if if everyone's just being strategic and manipulative, where does genuine ethics come in? Where's the line between smart politics and just being a sociopath?

SPEAKER_02 33:40

That's the million dollar question and this is where I think people misunderstand Machiavelli. He's not saying ethics don't matter he's saying you have to think about ethics differently when you're responsible for other people.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Okay explain that more because I'm not sure I buy it.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Alright so imagine you're a CEO and you know your company is going to have to lay people off in six months if things don't turn around do you tell everyone now be completely transparent and watch morale collapse, productivity drop, your best people leave and the stock crash which might kill the whole company or do you keep it quiet, try desperately to fix things and only lay people off if you absolutely have to That's yeah that's tough. Right. Both choices have ethical problems. Total transparency might feel honest but it could make things worse and actually cost more jobs. Strategic silence feels deceptive but it might save the company and most of the jobs. There's no clean answer.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Okay but that's a specific scenario. What about the bigger question? Because here's what bothers me about Machiavelli and what bothers Valerie when we talk about this is that it feels like it gives people permission to be terrible and then claim they had no choice.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

That's a completely fair criticism.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Like oh I had to fire half my staff right before Christmas because of market conditions. Oh I had to authorize torture because of national security oh I had to invade that country because of regional stability. At some point necessity becomes an excuse for everything.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

You're absolutely right and this is where Machiavelli has real blind spots. So let's talk about those.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Okay so we've spent most of this episode defending Machiavelli and I get it he was being realistic. He watched his republic fall he saw what happens when good people can't make hard decisions but I think we need to seriously engage with the dark side here because there is a dark side.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Go ahead I'm listening.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

So here's my core problem Machiavelli says in the actions of all men and especially of princes where there is no court of appeal one judges by the result. Basically the ends justify the means if you win right that's a fair reading of that passage yes. Okay so my question is who decides what counts as a justified end? Because Stalin thought he was building a workers paradise Mao thought he was creating a new society. Pol Pot thought he was purifying Cambodia. They all thought their ends were good.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

But the results were catastrophic.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Right but by Machiavelli's logic they just didn't execute well enough. They lost in the end Stalin's Soviet Union collapsed Mao's cultural revolution was a disaster so they failed the Machiavellian test not because they were morally wrong but because they didn't succeed.

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Okay I see what you're saying but I think No let me finish because here's the deeper problem.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Machiavelli doesn't give us any way to judge whether an end is actually good. He just says if you want to achieve X, here's how to do it, but what if X is terrible? What if you're really good at Machiavellian politics but you're using it to build an authoritarian state?

SPEAKER_02 36:37

That's that's actually a really important point.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

And there's another thing you keep saying the princes for emergencies for crisis mode and then you return to republican virtue. But name me one ruler in history who took emergency powers and then voluntarily gave them up. Well George Washington after a war he won sure but how many Washingtons are there versus how many Caesars, how many Napoleons? How many guys who say just give me power temporarily and then never leave OK.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

So what you're saying is that Machiavelli doesn't have a good answer for how to prevent the emergency from becoming permanent.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Exactly and worse he kinda doesn't care. As long as the state survives and is stable he seems fine with it being run by a prince. Yes he prefers republics in the discourses but in the prince he's giving autocrats the playbook and just hoping they'll be benevolent autocrats. So you're saying his realism is dangerous because it can be weaponized by bad actors Yes and every authoritarian regime in history has used some version of Machiavellian logic. We have to be harsh for national security we have to suppress dissent for stability we have to do terrible things because our enemies are terrible it's always an emergency and it's always necessary and it never ends.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Pause Okay, you're not wrong. That's a real problem with Machiavelli. But I think he does have some guardrails even if they're not perfect.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

What guardrails?

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Well first he says you must not be hated. If your people hate you you failed as a ruler no matter how much power you have. That's actually a meaningful check because it means you can't just terrorize people forever.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

But what if you control the military and the police? What if you can crush dissent before it becomes dangerous? Modern authoritarian regimes are pretty good at staying in power even when people hate them.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Fair. But second and this is key Machiavelli's whole project in the discourses is about building republics where citizens are educated, armed and capable of resisting tyranny. He wants a citizenry that can fight back.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

But that's not in the prince and the prince is what everyone knows and quotes.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

True. Which brings us to a really important question which Machiavelli should we believe the one who wrote the prince or the one who wrote the discourses? Because they seem to be saying opposite things.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Maybe they're not opposite maybe they're both true which is what makes this scary. Maybe Machiavelli did figure out how power works both how to seize it and how to keep it and that knowledge can be used for good or evil depending on who's using it.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

So he's like he invented nuclear physics and now we have to decide whether to build reactors or bombs.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Exactly he discovered the mechanics of power but mechanics are morally neutral. They work the same whether you're a Lincoln or a Hitler.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

That's actually a pretty profound way to put it and here's the thing that really gets me.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

You said earlier that Machiavelli separates political ethics from personal ethics but I think that's dangerous because it lets people compartmentalize I'm a good person at home but at work I have to be ruthless. I love my family but in politics I have to crush my opponents. It's permission to be two different people. But isn't that just reality? Don't we all code switch? I'm different with Monica than I am in a work meeting than I am recording this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Sure, but there's a difference between adjusting your tone and abandoning your principles. Valerie works in healthcare she has to make hard decisions about limited resources and triage but she doesn't become a different person. She doesn't abandon compassion because circumstances are tough.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

That's fair so what's your verdict on Machiavelli?

SPEAKER_02 40:17

I think he was right about how power works. I think he was honest when everyone else was lying. But I also think he opened a door that's very hard to close the door that says effectiveness matters more than morality that results justify methods that nice guys finish last so you better not be nice.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

So he's not a villain but he's not exactly a hero either?

SPEAKER_02 40:35

He's a realist in a world that needed idealism. He diagnosed the disease but didn't have a cure and I think that's sad actually. Because he clearly loved Florence he loved republicanism and he watched it all fall apart. And his response was basically okay fine here's how to play the game on its own terms but maybe maybe we need people who refuse to play that game.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

So you're saying we need both? We need Machiavellus who understand how power works but also people who push back against that logic?

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Yes, exactly. We need realists who keep us from being naive but we also need idealists who keep us from becoming monsters and maybe that's the real lesson of Machiavelli.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

He shows us what happens when you only have one without the other okay so Mark just made a really strong case against Machiavelli or at least against reading him without serious caveats but I still want to defend him because I think there are three things he got fundamentally right that we still haven't fully accepted. I'm listening first politics is different from personal morality in ways that matter when you're responsible for other people's lives and welfare the ethics change. You can't always afford to be perfectly virtuous in a personal sense. Give me a modern example Harry Truman and the atomic bomb. Using nuclear weapons is horrific. It's morally wrong in almost any framework of personal ethics you would never vaporize a hundred thousand civilians in your personal life and claim you were being moral. Obviously not but Truman believed whether he was right or wrong and historians still debate this that using the bomb would end the war faster and ultimately save more lives than a full invasion of Japan which would have killed millions. So he had to choose between two terrible options be the person who kills a hundred thousand people with bombs or be the person whose refusal to use those bombs leads to millions dying in an invasion.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

So he had to choose between two kinds of mass death.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

Exactly and Machiavelli would say that's what leadership actually is in the real world it's making impossible choices and living with the consequences. You don't get to keep your hands clean. There is no option where you feel good about yourself.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Okay I'll grant you that one what's the second thing?

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Second realism is not the same as cynicism and this is crucial because people misread Machiavelli as cynical but he wasn't cynical about human nature or the possibility of good government. He actually believed people could be virtuous and that republics were better than tyrannies.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Then why write a manual for tyrants?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Because he also believed that you have to deal with the world as it is in order to create the world you want. It's not idealism versus realism it's idealism through realism. You can't build a good society by ignoring how power actually works. So it's like optimism with clear eyes Yes perfect way to put it he's saying I want a better world I believe a better world is possible but I'm not going to pretend we're already in it. I'm going to be honest about the obstacles that's not cynical that's mature.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Okay but doesn't that just lead back to the same problem? I want democracy so first I'll seize dictatorial power to create the conditions for democracy. That never works.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Sometimes it does though that's the thing the American founders suspended normal democratic processes during the revolution Lincoln suspended habeas corpus FDR took extraordinary executive powers and in all three cases the Republic came back stronger.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

But for every Lincoln there's a dozen Napoleons

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Agreed. Which is why we need the third thing Machiavelli understood, which is the big one. Good intentions are not enough. The world is full of people who meant well, but made things worse because they couldn't or wouldn't make hard decisions.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Like who?

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Like every appeaser before World War II. Neville Chamberlain genuinely wanted peace. He thought he could negotiate with Hitler and avoid another catastrophic war. His intentions were pure. He'd seen the horror of World War I and desperately wanted to prevent another one.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

But it didn't work.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

No, because Hitler didn't care about Chamberlain's good intentions or his desire for peace. Hitler was playing a different game with different rules, and Chamberlain refused to recognise that until it was too late. And Machiavelli would say you can't wish away aggressive adversaries. You have to deal with them from a position of strength, even if that makes you uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

So Machiavelli is basically saying grow up and face reality.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

In the most loving way possible, yes. He's saying that if you really care about protecting people and building a good society, you can't afford to be naive about power. Good intentions plus naivety equals disaster.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

Okay, mate, but here's where I'm going to push back one more time because I think you're being too generous. Go ahead. Your three points are all basically sometimes you have to do bad things for good reasons. And I get that. I really do. But here's my question: How do we prevent that from becoming I can do whatever I want as long as I claim my reasons are good? That's because that's the Machiavelli problem, right? He gives us a toolkit for how power works, but he doesn't give us a good system for preventing abuse of that toolkit. He just sort of assumes that princes will use these tools for the good of the state. But what if they don't? What if they use them for personal power and just claim it's for the state?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Okay, so here's what I think Machiavelli would say to that.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Wait, before you answer, let me add one more thing. Because I actually think the most important thing Machiavelli did wasn't writing the prince, it was writing the discourses. Because in the discourses he talks about how to build a republic where citizens are educated, armed, and vigilant against tyranny, where power is distributed and checked, where virtue matters.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

I actually completely agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 46:17

So maybe the answer to the Machiavelli problem is more Machiavelli? Like we need the prince to understand how power works, but we need the discourses to understand how to prevent power from being abused.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

That's actually really insightful. So you're saying they're meant to be read together?

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Maybe. Or maybe we just need to be more honest that Machiavelli isn't giving us answers, he's giving us questions. How do we balance effectiveness and morality? How do we make hard decisions without losing our souls? How do we protect good things in a world where bad people play by different rules?

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Those are good questions.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

And maybe the answer is that there is no perfect answer. Maybe it's just an ongoing tension we have to live with. Sometimes you have to compromise your principles to survive. But you better have principles worth compromising for, and you better keep track of what you're compromising, and you better have a plan to get back to them.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

So don't be naive, but also don't become the thing you're fighting against.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

Exactly. Which is really hard, and I think Machiavelli understood how hard it was. That's why he's tragic. He watched good people lose because they were too principled, and he watched bad people win because they had no principles at all. And he was trying to find some middle path.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Did he find it?

SPEAKER_02 47:25

I don't think so. But maybe that's okay. Maybe just asking the question is enough.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Um, okay, so before we wrap up, I want to talk about one more thing, how Machiavelli influenced later thinkers, because his ideas had this massive ripple effect through political philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Like who?

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Well, Thomas Hobbes, for one. Um Hobbes read Machiavelli and basically built on his insights about human nature and the necessity of strong central authority. Leviathan is kind of like the prince on steroids. Same realism about power, but with more systematic philosophy.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

And Hobbes was writing right after the English Civil War, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:03

Exactly 1651, and he just watched England tear itself apart. So like Machiavelli after Florence fell, Hobbes is trying to figure out how to prevent chaos and civil war, and his answer is basically you need a sovereign with absolute power because the alternative is everyone killing each other. That's pretty dark. It is, but it's also building directly on Machiavellian logic. Order is more important than freedom, effectiveness matters more than virtue, and sometimes you need a strong man to prevent worse outcomes.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

Who else?

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Russo is fascinating because he read Machiavelli completely differently. Remember, I mentioned Russo earlier? He argued that the prince was actually satire, that Machiavelli was secretly teaching Republicans how to recognize and resist tyranny.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Did Russo have evidence for that?

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Not really. I think Russo just couldn't believe that someone who wrote the Discourses, which is all about Republican virtue, could genuinely mean what he said in The Prince. So Russo decided it must be ironic, which says more about Rousseau than about Machiavelli, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

What about more recent thinkers?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Well, in the 20th century, you get this whole school of political realism in international relations that's explicitly Machiavellian. Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, they all build on Machiavelli's insights about how states actually behave.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Kissinger was definitely Machiavellian.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

Oh, absolutely. And Kissinger knew it and embraced it. He he genuinely believed that in foreign policy you have to think about interests and power rather than morality. That states don't have friends, they have interests. That's pure Machiavelli.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

And a lot of people hated Kissinger for exactly that reason.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Right. Because it led to things like supporting authoritarian regimes because they were anti-communist or bombing Cambodia, or all these decisions that were rational from a realist perspective but morally horrifying.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

So again, we're back to the same problem. Machiavellian thinking can lead to terrible outcomes, even when applied by smart people with arguably good intentions.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

That's true. But here's the counter-argument. The people who didn't think like Machiavelli, who tried to apply idealistic principles without understanding power, they often produced worse outcomes. Like who? Like Woodrow Wilson. Wilson went to the Paris Peace Conference after World War One with all these high-minded principles about self-determination and democracy and making the world safe for freedom. Noble goals, but he didn't understand European power politics. He ignored Machiavellian realities, and the result was the Treaty of Versailles, which basically guaranteed World War II.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

Okay, that's a good point. So maybe we need both idealistic goals but realistic methods.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Maybe. Or maybe we just need to be honest that politics is genuinely tragic in the Greek sense. Sometimes all your options are bad, and you have to choose the least bad one and live with it.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

That's pretty bleak.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

It is. But maybe it's also honest. And maybe Machiavelli's real gift was that honesty, even if it makes us uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 51:11

Okay, so bottom line time, was Machiavelli right?

SPEAKER_00 51:15

I think he was right about some fundamental things that we still don't want to admit. Power matters. Good intentions aren't enough. Sometimes you have to make choices where all the options are bad. The world doesn't reward pure virtue, and pretending otherwise gets people killed.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

And he's not a villain?

SPEAKER_00 51:32

No. He's not a villain. He's a patriot who watched his city fall because good people couldn't make hard decisions. He's a realist who described the world as it actually is, not as we wish it were. And he's a political theorist who understood something crucial that if you want to protect good things like democracy and freedom, you have to understand how power works, even if that understanding is uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

But he's also not a hero, right? Because his ideas can be weaponized. They have been weaponized.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Agreed. He's not a hero. He's more like um a diagnostician. He diagnosed how power actually functions, but he didn't solve the problem of how to use that knowledge without becoming corrupt.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

So he's tragic.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

Yeah, he's genuinely tragic. Because you can tell from his letters that he cared deeply about Florence and republicanism, and he watched it all fall apart. Um, and uh his response was, okay, fine, here's how the real game works, here's how to survive, but I don't think he was happy about it.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

You know what really gets me? That line from his letter where he's putting on his nice clothes to read dead Romans.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Yeah, that really is heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Because you can just picture him, this guy who used to negotiate with kings and popes, now stuck on a farm, broke, forgotten, dressing up just to maintain some dignity while he talks to ghosts.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

And out of that loneliness and bitterness and desperation, he writes two of the most important political works in Western history.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

Which then get in branded as evil for 500 years.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Right. The guy who loved democracy gets remembered as the prophet of tyranny. That's pretty brutal.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Although maybe that's appropriate, because Machiavelli himself would probably say, doesn't matter what they think of you, matters whether your ideas survive, matters whether you were effective.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

That's actually perfect. He'd probably be fine with being hated as long as he was influential.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Yeah. Appearance versus reality, right? Seem virtuous, but do what works.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Although I think secretly he'd be sad about it.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Oh, definitely. Behind the Machiavellian mask, there was just a guy who wanted his job back.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

You know what's wild? Everything he said was controversial 500 years ago is still controversial now.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

Right? We still don't want to admit that politics requires compromise, that leaders sometimes have to deceive, that good people might have to do harsh things. But we keep learning the same lessons over and over.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Exactly. And maybe if we actually listen to Machiavelli, not the cartoon villain version, but the actual guy, with all his complexity and contradictions, we'd be better at protecting the things we care about, we'd be realistic about threats without becoming paranoid, we'd be willing to compromise without surrendering our principles.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

So the guy who everyone thinks is evil was actually trying to help us be good.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Just in a realistic way.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

That's pretty ironic.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Welcome to history, my friend. Nothing is ever what it seems.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

Although some things are exactly what they seem. Like that Getty Bus definitely wasn't Augustus. We're not. The professor was very clear. It was probably Tiberius. I hate you. No, you don't. No, I don't. That's it for today's episode of the Mike and Mark History Experience.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave us a review, and tell your friends who think they hate history that we're actually pretty entertaining.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

And if you disagree with everything we said about Machiavelli, great. That means you were paying attention. Monica certainly will.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Monica will have notes. She always has notes.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Valerie just texts me interesting after every episode, which could mean anything from I loved it to we need to talk.

SPEAKER_00 55:06

That's terrifying.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

It really is.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Join us next time when we'll tackle another historical figure who's been totally misunderstood.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Thanks for listening.