The Story Behind Machiavelli's Philosophy - Dr Alexander Lee | Modern Wisdom Podcast 321

A central theme running through all of Machiavelli's writings is fortune and the vicissitudes of fortune. Fortune, he says, is what rules the world around us. But she, it's always... he always imagines her as a, as a woman. She is very unpredictable and very capricious. You never know when she's going to rise you up to the highest heights and when she's going to knock you down on your knees.

Why is an Italian man from the 15th century worth writing about?

Um, I think there are, uh, at least two good reasons, uh, for that. Um, on the one hand, Machiavelli, uh, has, uh, exerted, uh, an influence over the development of Western political thought, um, like very few others. Um, there are not many discussions about, uh, realpolitik, uh, the nature of rulership, uh, the role of virtue or the lack thereof in public life, which do not, at some point, come back to Machiavelli in his writings. The second reason is closely connected with that. When we think of Machiavelli, um, it's quite natural for us to think of the adjective Machiavellian. Uh, that is to say someone who is shrewd, cunning, a little bit amoral, willing to do things that they probably shouldn't do in other areas of life. Uh, and that, uh, association, uh, which I'm sure we'll discuss in, in further detail later on in the show, um, has often colored the way we perceive the man. His life, however, uh, is quite different or gives us a quite different idea of, uh... or gives us a quite different impression. Um, although he often did things which were, um, questionable, he was far from being this infallible political genius, uh, that we may think of. Uh, in actual fact, uh, he was, uh, a very human person, uh, a flawed personality who was often getting things wrong, who was often finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing with the wrong people and getting found out. Um, so I think, yeah, uh, on the one hand we should look at Machiavelli from the point of view of his, uh, enduring relevance. So, I'm not really keen on the, the idea of relevance as a, as a criterion of historical study. If he's relevant to, to political discourse and on the other hand, because of the extent to which his life does, uh, sort of jars with that a little bit.

It seems like some of the established thought was that he was kind of born with this immutable characteristics, this, uh, amazing political thinker. And yet upon reading about his life, it seems like he kind of blunders and blunders and slowly gets less worse and less worse and less worse, and then eventually ends up at some degree of capability.

Um, I, I, um... Less worse. Uh, uh, he is always making blunders. Uh, from the beginning of his political career to the last moment, he is always getting things wrong. It doesn't... That's not to say, that's not to say he doesn't get thing, a lot of things right, but he is always making miscalculations. He's better, I think, on paper than he is in his own political career. Um, but it is certainly true that because of Machiavelli's enduring, uh, resonance, uh, within the field of political thought or history of political thought, um, many people even today, um, have been inclined to believe that he was born, um, you know, uh, (laughs) like Athena from the head of, uh, the, uh, of the philosophy gods, um, with this great insight. And, and it is... I mean, I'm not saying it's, it's completely wrong because one can detect the genesis of his ideas, um, in his thinking from a comparatively early date. But it is, I think, mistaken to believe that he was a man without flaws, without personal failings, uh, without, um, problems and difficulties. But for me, as I hope I've shown in the book, that makes him all the more relatable, all the more engaging and personable. I often say that, you know, I, uh... there are very few political thinkers in the world that I'd like to go for a, a pint with, but Machiavelli is certainly one of them.