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A ramble on the current state of the world
I wrote this out as part of a recent discussion, and it might as well live here so I can read it in a few years and wonder why I thought such things…
- I find the distinction between direct orders and riling up rabble important. When a man gets drunk and beats his wife we do not blame alcohol companies, even if the beating would not have happened when sober
- I do not find political violence to be very contingent on politics – low functioning people leading meaningless lives will coalesce around causes that will give meaning to their lives, and maintenance and promotion of that identity is extreme behavior like forest defending and capitol rioting. “We gain much by hating in common and being hated in common” as the saying goes.
- Point 2 creates threshold effects which can be mistaken for having other causes – i.e. people who in the past were worried about floride in the water, UN RFID implants, IDF control over local governments, racial class war, etc, etc can now coalesce under QAnon and anti colonialism. In the past crazy was pulling in a thousand directions, now they’re just pulling in two or three. I blame social media, technology and the decline in religion for this.
- Point 3 results in changes in political action/violence, etc – while the coalescing probably does cause a net increase in political action/violence, etc due to network and agglomeration effects a lot of strange shit was going to happen anyway since people that do strange shit exist in the world. They now just produce a reduced list of motives.
- Jan 6 was indeed directly influenced by earlier riots and protests – You have all the post-riot evidence, as revealed in trials and social media posts, that the participants were running under assumption of “What happens at the riot stays at the riot” (i.e. an expectation of no law enforcement follow-up) as well as the tactics of the front lines in the form of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys not being armed (and saying so) as well as where and how they rushed the front lines. By being visibly unarmed the rabble ensured a hand to hand conflict instead of armed conflict which they could (and did) win for a while. This was an insight into law enforcement behavior gleaned from the 2020
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My physical goals for turning 52
- 10 straight Turkish Get Ups at 70 lbs (currently at 4)
- At least one marathon, whether an actual race or just running 26.2 miles
- Steel club mills at 25 lbs – sets of 10 – with a stretch goal of reverse mills at that weight
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Clinton joke – as told by Marleigh while in Preanesthesia
This was after the Versed, but before the sedation (she was in a great mood). For some reason we were looking at portraits of US presidents and deciding which one was the strangest looking (Martin van Buren) – Marleigh, for no knowable reason came up with this Clinton Joke
Why did Bill Clinton go down into the mine?
So he could hear the sound “Clint, Clint, Clint”! -
Proud parenting moment – Halloween edition
When we were wrapping up trick or treating we were talking about the prevalence of 15 foot skeletons. Either me or the wife mentioned that people left them up year round, and the Halloween skeletons became Thanksgiving skeletons, then Christmas skeletons, and so forth, and how this angered neighbors and neighborhood associations. After clarifying that the neighbors did not in fact buy the skeletons somehow, Marleigh had the memorable line
That’s ridiculous – just because they have opinions doesn’t mean they have rights!
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Before and after
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A system wide recalibration on assessing motivations
After reading some David Friedman on subcultures and rereading The True Believer by Eric Hoffer I am now convinced that the ability to make an impact is a much larger part of human motivation than I previously thought. This explains in fuller detail why young people keep jumping to new causes (ACAB/Cop City/Trans/Whatever the Alt Right is into these days) – they can make a difference in those new fields. If a young person enters a subculture that contains older people, say climate change or housing veterans, they’re competing against veterans with decades of experience. The “No Cop City” movement is brand new, and anyone can make a difference. No experience needed and the young are on equal footing with the old. Indeed – the young are somewhat more advantaged with a higher amount of free time and fewer accumulated commitments.
Granted – this relationship has always been present, but I think I’ve underweighted it in every aspect of human endeavor.
Upon reflection, I’m reminded of this quote from Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John (regarding the villain of the story)And why? Because, as I begin to discover, there’s a sort of minute, blazing star of worship right down in the pit of his hell. He sees everything from the side of eternity just as clearly as I do, perhaps more clearly; but—how shall I put it?—he conceives his part in the picture to be the devil’s part, and he’s playing it with a combination of passion and detachment like a great artist, and for the glory of God, if you understand what I mean. And he’s right. It’s the only thing he can do, and he does it with style. I take off my hat to him, in spite of everything. But it’s pretty ghastly, really. Think of the life he’s living; just like an infant’s, and with his powers! I dare say he’ll manage to find some trick for blowing up the whole planet some day, if he lives much longer
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On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger
This was a finalist in the Astral Codex Ten book review context. I’m a huge fan of Storm of Steel and have been meaning to read the rest of Junger’s work. Happily I was able to find the Hood translation on Archive.org. The ACX review covers all of the details of the book better than I could – I agree 100% with all of his conclusions.
What It’s AboutTwo retired soldiers meet evil and decay in the form of the Chief Ranger – someone who can weaponize decay and evil.
How I Discovered It
The Astral Codex Ten book review context
Thoughts
It’s awesome and delivered like no other book I’ve ever read
What I Liked About It
The style, the delivery, the weird sense that nothing is happening, it’s just noticed by the narrator – similar to Star Maker in that sense – a point of view seeing the world rather than an actor in the world
What I Didn’t Like About It
I wish there some were some sort of discussion group where I can pick up what I missed. I would like more!
Who Would Like It?
Anyone who likes Junger
Related Books
Storm of Steel
Odd John
Star MakerNotes and Quotes
Then there were brilliant duels which the weapon of laughter decided, and in which met fencers who shone by their fight, untrammelled command of thought— mastery such as comes only from a long life of leisure.
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But otherwise we lived, day in, day out, in our Rue-Garden 1 Hermitage in great seclusion. The Hermitage stood at the edge of the Marble Cliffs in the middle of one of those rock islands which here and there one sees breaking through the grape land. Its garden had been won from the rock in narrow terraces, and on the sides of its drystone walls wild herbs had settled such as thrive in the fertile vine-growing country.
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There he beat the rim with a pearwood spoon, and the gleaming red snakes came gliding from the clefts of the Marble Cliffs. As if in a waking dream I heard him laugh as he stood amongst them on the trodden clay of the courtyard before the kitchen. Half erect, the creatures played around him and swayed their heavy triangular heads to and fro above his with rapid beat. I stood on the balcony and did not dare to call to my boy, as if he were a sleep-walker wandering on the heights.
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Then the herdsmen will not let their cattle go to pasture near the Marble Cliffs, for a bite that finds its mark fells even the strongest steer with lightning speed.
NOTE: The cliffs are infested with venomous snakes?
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Then we would see little Erio frolicking with her, while, like a kitten, she rubbed her pointed head against his dress.
NOTE: They intentionally feed snakes and let tbeir kid play with venomous snakes…
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We amused ourselves with the curiosities of erudition and with quotations chosen for rarity or a touch of the absurd. Then ON THE MARBLE CLIFFS 17 we were well served by the legion of leather- or parchmentbound slaves.
NOTE: Books?
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So a work grew, and in its very growing we rejoiced.
NOTE: To Junger everything is some sort of natural phenomenon
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When we are happy our senses are contented with however little this world cares to offer. I had long done reverence to the kingdom of plants, and during years of travel had tracked down its wonders.
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It was seldom that I entered this part of the Hermitage, for the presence of Lampusa awoke in me a feeling of constraint that I preferred to avoid.
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Brother Otho, too, I would often see standing with the old woman by the fire. To him I owed the happiness that had been my lot with Erio, the love-child of Silvia, Lampusa’s daughter.
NOTE: Are they brothers or monks?
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But I was more nettled by the laughter of Lampusa, who scanned me with a glance in which I saw the shamelessness of a bawd. And yet it was not long before I frequented her hut.
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It was a basic principle with him to treat each single person with whom we came into contact as a rare find discovered on one’s travels. Then, too, his favourite name for men was “ the optimates,” to signify that everyone must be numbered among the true-born nobility of this world, and that from any one of them we may receive supreme gifts. To him they were vessels stored with wonders, and to figures of such nobility he accorded the rights of princes. And in truth I saw how each one who approached him unfolded like a plant awaking from its winter sleep; it was not that they became better, but that they became more themselves.
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Strange, too, was the fact that the vipers, when called by Lampusa, surrounded the quaich in mixed and glowing braids, whereas with Erio they formed a rayed wheel. This Brother Otho was the first to notice.
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Like all things of this earth, plants too attempt to speak to us, but one requires sharp senses to understand their speech.
NOTE: Junger lives an entirely internal life. his inner dialog must have been awesome and massive
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So even after the first few weeks it seemed to me as if external things were being transformed; and the transformation first manifested itself to me as an inability to express myself in words.
NOTE: Overwhelmed with just noticing things
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Often when I had fathomed the mystery of a word I would hasten down to him, pen in hand, and often he mounted to the herbarium on the same errand.
NOTE: Labeling he is a protorationalist
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Thus we described objects and their metamorphoses, from the grain of sand to the cliff of marble, and from the fleeting second to the changing year. In the evening we would collect our scraps, and when we had read them would burn them on the hearth.
NOTE: Ephemeral link nature regarding insight
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The word is both king and magician. Our high example we found in Linnaeus, who went out into the unruly world of plants and animals with the word as his sceptre of state. And more wonderful than any swordwon empire, his power extends over the flowering fields and nameless insect hosts.
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Thus it came about that our work was not abandoned when the Chief Ranger seized power in our territory and terror spread throughout the land.
NOTE: Finally the chief ranger appears
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He was one of those figures whom the Mauretanians respect as great lords and yet find somewhat ridiculous—rather as an old colonel of the mounted yeomanry is received in the regiment on his occasional visits from his estates.
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At this period I was scarcely disturbed by the inflexibility of his nature, for all Mauretanians acquire with time something of the nature of an automaton.
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Later I was to hear Brother Otho say of our Mauretanian period that mistakes become errors only when persisted in. It was a saying that gained in truth for me when I thought back to our position when this Order attracted us. There
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periods of decline when the pattern fades to which our inmost life must conform. When we enter upon them we sway and lose our balance. From hollow joy we sink to leaden sorrow, and past and future acquire a new charm from our sense of loss. So we wander aimlessly in the irretrievable past or in distant Utopias; but the fleeting moment we cannot grasp. As soon as we had become aware of this failure we strove to free ourselves. We felt a longing for actuality, for reality, and would have plunged into ice or fire or ether only to rid ourselves of weariness. As always when despair and
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periods of decline when the pattern fades to which our inmost life must conform. When we enter upon them we sway and lose our balance. From hollow joy we sink to leaden sorrow, and past and future acquire a new charm from our sense of loss. So we wander aimlessly in the irretrievable past or in distant Utopias; but the fleeting moment we cannot grasp. As soon as we had become aware of this failure we strove to free ourselves. We felt a longing for actuality, for reality, and would have plunged into ice or fire or ether only to rid ourselves of weariness.
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we turned to power—for is that not the eternal pendulum that drives on the hand of time by day or night ?
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To the newcomer it was particularly strange to see in their meeting-places members of deadly hostile groups in friendly conversation. Among the aims of the Mauretanians was artistry in the dealings of this world. They demanded that power should be exercised dispassionately as by a god, and correspondingly its schools produced a race of spirits who were bright, untrammelled, but always terrible.
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Yet wherever free spirits establish their sway these primeval powers will always join their company like a snake creeping to the open fire.
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who see a new day dawning in which to re-establish the tyranny that has lived in their hearts since the beginning of time. Thus there develop in the great Orders secret and subterranean channels in which the historian is lost. Subtle conflicts break out and smoulder in the innermost seats of power, conflicts between symbols and theories, conflicts between idols and spirits.
NOTE: CS lewis inner ring or circle
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Such is the effect of beauty on power.
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to store his food or to contain his gods, the centuries fused before our eyes into a single span.
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And we saw its frontiers too: the mountains where lofty freedom but not plenty found its home among the barbarian peoples, and towards the north the swamps and dark recesses where bloody tyranny lurked.
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Contact with this rough race revealed their good qualities; among these was conspicuous the hospitality which surrounded everyone who sat by their fires. So it came about that one might see in their circles the faces of town-dwellers, for the Campagna offered immediate shelter to all who had to quit the Marina under a cloud. Here one met debtors threatened with arrest and scholars who had planted too shrewd a blow at a drinking party, all in company with renegade monks and a crew of vagabonds. Young people, too, who longed for freedom and pairs of lovers willingly betook themselves to the Campagna
NOTE: Like the cossacks
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It even came to such a pass that nobody dared any longer speak of them openly, and it became clear how weak the law was in comparison to anarchy.
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There whoever among the people from either side of the Marble Cliffs were malcontent or greedy for change caroused and thronged the doors as if in the dark interiors lay their headquarters. It could not but add to the confusion that even sons of notables and youths who believed that the hour of a new freedom had dawned took part in this traffic. So, too, there were men of letters who began to imitate the herdsmen’s songs, which up to now only the nurses from the Campagna had been known to croon over the cradles.
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Then, too, there was not far from the Flayer’s Wood a copse of weeping willows, in which stood the figure of a steer with red nostrils, red tongue and red sexual organ. It was a spot of ill-fame, one to which there clung rumours of grisly rites. But who could have believed that the butter- and fat-fed gods who filled the udders of the cows would now begin to be worshipped on the Marina ?
NOTE: Reference To nazi occultism
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Men who had deemed themselves strongminded enough to cut the links with the faith of their fathers fell under the yoke and spell of barbarian idols. The sight they offered in their blindness was more loathsome than drunkenness at noon. Thinking to fly and boasting of their powers, they grovelled in the dust.
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There lived no one so poor that the first and best fruits of his garden did not go to the cabin of the thinker and the hermitage of the poet. Thus whoever felt called upon to serve the world in things spiritual could live at leisure—in poverty, perhaps, but not in need. In the to-and-fro of life the tillers of soil and the shapers of words found their precept in the old saying: The best gifts of the gods are unpaid for.
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But reason is nothing when passion blinds us.
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At the sound sorrow gripped us, and many another too, for we felt that the wholesome spirit of our ancestors had abandoned the Marina.
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Thus the Chief Ranger was like an evil doctor who first encourages the disease so that he may practise on the sufferer the surgery he has in mind.
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In base hearts there lies deep-seated a burning hatred of beauty.
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From such signs one could guess what was to be awaited from the Ranger lurking in his forests. He who hated the plough, the corn, the vine and the animals tamed by man, who looked with distaste on spacious dwellings and a free and open life, set little store by lordship over such plenty. Only then did his heart stir when moss and ivy grew green on the ruins of the towns, and under the broken tracery of vaulted cathedrals the bats fluttered in the moon.
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Into these forest lands had taken flight all who in peace or war had escaped extinction—Huns, Tartars, gipsies, Albigensians and heretical sects of all sorts. With them had 4 joined company fugitives from the provost-marshal and the hangman, scattered remnants of the great robber bands from Poland and from the Lower Rhine, and women-folk whose only trade was with their tail, trulls the beadles had driven from the doors.
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In Fortunio’s hands I had seen a manuscript from the pen of Rabbi Nilufer—the same who, driven from Smyrna, had on his wanderings been a guest among the woods. In his writings one saw world history mirrored as in muddy pools on the banks of which water-rats nest. Here was to be found the key to many a murky intrigue: thus rumour ran that after his banishment from Perouard Master Villon had found shelter in one of these pinewood warrens, in which along with many another shady crew the Coquillards had made their base. Later they flitted over into Burgundy, but here they had always a haven of refuge.
NOTE: Positive Mention of a jewish person
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This was the breeding-place of the mean huntsmen who offered themselves in house and field as destroyers of vermin—according to Nilufer, the Pied Piper of Hamelin had disappeared here with the children. But from the woods came too the dainty deceivers who appear with coach and lackeys and are to be found even at the courts of noble counts. Thus from the forest a strain of evil blood flowed into the veins of the world. Where there were killings or thuggery one of the shady crew was always by, nor were they missing from the minuets that poor devils dance on the gallows hill with the wind for partner.
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If he came to speak of the blood feuds his eyes would light up, and we saw that so long as it beat the heart of the foe drew him like a mighty magnet.
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Thus to him friendship was no mere sentiment, but something which blazed as spontaneously and as fiercely as hate.
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NOTE: Like the redneck jury people in to kill a mockingbird
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In him we discovered the power we enjoy when a man gives himself to us body and soul, a power which dies out with the coming of an ordered way of life.
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But we knew that no ill threatened our Hermitage so long as the old herdsman and his wild tribe camped on the steppe.
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In these two men, herdsman and monk, there came to light that diversity which native soil produces in men no less than in plants. In the old avenger of blood feuds there lived the spirit of the pasture-lands, which have never been cut by the iron of a ploughshare; in the priest, that of the vineyard loam, which in the course of centuries and through the labour of man’s hands has become as fine as the sand of an hourglass.
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Since at the same time he had the upper hand intellectually, he contrived to accept the speaker’s words and return them to him with an expression of agreement which raised them to a higher plane.
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Brother Otho held that dogma accompanies spirituality in its successive stages of refinement: it is like a robe which during the ascent of the first steps is shot with gold and purples, but with each step acquires a quality which renders it invisible to our eyes, until gradually the pattern dissolves in light.
NOTE: Refinement is an interesting concept similar to stapledons odd john
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pressed us to whet the hunting spears and starve the hounds until their red tongues lolled to the ground at the scent of blood. Then we too felt the power of the instinct run through our limbs like a flash.
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Brother Otho would say that this was the true meaning of life—to recapitulate creation in what is ephemeral, like the child imitating in play his father’s work. This, he held, gave meaning to seed and begetting, to building and ordered life, to image and poetry—that in them the master work reveals itself as if in a mirror of many-coloured glass which soon must break.
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It was with this lamp and not with torches that the pyre was set alight beside Olympus when Peregrinus Proteus, later called Phoenix, sprang into the blaze before a mighty throng of people in order to make himself one with the ether. The world knows of this man and of his lofty deed only through the lying and distorted account of Lucian.
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Infectious airs had risen from the corpses rotting on the pastures and caused the herds to die off in large numbers. Thus the decline of order brings good fortune to none.
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Then I felt as if cruel talons had laid hold upon my heart, for before me lay the abode of tyranny in all its shame.
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Now we knew the hell kitchen from which the mist drifted over the Marina—since we were determined not to give way, the old man of the forest had shown us it a little more clearly. Such are the dungeons above which rise the proud castles of the tyrants, and from them is to be seen rising the curling savoury smoke of their banquets. They are terrible noisome pits in which a God-forsaken crew revels to all eternity in the degradation of human dignity and human freedom.
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There is great strength in the sight of the eyes when in full consciousness and unshaded by obscurities it is turned upon the things around us. In particular it draws nourishment from created things, and herein alone lies the power of science. Therefore we felt that even the tender flower in its imperishable pattern and living form strengthened us to withstand the breath of corruption.
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He had that kind of stout heart which does not quail at obstacles, but unfortunately this virtue was coupled with contempt. Like all who hunger after power and mastery, he was led astray by his wild dreams into the realm of Utopias.
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Then, too, like every crude theoretician, he lived on the science of the moment and occupied himself with archaeology in particular.
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He belonged to the race of men who dream concretely—a very dangerous breed.
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Although tall in stature, he bore himself with curved shoulders as if his height incommoded him. Nor did he seem to follow the drift of our talk. I had the impression that great age and extreme youth had met in his person—the age of his race and the youth of his body. Thus his whole being bore the deep stamp of decadence; one could see two forces at work in him—that of hereditary greatness and the contrary influence which the soil exerts upon all heredity. For heredity is dead men’s riches.
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It may seem noteworthy that in this affair Braquemart wished to confront the Ranger, although there was much in common in their ways of thought and action. But it is an error which often runs through our thoughts that we deduce identity of goals from identity of methods, and conclude that the aims are the same. Yet there was a difference to this degree, that the Ranger had in mind to people the Marina with wild beasts, while Braquemart looked on it as land to be settled with slaves and their overlords.
NOTE: Stalin vs hitler maybe not sure which is which
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It is sufficient to indicate that between full-blown nihilism and unbridled anarchy there is a profound difference. Whether the abodes of men shall become desert or primeval forest depends upon the outcome of this struggle.
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As far as Braquemart is concerned, he bore the unmistakable stamp of nihilism in its later stages. His was a cold, rootless intelligence, and with it went a leaning to Utopias. Then, too, like all his kind, he conceived of life as the mechanism of a clock, and therefore in force and terror he saw the gears which drive the timepiece of life. At the same time he indulged in the idea of a second artificial natural order, intoxicated himself with the perfume of synthetic flowers and the pleasures of mimed sensuality. Creation had died in his heart, and he had reconstructed it like a mechanical toy
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The reason was that with him power was too much a matter of the intellect, and found too little expression in grandezza , in native desinvolture . In this respect the Chief Ranger had the better of him, for he wore his power like a good old hunting jacket that fitted him the better the oftener it was steeped in mire and blood
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For this reason I had the impression that Braquemart was about to embark upon an ill-fated venture; in such encounters the theorist has always been worsted by the man of action.
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He had lost his own self-respect; from that loss springs all human misery.
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And since a high example leads us in its train, I took an oath before this head that from that day forth I would rather fall with the free men than go in triumph among the slaves.
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Then I knew that from her no pity could be expected. So long as I got her daughters with child and struck down my foe with the sword I was welcome; but to her any conqueror was a son-in-law just as a man in straits was an object of contempt.
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But on this earth we may not count on seeing our work brought to completion, and he must be held fortunate whose resolve survives the struggle without inflicting on him too much pain. No house is built, no plan laid, of which decay is not the corner-stone, and what lives eternally in us does not lie in our works.
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In accordance with military tradition, he had stayed well entrenched during the disorders; now that the whole town lay in ruins he emerged to play the man of destiny.
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So he was a man of hard blows and hard drinking, and believed unshakably that any scruple on this earth can be overcome by a good pommelling. In this respect he had something in common with Braquemart, but he was sounder to this extent, that he despised theory. We had a regard for him because of his good nature and good appetite, for, if he were unsuited for his post on the Marina, who can blame the wolf set to guard sheep -
Must all good things be compatible
I’ve been pondering this quote from Isaiah Berlin (as seen in Rob Henderson’s newsletter)
“The optimistic view…that all good things must be compatible, and that therefore freedom, order, knowledge, happiness…must be at least compatible, and perhaps even entail one another in a systematic fashion…is not self-evidently true…Indeed, it is perhaps one of the least plausible beliefs ever entertained by profound and influential thinkers.”
Which also had the nugget
Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow
Which brought to mind the adage, first seen by me from Freeman Dyson of
One law for the lion and ox is oppression
The above is an illustration of the facts that the two ways of life are incompatible – the lion cannot digest plants, and the ox cannot digest meat. A law that said no eating animals, only plants, would lead to the lions starving, and a law that said eating animals is fine would lead to the deaths of the oxen.
Examining incompatibilities between beliefs is immensely interesting, and probably one of the better signals of thoughtfulness.
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The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli and Tim Parks
The Book in 3 Sentences
- The Prince is a wonderful improvisation on the use of power across time and space (at the time anyway). The translation is very conversational and modern, which I liked quite a bit. Some parts were rather dated, but by no means all.
Impressions
The book was much less cynical and much more descriptive than I would have thought.
How I Discovered It
Book club
Who Should Read It?
People interested in the classics, or anyone who really appreciates a good translation.
Summary + Notes
The Prince was written by a forty-four-year-old diplomat facing ruin.
For most of the fifteenth century there had been five major players in the peninsula: the Kingdom of Naples, the Papal States, Florence, Venice and Milan.
However, if the situation was rarely static, it is also true that there were few major changes. As soon as one power achieved some significant military victory, the others immediately formed an alliance against it to halt its progress. Florence, in particular, owed its continuing independence largely to the fact that if Venice, Milan or Rome tried to take it, the other two would at once intervene to prevent this happening.
Girolamo Savonarola ruled Florence from 1494 to 1498, during which time the city passed from being one of the centres of Renaissance Humanism to a book-burning, fundamentalist theocracy.
Had Machiavelli insisted on deploring this unhappy state of affairs, had he dwelt on other criteria for judging a leader, aside from his mere ability to stay in power and build a strong state, had he told us with appropriate piety that power was hardly worth having if you had to sell your soul to get it, he could have headed off a great deal of criticism while still delivering the same information. But aside from one or two token regrets that the world is not a nicer place, Machiavelli does not do this. It wasn’t his project. Rather he takes it for granted that we already know that life, particularly political life, is routinely, and sometimes unspeakably, cruel, and that once established in a position of power a ruler may have no choice but to kill or be killed.
In short, Machiavelli’s attention has shifted from a methodical analysis of different political systems to a gripping and personally engaged account of the psychology of the leader who has placed himself beyond the constrictions of Christian ethics and lives in a delirium of pure power.
For a diplomat like Machiavelli, who had spent his life among the powerful but never really held the knife by the handle, a state employee so scrupulously honest that when investigated for embezzlement he ended up being reimbursed monies that were due to him, it was all too easy to fall into a state of envy and almost longing when contemplating the awesome Borgia who had no qualms about taking anything that came his way and never dreamed of being honest to anyone.
The Prince was largely responsible for Henry VIII’s decision to take the English Church away from Rome.
It was in so far as Machiavelli allowed these dangerous implications to surface in his writing that he both unmasked, and himself became identified with, what we might call the unacceptable face of Renaissance Humanism.
there is also an undercurrent of excitement at the thought that it might be possible to take life entirely into one’s hands, manipulate people and circumstances at will and generally pursue one’s selfish goals without a thought for moral codes or eternal damnation: in this sense the Machiavellian villain looks ahead to the worst of modern individualism.
Cromwell frequently governed without parliament or elections for fear the people might not see things God’s way.
Members of court, Napoleon ordered, shortly after usurping power, must attend soirées with their wives, to appear respectable and avoid gossip. ‘The death of conversation’, Talleyrand opined. Certainly, when a leader has to rely on appearing respectable to claim legitimacy, he is on thin ice indeed.
As Rousseau saw it, the whole of The Prince was itself a Machiavellian ruse: the author had only pretended to give lessons to kings whereas in fact his real aim was to teach people to be free by showing them that royal power was no more than subterfuge.
Machiavelli after all declared himself a republican and a libertarian.
Others took a more traditional view: Bertrand Russell described The Prince as ‘a handbook for gangsters’,
one reaction that Machiavelli never seems to provoke is indifference.
The English have Prince Charles. And the thing about Prince Charles is that he is not King Charles and probably never will be.
Machiavelli’s word ‘prince’ does not mean ‘the son of the king’, and even less ‘an attractive young suitor’. Machiavelli’s ‘principe’ refers generically to men of power, men who rule a state. The prince is the first, or principal, man.
For Machiavelli ‘virtù’ was any quality of character that enabled you to take political power or to hold on to it; in short, a winning trait. It could be courage in battle, or strength of personality, or political cunning, or it might even be the kind of ruthless cruelty that lets your subjects know you mean business.
A ruler who inherits power has less reason or need to upset his subjects than a new one and as a result is better loved.
this for the simple reason that you can’t give them as much as they expected. And you can’t get tough with them either, since you still need them; because however strong your armies, you’ll always need local support to occupy a new territory.
Even where there is some difference in language, the customs of these territories are similar and people can get along with each other. So a ruler who has taken territories in these circumstances must have two priorities: first, to eliminate the family of the previous rulers; second, to leave all laws and taxes as they were. In this way the acquired territory and the king’s original possessions will soon form a single entity.
So, if you go and live in the new territory you’ve taken, you’re very unlikely to lose it.
In this regard it’s worth noting that in general you must either pamper people or destroy them; harm them just a little and they’ll hit back; harm them seriously and they won’t be able to. So if you’re going to do people harm, make sure you needn’t worry about their reaction.
Seen in advance, trouble is easily dealt with; wait until it’s on top of you and your reaction will come too late, the malaise is already irreversible.
Remember what the doctors tell us about tuberculosis: in its early stages it’s easy to cure and hard to diagnose, but if you don’t spot it and treat it, as time goes by it gets easy to diagnose and hard to cure. So it is with affairs of state. See trouble in advance (but you have to be shrewd) and you can clear it up quickly. Miss it, and by the time it’s big enough for everyone to see it will be too late to do anything about it.
Time hurries everything on and can just as easily make things worse as better.
The desire to conquer more territory really is a very natural, ordinary thing and whenever men have the resources to do so they’ll always be praised, or at least not blamed. But when they don’t have the resources, yet carry on regardless, then they’re at fault and deserve what blame they get.
So Louis made five mistakes: he eliminated the weaker states; he enhanced the power of one of Italy’s stronger states; he brought in an extremely powerful foreign king; he didn’t go to live in the territory he’d acquired and he didn’t establish colonies there.
you must never fail to respond to trouble just to avoid war, because in the end you won’t avoid it, you’ll just be putting it off to your enemy’s advantage.
and when the cardinal told me that the Italians knew nothing about war, I told him that the French knew nothing about politics, because if they did they wouldn’t be letting the pope grow so powerful.
From which we can infer a general rule that always holds, or almost always: that to help another ruler to grow powerful is to prepare your own ruin; because it takes flair or military strength to build up a new power, and both will seem threatening to the person who has benefited from them.
To explain this situation let’s start by remembering that all monarchies on record have been governed in one of two ways: either by a king and the servants he appoints as ministers to run his kingdom; or by a king and a number of barons, who are not appointed by the king but hold their positions thanks to hereditary privilege. These barons have their own lands and their own subjects who recognize the barons as their masters and are naturally loyal to them. Where a state is governed by a king and his ministers the king is more powerful since he is the only person in the state whom people recognize as superior. When they obey someone else it is only because he is a minister or official and they have no special loyalty to him.
Looking at these two kinds of states, it’s clear that Turkey is hard to conquer but once conquered very easy to hold. France on the other hand will be somewhat easier to conquer but very hard to hold.
you’ll lose the territory you took as soon as your enemies get an opportunity to rebel.
Note:Similar to Afghanistan
It wasn’t a question of the abilities of each particular conqueror, but of the different kinds of state they had invaded.
When the states you invade have been accustomed to governing themselves without a monarch and living in freedom under their own laws, then there are three ways of holding on to them: the first is to reduce them to rubble; the second is to go and live there yourself; the third is to let them go on living under their own laws, make them pay you a tax and install a government of just a few local people to keep the state as a whole friendly. Since this government has been set up by the invading ruler, its members know they can’t survive without his support and will do everything they can to defend his authority.
If you conquer a city accustomed to self-government and opt not to destroy it you can expect it to destroy you.
And though we can hardly say much about Moses, since he merely carried out God’s orders, all the same we have to admire him for the grace that made him worthy of God’s attention.
Analysing their lives and achievements, we notice that the only part luck played was in giving them an initial opportunity: they were granted the raw material and had the chance to mould it into whatever shape they wanted. Without this opportunity their talent would have gone unused, and without their talent the opportunity would have gone begging.
Here we have to bear in mind that nothing is harder to organize, more likely to fail, or more dangerous to see through, than the introduction of a new system of government. The
no one really believes in change until they’ve had solid experience of it.
It’s easy to convince people of something, but hard to keep them convinced. So when they stop believing in you, you must be in a position to force them to believe.
Anyone who thinks that an important man will forget past grievances just because he’s received some new promotion must think again. Borgia miscalculated in this election, and the mistake was fatal.
Looking at Agathocles’ life and achievements, you won’t find much that can be attributed to luck.
On the other hand, we can hardly describe killing fellow citizens, betraying friends and living without loyalty, mercy or creed as signs of talent. Methods like that may bring you power, but not glory.
Cruelty well used (if we can ever speak well of something bad) is short-lived and decisive, no more than is necessary to secure your position and then stop; you don’t go on being cruel but use the power it has given you to deliver maximum benefits to your subjects. Cruelty is badly used when you’re not drastic enough at the beginning but grow increasingly cruel later on, rather than easing off. A leader who takes the first approach has a chance, like Agathocles, of improving his position with his subjects and with God too; go the other way and you have no chance at all.
So get the violence over with as soon as possible; that way there’ll be less time for people to taste its bitterness and they’ll be less hostile. Favours, on the other hand, should be given out slowly, one by one, so that they can be properly savoured.
In every city one finds these two conflicting political positions: there are the common people who are eager not to be ordered around and oppressed by the noble families, and there are the nobles who are eager to oppress the common people and order them around. These opposing impulses will lead to one of three different situations: a monarchy, a republic, or anarchy. A
A king who comes to power with the help of the rich nobles will have more trouble keeping it than the king who gets there with the support of the people, because he will be surrounded by men who consider themselves his equals, and that will make it hard for him to give them orders or to manage affairs as he wants. But a man coming to power with the support of the common people holds it alone and has no one, or hardly anyone, around him who’s unwilling to obey. What’s more, you can’t in good faith give the nobles what they want without doing harm to others; but you can with the people. Because the people’s aspirations are more honourable than those of the nobles: the nobles want to oppress the people, while the people want to be free from oppression. What’s more, a king can never be safe if the common people are hostile to him, because there are so many of them; but he can protect himself against the nobles, since there are not so many.
A man who becomes king with the support of the people, then, must keep those people on his side. This is easy enough since all they want is to be free from oppression. But the man who becomes king against the will of the majority and with the support of the wealthy nobles must make it an absolute priority to win over the affection of the common people.
what’s more, to keep people well fed without draining the public purse, they stock materials for a year’s worth of work in whatever trades are the lifeblood of the city and whatever jobs the common folk earn their keep with.
Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous. If you are counting on mercenaries to defend your state you will never be stable or secure, because mercenaries are ambitious, undisciplined, disloyal and they quarrel among themselves. Courageous with friends and cowardly with enemies, they have no fear of God and keep no promises. With mercenaries the only way to delay disaster is to delay the battle; in peacetime they plunder you and in wartime they let the enemy plunder you.
they’re happy to be your soldiers while you’re not at war, but when war comes, they run for it, or just disappear.
And a republic with a citizen army is less likely to fall victim to a coup than a republic paying for mercenary armies.
Rome and Sparta stood for many centuries armed and free. The Swiss are extremely well armed and completely free.
fight his neighbours, the emperor of Constantinople brought 10,000 Turks into Greece and when the war was over they wouldn’t leave, which was how the infidels began to get control of Greece.
To summarize, the big danger with mercenaries is their indecision, with auxiliaries their determination.
having your own army means having a force made up of subjects, or citizens, or men dependent on you. All other forces are mercenaries or auxiliaries.
A ruler, then, must have no other aim or consideration, nor seek to develop any other vocation outside war, the organization of the army and military discipline.
if you always want to play the good man in a world where most people are not good, you’ll end up badly. Hence, if a ruler wants to survive, he’ll have to learn to stop being good, at least when the occasion demands.
With time, when people see that his penny-pinching means he doesn’t need to raise taxes and can defend the country against attack and embark on campaigns without putting a burden on his people, he’ll increasingly be seen as generous – generous to those he takes nothing from, which is to say almost everybody, and mean to those who get nothing from him, which is to say very few. In our own times the only leaders we’ve seen doing great things were all reckoned mean. The others were failures.
Note:Republicans
A ruler in power and a man seeking power are two different things. For the ruler already in power generosity is dangerous; for the man seeking power it is essential. Caesar
Spending other people’s money doesn’t lower your standing – it raises it. It’s only spending your own money that puts you at risk.
if you have to choose, it’s much safer to be feared than loved.
Men are less worried about letting down someone who has made himself loved than someone who makes himself feared. Love binds when someone recognizes he should be grateful to you, but, since men are a sad lot, gratitude is forgotten the moment it’s inconvenient. Fear means fear of punishment, and that’s something people never forget.
And a ruler won’t be hated if he keeps his hands off his subjects’ property and their women.
Above all, he mustn’t seize other people’s property. A man will sooner forget the death of his father than the loss of his inheritance.
The positive qualities without the cruelty wouldn’t have produced the same effect. Historians are just not thinking when they praise him for this achievement and then condemn him for the cruelty that made it possible.
Since a ruler has to be able to act the beast, he should take on the traits of the fox and the lion; the lion can’t defend itself against snares and the fox can’t defend itself from wolves. So you have to play the fox to see the snares and the lion to scare off the wolves. A ruler who just plays the lion and forgets the fox doesn’t know what he’s doing. Hence a sensible leader cannot and must not keep his word if by doing so he puts himself at risk, and if the reasons that made him give his word in the first place are no longer valid.
There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious. In general people judge more by appearances than first-hand experience, because everyone gets to see you but hardly anyone deals with you directly. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few have experience of who you really are, and those few won’t have the courage to stand up to majority opinion underwritten by the authority of state.
You’ll be held in contempt, on the other hand, if you’re seen as changeable, superficial, effeminate, fearful or indecisive. So a ruler must avoid those qualities like so many stumbling blocks and act in such a way that everything he does gives an impression of greatness, spirit, seriousness and strength; when presiding over disputes between citizens he should insist that his decision is final and make sure no one imagines they can trick or outwit him.
In fact, one of the most powerful preventive measures against conspiracies is simply not being hated by a majority of the people. People planning a conspiracy must believe that killing the ruler will be popular; when they realize that, on the contrary, it would be unpopular they lose heart, because conspiracies are always beset with endless difficulties. Experience
My conclusion, then, is that so long as he has the people on his side a ruler needn’t worry about conspiracies, but when they are against him and hate him he’ll have to watch everyone’s every move.
This prompts the following reflection: that a ruler must get others to carry out policies that will provoke protest, keeping those that inspire gratitude to himself. In conclusion, let me repeat that a ruler should respect the nobles but must make sure he is not hated by the people.
No one new to power has ever disarmed his subjects; on the contrary, finding them disarmed new rulers have always armed them. When you’re the one giving people arms, those arms become yours; men who were potentially hostile become loyal, while those already loyal become your supporters rather than just your subjects. It’s true you can’t arm everyone, but in favouring some you can feel safer about the others too.
Looking carefully at the reasons for this and drawing on the examples available from ancient and modern history, we find that it is much easier to win over those who were content with the previous government, and hence your enemies, than the men who were not content and so made an alliance with you and helped you take the country.
A ruler will also be respected when he is a genuine friend and a genuine enemy, that is, when he declares himself unambiguously for one side and against the other. This policy will always bring better results than neutrality.
For example, if you have two powerful neighbours who go to war, you may or may not have reason to fear the winner afterwards. Either way it will always be better to take sides and fight hard. If you do have cause to fear but stay neutral, you’ll still be gobbled up by the winner to the amusement and satisfaction of the loser; you’ll have no excuses, no defence and nowhere to hide. Because a winner doesn’t want half-hearted friends who don’t help him in a crisis; and the loser will have nothing to do with you since you didn’t choose to fight alongside him and share his fate.
A ruler must also show that he admires achievement in others, giving work to men of ability and rewarding people who excel in this or that craft. What’s more, he should reassure his subjects that they can go calmly about their business as merchants or farmers, or whatever other trade they practise, without worrying that if they increase their wealth they’ll be in danger of having it taken away from them, or that if they start up a business they’ll be punitively taxed.
Note:Supply side Machiavelli
In responding to these advisers, as a group or separately, he should make it clear that the more openly they speak, the more welcome their advice will be. After which, he shouldn’t take advice from anyone else, but get on with whatever has been decided and be firm in his decisions.
So a ruler must always take advice, but only when he wants it, not when others want to give it to him. In fact he should discourage people from giving him advice unasked.
I realize that many people have believed and still do believe that the world is run by God and by fortune and that however shrewd men may be they can’t do anything about it and have no way of protecting themselves.
My opinion on the matter is this: it’s better to be impulsive than cautious; fortune is female and if you want to stay on top of her you have to slap and thrust. You’ll see she’s more likely to yield that way than to men who go about her coldly. And being a woman she likes her men young, because they’re not so cagey, they’re wilder and more daring when they master her.
Justice is definitely on our side because ‘war is just when there’s no alternative and arms are sacred when they are your only hope.’ The
God doesn’t like doing everything himself, he doesn’t want to deprive us of our free will and our share of glory.
It’s true that the Swiss and Spanish infantries are thought to be formidable, but both have weak points that would allow a third force not only to face them but to feel confident of beating them. The Spanish can’t stand up to cavalry and the Swiss are in trouble when they run into infantry as determined as themselves.
ACUTO, GIOVANNI Italianization of John Hawkwood (1320-94). Having served in the English army in France, in 1360 Hawkwood joined mercenary soldiers in Burgundy and later commanded the so-called White Company fighting for different states and factions in Italy. Constantly playing off his employers against their enemies, he built up considerable wealth. From 1390 on he commanded Florentine armies in their war against the Viscontis of Milan.
Illegitimate son of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia was made Bishop of Pamplona at fifteen and a cardinal at eighteen.
Cesare then became the first person in history to resign his position as cardinal, upon which Louis made him Duke of Valentinois, hence the nickname, Duke Valentino.
COMMODUS Lucius Aurelius Commodus Antoninus (161–193), Roman emperor (180–93). The son of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus rejected his father’s stoic asceticism, giving himself over to pleasure and amusement while allowing a series of favourites to run the empire. Boastful about his physique, he regularly took part in naked gladiatorial combat. Eventually a conspiracy against him led to his being strangled by the wrestler Narcissus.
FORLÌ, COUNTESS OF Caterina Sforza (1463–1509), an illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan. She married Girolamo Riario, officially the nephew but possibly the son of Pope Sixtus IV. Riario was Count of Forlì and after his murder in 1488 Caterina took control of the town until it was captured by Cesare Borgia in 1500. She is famous for having refused to hand over the citadel of Forlì to rebels despite their threatening to kill her children, whom they held hostage. Exposing her genitals from the castle walls, she told them she was perfectly capable of producing more children.
Despite impressive victories he was forced to return home when the Romans attacked Carthage, and was defeated at the Battle of Zama (201 BC) by Scipio Africanus.
Eventually, to avoid falling into Roman hands, he killed himself by poisoning.
He died of natural causes and was immediately deified.
Note:Worth noting cause of death
While his domestic reforms enjoyed a certain amount of success, his foreign policies were confused and ineffective and led to the loss of Switzerland, which became an independent confederation in 1499.
his preaching appeared to be vindicated and he became head of the Florentine government, leading the city as a theocracy from 1494 to 1498 and encouraging people to burn anything profane (books, paintings) on his so-called Bonfire of the Vanities.
THESEUS Legendary Greek hero, son of Aegeus, King of Athens. He slew the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth and was the first lover of the adolescent Helen of Troy. He united the region of Attica under the administration of Athens.
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Steelmaning Yarvin
The need to steelman Yarvin came to my while I was running a few days ago.
The best I can come up with is a modification of Kling’s civilization/barbarism axis, to wit, his contribution can be described as:
Assume the world slides back and forth on a spectrum of civilization and barbarism. Each increase in civilization comes with a decrease in barbarism, and vice versa (both have benefits, structure, dynamism, equilibrium, etc). Yarvin can be thought of as contributing the thought that civilization can decay in place. The benefits of civilization can decrease with no increase in barbarism. Basically a decrease in structure without an increase in dynamism.Now that I’ve written that out (in less than 45,000 words) I will go back to disliking Yarvin.