Re: Are We Reading Machiavelli Wrong?
Is Machiavelli misunderstood after all?
In an interview with Vox, Erica Benner, a distinguished Machiavelli scholar, aims to answer that question.
Erica Benner is the leader of the minority of modern scholars (if one can even call it a minority) that believes Machiavelli wrote The Prince to mock the despot rather than teach him. I have read snippets of her works during my studies, and I have listened to her speak in a lecture, so I am familiar with her arguments.
I am also aware that she is perhaps the only one who views both Il Principe and the Discorsi to have an ironical objective in mind (which should come as a complete spit in the face to those who think that Machiavelli's "TrUE PhILOsopHY" lies in the Discourses) so reading what she says in this interview should be interesting.
To be clear, I entirely disagree with her thesis, but I still want to give her views a fair hearing.
The interview is titled "Are We Reading Machiavelli Wrong" (the original is paywalled)
Before the interview begins, the author writes a brief introduction. He begins by giving an overview of Machiavelli's evil reputation, and asks:
>But is this fair to Machiavelli, or has he been misunderstood? And if he has been, what are we missing in his work?
To answer his questions:
No. In fact the caricature of Machiavelli is less Machiavellian than the true Machiavelli, to the point where I can confidently say that many of his earlier readers during the Elizabethan era did not go far enough. And....
nothing.
I will only be covering a few of her interview answers, as I don't want to make this post too long.
When asked if why The Prince is not "well understood", she replies that she used to be of the opinion that Machiavelli's magnum opus was just a handbook for tyranny. However, she began to question this view in light of The Discourses, which she says is a very republican book. She then asked herself:
>How could he have switched so quickly from writing The Prince to being a super-republican writing the Discourses?
That would have been a legitimate question to ask if The Prince and The Discourses were two different books, and if Machiavelli did not direct the audience of the former to read the latter book. As we know, this obviously is not true, as the author The Prince reveals that he has "reasoned on republics" in a "another place", and this is the second chapter of the book.
She then explains further that:
>When I started seeing some of the earliest readers of Machiavelli and the earliest comments you get from republican authors, they all see Machiavelli as an ally and they say it. They say he’s a moral writer. Rousseau says, “He has only had superficial and corrupt readers until now.” If you ever pick up The Prince and you read the first four chapters, and most people don’t read them that carefully because they’re kind of boring, the exciting ones are the ones in the middle about morality and immorality and then you come to chapter five, which is about freedom.
Rousseau, like many of the figures in the Enlightenment, mainly proposed this theory due to their desire to avoid gaining a bad reputation from associating themselves with Machiavelli, who at that time people reflexively rejected. Even still, he is also misrepresenting the meaning of the text. She does not mention Montesquieu here at all, nor does she mention Machiavelli's younger friend Francesco Gucciardini, who opined that Machiavelli "was always partial to extraordinary and violent methods".
She continues:
> And up to chapter four, it sounds like a pretty cruel, cold analysis of what you should do. Then you get to chapter five and it’s like, Wow! It’s about how republics fight back, and the whole tone changes. Suddenly republics are fighting back and the prince has to be on his toes because he’s probably not going to survive the wrath of these fiery republics that do not give up.
I actually agree with her here, (somewhat) but I want you guys to please note this statement. I will explain why I disagree with this later.
When asked who is Machiavelli actually addressing in The Prince, she answers that he was:
>....taking the piss out of the people who have made you and a lot of your friends very miserable, in a low-key way because you can’t be too brutally satirical about it. But I think he’s really writing to expose the ways of tyrants.
Here she is referencing Machiavelli being tortured at the hands of the Medici, but she omits that his relationship with the family got better, and they even became his patron. She says that he is being "low key" about his satire because of the dangers he recently encountered, while not taking into account that nothing in The Prince is "low key". Reading her statement here has me confused as it is coming from a scholar who is trying to stress the comical outrageousness of Machiavelli's work. If she can detect this, so can his enemies. They are not dumb.
When asked if Machiavelli has an ideology, she explains:
>He’s a republican. And again, this is something that, if you just read The Prince, you’re not going to get.
This is so blatantly wrong that I was quite disappointed when I read it, and that it came from a scholar of Benner's stature. When I told you guys to remember her earlier statement of chapter 5 of the Prince being about freedom, this is why. Not only does she completely contradict what she said earlier, but she is wrong in general. What she does not mention is that Chapter 5 of the Prince it is the Roman Republic that is the model for princes to emulate, not some violent prince. In fact, Machiavelli actually seems to think that absolute monarchies are more merciful to cities that they conquer, since they "love" their subject cities, and that the "harshest slavery" is being conquered by a republic! (D II 1). This is not even mentioning the fact that the ideal new prince in the next chapter of the book (Chapter 6) was Romulus, who murdered his brother to found the city of Rome by himself, with Machiavelli excusing him as he created civil orders suitable for a republic. (D I 9). I can continue further, but I can stop here.
She goes on to state:
But if you read the Discourses, which was written around the same time as The Prince, it’s very, very similar in almost every way except that it praises republics and criticizes tyrants very openly. Whereas The Prince never once uses the words “tyrant” or “tyranny.”
She is right about the timeline of the composition of Machiavelli's books, and that he never mentions those words. She is also correct in that The Discourses openly criticizes "tyrants". However, I wonder what she thinks of the Machiavelli giving post facto advise to the would be tyrant of Rome, Appius Claudius, explaining that he could have succeeded if he "eliminated the nobles" before subjugating the commonfolk, and that his (and the republic's) mistake can instruct those who wish to save, as well as those who want to seize, republics (D I 41). Seems we will never know!
> Machiavelli was quite egalitarian. He clearly wanted as broad of a section of the male population to be citizens as possible. He says very clearly, The key to stabilizing your power is to change the constitution and to give everyone their share. Everyone has to have their share. You might want to speak a little bit more for yourself and the rich guys, but in the end, everyone’s got to have a share.
I am going to have to read a bit more of her works, because she doens't necessarily explain what is meant by "egalitarian". Machiavelli's works are chock full of the ruling class using methods to entrench their partisans politically, and he gives them methods to do so (e.g. the electoral manipulation in D I 48). I personally haven't gained the sense of Machiavelli being an egalitarian from reading him.
She is asked various questions about Trump, etc. but I found what she says here quite interesting:
>Machiavelli is very, very clear in The Prince that cruelty is not going to get you anywhere in the long term. You’re going to get pure hate. So if you think it’s ever instrumentally useful to be super cruel, think again.
He does not come anywhere near saying this in The Prince. Agathocles (P 8) committed barbarous cruelties and ruled safely until his death, never being conspired against (which is true, per Machiavelli's reading of the roman historian Justin). Severus kept the people "astonished and stupefied" despite the fact that he committed terrible crimes (he came to power and maintained it by a series of murders), robbed the people persistently, and supported the soldiers, whom treated the people badly.
I am going to stop here.
I did not make this post to solely poke holes in Benner's interpretation. I think she represents herself much more clearer in her books. Though I disagree with her interpretation, she has no doubt contributed much to the Machiavelli scholarship. She has the wisdom to accept (unlike those who persistently peddle Machiavelli as a "no nonsense realist who keepz it real") that much of what Machiavelli says is outrageous. However, she doesn't seem to realize that Machiavelli's irony is in many cases not consoling, and she sometimes omits certain aspects of Machiavelli's thought that would contradict her view. Regardless, whether you agree or disagree with her, you should give her your undivided attention.