In the book called The Prince, Machiavelli argues that there are two types of domination: Republics or monarchies. The Prince’s domination that he mentions in his book is a type of monarchy. Despite that in the book called Discourses, Machiavelli deals mostly with Republic type of domination. He is not only explaining this type, but also praising it. The profile of the Prince in the first book is pragmatist, cruel, militarist. He is good at using all kinds of conditions as a tool to make his position stronger and stable. The prince prefers big injuries for poor rebels to get rid of the revenge. He is colonialists to control the land that he occupied to keep the control long lasting. He prefers to give limited power to the religious institutes and supports the weaker part of the society to have balance against more powerful potential oppositions. He is open to despoil the land if he cannot colonize to control it after the occupancy. Arms are more important for the prince than luxury.
In addition, if the prince can avoid the scandals, he does not follow all virtue. According to the author, some virtue practices can ruin the prince’s domination and power. So based on this profile, he does not need to be ethical, but need to avoid scandals. When the prince needs to be cruel to bring order to his land, he should not misuse the mercy. People need to fear at the will of the prince based on Machiavelli’s prince prototype. The prince must be good at deceiving people. I do not how it is possible with all these specialties, but at the same time this prince must avoid being hated. The prince is arming his citizens to make them his volunteer security. The author also mentions that, because it is impossible to arm everyone, this make the disarm parts of the citizens passive.
In my opinion, interestingly based on the parts that I read, The Prince and The Discourses conflict with each other until Machiavelli talks about Monarchy and Republic domination together. It seems like in the first book, he try to create a manual for monarchy and in the other one an alternative practices for Republic domination. When I read them both, this made me think about the author as a pragmatist person who does not have any deep belonging for the both types of ruling. In the first book, we read that The Prince should decrease the power of religious institutions. Machiavelli gave us some examples about this. However, in The Discourses we read some information about “the importance of giving religion a prominent influence in a state.” This is a clear conflict of the author. The author mentions three kinds of government as monarchical, the aristocratic, and the democratic in the text. In addition, if these types fail we learned that they converted to their opposites as monarchy to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy and the popular government to licentiousness. I believe that in the first book, the image of the Prince is equal to tyranny even though Machiavelli mentions is as a Monarchy. Moreover, I think when he mentions tranquility, The Prince and The Discourses link to each other. In The Discourses, when the author talks about the faculty of accusation, I think the profile of his republican ruler getting similar with the image of Prince. Moreover, sadly I think his advices and profiles of Republic domination would be an example of degradation of the republican type of ruling. Especially, he argues that “to found a new republic, or to reform entirely the old institutions of an existing one, must be the work of one man only.” Under this title, I believe that Machiavelli returns to (Tyrannical) Monarchy after working on some kinds of Republic types of government. In my opinion, reforms must come from the roots of the society, naturally from the bottom to alter the government, not from the top to the bottom to get rid of tyranny and dictatorship.
Ultimately, after reading the both work pieces of the author, so far Machiavelli reminded me the Sophists of Greek. In addition, I believe that the virtuosity is equal to being lizard. Nowadays this notion is equal to the politicians, but it seems not ethical. Overall, if the rulers read these books to gains some tactics, it is bad for the citizens, but it is good for us to read them to have some knowledge about the rulers’ mentalities to dominate us.
Meryem Rabia Tasbilek
In addition, if the prince can avoid the scandals, he does not follow all virtue. According to the author, some virtue practices can ruin the prince’s domination and power. So based on this profile, he does not need to be ethical, but need to avoid scandals. When the prince needs to be cruel to bring order to his land, he should not misuse the mercy. People need to fear at the will of the prince based on Machiavelli’s prince prototype. The prince must be good at deceiving people. I do not how it is possible with all these specialties, but at the same time this prince must avoid being hated. The prince is arming his citizens to make them his volunteer security. The author also mentions that, because it is impossible to arm everyone, this make the disarm parts of the citizens passive.
In my opinion, interestingly based on the parts that I read, The Prince and The Discourses conflict with each other until Machiavelli talks about Monarchy and Republic domination together. It seems like in the first book, he try to create a manual for monarchy and in the other one an alternative practices for Republic domination. When I read them both, this made me think about the author as a pragmatist person who does not have any deep belonging for the both types of ruling. In the first book, we read that The Prince should decrease the power of religious institutions. Machiavelli gave us some examples about this. However, in The Discourses we read some information about “the importance of giving religion a prominent influence in a state.” This is a clear conflict of the author. The author mentions three kinds of government as monarchical, the aristocratic, and the democratic in the text. In addition, if these types fail we learned that they converted to their opposites as monarchy to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy and the popular government to licentiousness. I believe that in the first book, the image of the Prince is equal to tyranny even though Machiavelli mentions is as a Monarchy. Moreover, I think when he mentions tranquility, The Prince and The Discourses link to each other. In The Discourses, when the author talks about the faculty of accusation, I think the profile of his republican ruler getting similar with the image of Prince. Moreover, sadly I think his advices and profiles of Republic domination would be an example of degradation of the republican type of ruling. Especially, he argues that “to found a new republic, or to reform entirely the old institutions of an existing one, must be the work of one man only.” Under this title, I believe that Machiavelli returns to (Tyrannical) Monarchy after working on some kinds of Republic types of government. In my opinion, reforms must come from the roots of the society, naturally from the bottom to alter the government, not from the top to the bottom to get rid of tyranny and dictatorship.
Ultimately, after reading the both work pieces of the author, so far Machiavelli reminded me the Sophists of Greek. In addition, I believe that the virtuosity is equal to being lizard. Nowadays this notion is equal to the politicians, but it seems not ethical. Overall, if the rulers read these books to gains some tactics, it is bad for the citizens, but it is good for us to read them to have some knowledge about the rulers’ mentalities to dominate us.
Meryem Rabia Tasbilek
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