Canvas Foreword
The following content is a discursive “canvassing” exercise intended to: process ideas and prime them for more formal publication; foreground thought processes in the spirit of auto-discourse (see A Primer on Auto-Discourse); garner feedback from peers; establish conceptual provenance for ideonomic archiving purposes.
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Having now read The Prince (notes: r-NM-TP-Hub), Discourses on Livy (notes: r-NM-DL-Hub) and The Art of War (notes: r-NM-AW-Hub), and planning on reading Felix Raab’s The English Face of Machiavelli, it seems a good time to flesh out the central questions and ideas driving my interest in the work of Machiavelli.
Peer-to-Peer Statecraft
One thing which is of fundamental interest to me, is this notion of statecraft, which Machiavelli approaches through a comparative historiography with a view toward prescriptive advice, be it for princes or republics. As surveyed in Notes on Active Discursive Efforts, republican statecraft is of particular interest to me, in conjunction with peer-to-peer technologies and digital public infrastructure.
Taken in conjunction with The Federalist Papers (notes: r-Pu-FP-Hub), The Constitution of Liberty (notes: r-FH-CL-Hub), The General Theory (notes: r-JK-GT-Hub), and various things I haven’t read yet, the work of Machiavelli can hopefully serve to inform the theoretical groundwork of any viable paradigm for peer-to-peer statecraft.
Micropolitics
Another line of inquiry driving my engagement with the work of Machiavelli is one regarding what could be considered the political dimension of microsociology. I suspect Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life may also be of interest. Seeing as much of the conflict with which Machiavelli’s concerns his analyses and tactical prescriptions is of a more overt and geopolitical breed, what of his work may be usefully transposed into the realm of conflict between corporations in a shared market, or individuals in a shared social scene?
This micropolitical dimension of the corporate realm may also perhaps be insightfully navigated through an extitutional lens (see: Notes on Extitutional Theory and Progressive Protocolization).
Moral Pragmatism
Much of Machiavelli’s work hinges on the choice to sacrifice certain moral bearings in order to achieve certain ends, and the acknowledgement that, without such sacrifice, certain ends are virtually untenable. From Book One, Discourse 26. In a City or Province which he has seized, a New Prince should make Everything New:
Such methods are exceedingly cruel, and are repugnant to any community, not only to a Christian one, but to any composed of men. It behoves, therefore, every man to shun them, and to prefer to live as a private citizen than as a king with such ruination of men to his score. None the less, for the sort of man who is unwilling to take up this first course of well doing, it is expedient, should he wish to hold what he has, to enter on the path of wrong doing. Actually, most men prefer to steer a middle course which is very harmful, for they know not how to be wholly good or wholly bad.
I take this to mean that, if one elects to operate in a position of political influence, be it public or private office, one should be cognizant not only of the consequences of their actions, but also of the consequences of their choices to uphold certain moral principles and the power vacuums engendered by these choices. That is, if someone of moral scruples chooses to wade into territories of certain political gravity, territories which tend to attract morally unscrupulous people, they should be aware of the tactical advantages and disadvantages entailed by the upholding of such morals. This does not mean that this person should necessarily abandon their morals and race to the bottom with those less morally scrupulous to begin with, but rather that simple awareness is critical.
The mediocrity of “steering a middle course” consists, to me, of insisting on disadvantageously upholding moral principles in ignorance of the particular tactical disadvantages of doing so. Alternatives include 1) removing oneself from a position where moral conduct is disadvantageous to begin with, 2) provisionally abandoning what moral constraints engender said disadvantage, or 3) devising some morally preferable strategy which circumstantially nullifies this tactical disadvantage.
It is this third path, characterized not by a readiness to abandon morality in light of its tactical disadvantage, but rather to engineer some strategy which neutralizes said disadvantage, which could constitute a theoretical basis for an ethical Machiavellianism. It is only as a failsafe to this approach, i.e. in situations when a morally viable alternative cannot be identified and when an executive failure risks more morally egregious consequences than the tactical moral breach in question, wherein the second path, of provisional and pragmatic moral abandon, would be resorted to.
Moreover, if the Machiavellian mode of moral-tactical analysis can indeed be substantively generalized beyond military and geopolitical affairs, such a mindframe could better equip those morally scrupulous individuals among us to navigate territories of higher political stakes than they would otherwise be equipped to navigate, were they instead to neglect to pay such dimensions due consideration.
And what is more is that, even while Machiavelli himself has indicated a consequentialist epistemology, individuals who wish to appropriate this mode of analysis can instead choose to categorically abide by select moral imperatives, which would entail an unwavering refusal to resort to the aforementioned failsafe. An example of Machiavelli’s consequentialist thinking can be found in Book One, Discourse 9. That it is necessary to be the Sole Authority if one would constitute a Republic afresh or would reform it thoroughly regardless of its Ancient Institutions:
It is a sound maxim that reprehensible actions may be justified by their effects, and that when the effect is good, as it was in the case of Romulus, it always justifies the action. For it is the man who uses violence to spoil things, not the man who uses it to mend them, that is blameworthy.
Moving Forward
Over the course of my continued engagement with the work of Machiavelli and whatever salient secondary work surrounds it, such as that of Felix Raab, I hope to refine this understanding of a moral-tactical calculus undergirding the decision to uphold morals in scenarios of significant political consequence. I also hope to generalize this calculus from its more military bearings and present an ethically viable philosophy for adoption in corporate and micropolitical spheres. Lastly, I hope any such heuristic assemblage may aid in the theoretical considerations of peer-to-peer statecraft.
