Posted on 15/03/08
Prince among men
Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, first published in 1532, is certainly the most shocking book ever written about political leadership. No current politician in his or her right mind would ever confess to the black arts Machiavelli so coolly endorses. Heaven forbid! He endures, however, because his work still contains the sting of truth. Machiavelli's great message through the ages is that a politician must be a moral realist. The way we actually live, Machiavelli says, is so far from how we ought to live that anyone who tries to live by ideals of virtue is bound to be destroyed. Any politician wishing to hold his own must "know how to do wrong and to make use of it or not according to necessity."
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