As you all know, the first four pages of our research paper are due on Monday. What I've been working on is looking into the reign of Louis XIV and evaluating him in Machiavellian terms. A natural beginning for this paper would be a comprehensive literature review of The Prince. However, in a roughly 16 page paper, a complete review might be too cumbersome. Therefore, the first part of my paper is an explanation of Machiavelli's ideal prince.
Machiavelli argues that almost all people live lives of imitations, saying "Men, almost always traverse paths beaten by others, .... A wise man ought to traverse the path of a great man" (Machiavelli, p 21) He goes on to list several ideal princes of the past that the reader could imitate. Machiavelli's favorite is Moses as he is portrayed in Exodus, but because Moses had the help of God he might not be one we can imitate entirely. There are several others: Romulus, Cyrus, and Theseus. (Machiavelli, p 22-23)
All of these princes have something in common. They were very violent people. Moses got his start by killing the Egyptian guard. Romulus killed his brother Remus. The Jews who had forsaken the God of Abraham and were worshiping the Golden Calf as Moses descended Mount Sinai were slaughtered.
Now, in terms of power, I do not think it matters for Machiavelli whether or not this violence was justified. Moses' violence against the Egyptian guard would have been justified if it is true that the Egyptian guard was beating a slave to death. Moses' violence against the Jews worshiping an idol would not be justified according to our contemporary standards, but this might be a question for Mr. Perdue. Romulus' murder of his brother Remus would probably not be justified morally, but he successfully wrested control of Rome in doing so, or so the legend goes.
Louis XIV, the king appointed by God Himself, a complete absolute monarch seemed to be able to do anything he wanted regardless of the ethical implications. I won't go so far as to say he was infallible morally, but rather that he was exempt from the repercussions of an immoral act legally speaking. In my research into Louis XIV I've learned of a great deal of violence.
Particularly the execution of Fargues who had previously been pardoned and the expulsion of the
Hugeunots.
The beginnings of my paper examine the use of violence as a means for gaining power, and this will be the extent to which Machiavelli plays a part in the theoretical background of my paper. The rest of my research will explore the ways in which Louis XIV used violence in his reign to gain power and to keep power. Part of my working thesis is that everything that Louis XIV did was either violent itself or backed up by the threat of violence.
Source:
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998
I wasn't clear if your paper was only about violence or other themes as well. The trick with the term "violence" is that it is very much as determined by the critiqued. Exiling Huguenots might not be considered violent acc. to his standards. Make sure you find points that you want to draw from Machiavelli to make your research more clear. If you use violence, you must have a definite that works.
ReplyDeleteSorry I meant definition, not definite :))
ReplyDelete*sits over here with my just war paper* Hmm, his use of violence to gain power doesn't seem very nice, does it?
ReplyDelete