Niccólo Machiavelli's The Prince

Sly, coning, deceitful, ruthless, words often used to described the political philosophy of Niccólo Machiavelli. He was the first philosopher of the renaissance, lived in an Italy divided by states, he lived in Florence Italy under different Florentine empires. His exile ethic took place under the Medici family rule. "One should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person,”Machiavelli was a realist and made a point of writing things as they were rather than as they should be, He knew the choice had to be made.
His exile lead him to write the short book “the prince” to give as a gift to the ruling prince at the time. In the 17th chapter, in his guide to not only obitaining power but keeping it, Machiavelli states that it is better to be feared than loved if one cannot be both. Through out his/her rule, a leader must take on many important choices, one of the most important being what kind of ruler he/she would like to be. The choice between being feared or loved is one a leader will have to make in a situation in which he is interchangeable, I do not to agree with the fact that being feared is better than being loved, and in this essay will discuss the pros and cons too both in the long term and short term as well as give contemporary examples. “If you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved.” Choosing to be feared as a leader gives people the incentive to not only do as they are told but do it well. Fear is a very powerful human emotion which can easily sustained from a place of power. If the people are scared of you they are less likely to not only try and over throw you but also to disobey you. This works well as a way to preserve power as a reputation of someone who is feared by their people and military is once again more likely to subdue an attempt to invade the state or over throw a ruling leader. Machiavelli, suggests that love is a weak bond between the people and their ruler, he describes men as being “ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous,” and men will stand by you while you succeed but once you are no longer are succeeding they will turn against you. Humans are naturally selfish and will alway opt for what they think will benefit them best, and if the leader had not yet gained their love through his actions and things went wrong their lack of fear will …show more content…
Punishments and treatment begin to seem less reasonable and senseless the people will begin turn against you, this not only applies to the Time in which Machiavelli can been seen through out history since then. The French Revolution field by the hatred of monarchy, the nazi down fall field by the rest of the worlds hatred, assassinations of presidents even down to the recent coup of the Mugabe in Zimbabwe. I believe that if you are able to instil fear without hatred, able to use punishment as well as acquire respect the path of a feared leader is a good one ands might even turn into love if the country is being maintained and improved. But it is possible that the leaders only form