Machiavelli Essay, Research Paper

Machiavelli

Machiavelli’s views revolved around the ideas that one must do anything

within his (Machiavelli did not refer to ?her’) power to keep the influence and

power that he has attained. For him, anything that must be done in order not to

lose the influence and the power that one has should be done without question.

“The ends justifies the means”, he said. The power of one that rules must be

kept by keeping the people in constant fear. Without the fear in the people,

the trust that they have in their leader will whither and they will start to

look for other leaders to take the place of the one that they believe to be weak.

Machiavelli thought that the importance of this tactic should override

all others. Although, he believed in emanating a sense of fear to the people

that were being ruled, he also believed that without the people, the ruler or

leader is worthless and will be overcome. One must have support of the people,

while constantly keeping them in check with the rules and regulations that he

has set.

These thoughts today would be looked at as dictatorial and likened with

the beliefs and felling of such hated groups as the Nazis. In today’s system,

societies that have been lead by rulers with such a mentality have not lasted

very long. It seems that these days the general populace have much less

tolerance for those rulers that believe in doing anything for the sake of

themselves and supposedly the society at large. I believe that such rulers

today are not tolerated (and should not be tolerated) There is no room for this

type of thinking in modern day life. Respect is another factor that was very

important to Machiavelli and his way of thinking. The Prince, as Machiavelli

stated, must do anything to keep his respect with the people, but at the same

time to make sure that he has ultimate control. I believe that so much control

by one person will ultimately lead to war and the demise of the society. How

can one person with so much power and latitude in decision making possible

benefit the s ociety, in fact, they are not even benefiting themselves in that

they are the ones who ultimately stand to lose when the people in the society

realize that they are being taken advantage of for the good of one person.