Redefining American Democracy? Machiavelli Revisited

For me, one of the pleasures of a beach vacation is spending the day under an umbrella catching up on my reading.  On a recent (and all too short) trip to Hawaii, I caught up on a disparate set of historical figures:  

• Henry V (1386 – 1422), King of England
• James Cook (1728 – 1779), British explorer, cartographer, and naval officer
• Niccolò Machiavelli (1469 – 1527), Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian

Yes, I know.  Not exactly what most people would consider beach reading.  To each his own!

There was an unexpected common thread running these three books:  the authors all countered popular notions about their characters.  In Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England's Greatest Warrior King Dan Jones frequently comments on the difference between the real-life Henry and Shakespeare’s ruthless and somewhat amoral “amiable monster” (a term used to describe Shakespear’s Henry by William Hazlitt in Characters of Shakespear's Plays in 1817).   In The Wide, Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook Hampton Sides claims that Cook’s behavior on his third voyage—his fits of rage, harsh punishments of his crew, and murderous destruction of native Hawaiian communities—was not at all characteristic of his behavior of his two earlier voyages and may have indicated some form of mental decline, impairment, or illness.  Most thought-provoking for me, however, was Machiavelli: The Art of Teaching People What to Fear by French historian Patrick Boucheron.

Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, published in 1532 (five years after Machiavelli’s death) and written in the form of a how-to manual for would be rulers, shocked readers by arguing that immoral acts were completely justifiable.  The book’s dedication to the despotic Lorenzo il Magnifico de' Medici (in the form of a letter to Lorenzo’s grandson) has reinforced the idea that the work’s intended audience was would-be despots.  Boucheron, however, opines that Machiavelli was not really all that Machiavellian, that the dedication is actually an example of Machiavelli’s well-known sarcasm.  Machiavelli was certainly no fan of the Medicis.  In 1512 the Medicis overthrew the Florentine republic (much beloved by Machiavelli), established themselves as dictators, imprisoned and tortured Machiavelli, and then exiled him.  Machiavelli began writing The Prince in 1513.

Boucheron contends that reading The Prince as a tutorial for would-be dictators does not square with Machiavelli’s experience or his other political writings.  Instead, Machiavelli’s intended reader was not the governing but the governed—with the purpose of teaching the governed what they had to fear from despotic rulers.  We shouldn’t be surprised that at the heart of what Machiavelli thought the governed had most to fear from Machiavellian leaders was their drive to attain and maintain power.

Machiavelli warns that Machiavellian leaders define justice in terms of attaining and maintaining power:  decisions, judgements, appointments, rulings, legislation are all considered good and just as long as they are directed at preserving and defending the leader’s power.  Machiavellian leaders, therefore, ca use immoral and unscrupulous means—act “against charity, against humanity, and against religion”, even against their own promises—in order to prop up their power and still be considered just.  In the words of contemporary philosopher Christopher Philips, justice becomes a “virtueless virtue” (Six Questions of Socrates: A Modern-Day Journey of Discovery through World Philosophy, 2011)

Back in early January of 2017 as the United States prepared for the inauguration of its 45th president and when I still left a news channel play on the TV as background while I went about my business—I no longer do that; it’s bad for my blood pressure—I heard Senator Lindsey Graham say to a reporter, “Don’t you agree that the foundation of American democracy is the political party?”   I don’t suppose it was the reporter’s place to say, “No, I don’t agree” but neither did any of the commentators or analysts say so.  

Graham should know better. 

The foundations of American democracy are: (1) Jeffersonian principles of social and economic equality, freedom, and human rights; and (2) Madisonian principles of the separation of powers, checks and balances, and limited government aimed at preventing tyranny by any single faction or branch of government.  A commitment to these principles keeps American democracy on a journey to more perfectly embody those principles, shapes the most basic understanding of the common good, and clarifies what is at the heart of becoming a more just society.  

The essence of every political party, on the other hand, is attaining and maintaining power.  With his rhetorical question, Graham redefined the essence of American democracy as a ongoing power struggle—as perpetual conflict and competition between power-seeking individuals and among power-seeking factions as they vie for control, influence, and dominance at the expense of the common good—and justice degenerates into a “virtueless virtue" that serves only the interest of those in power.