Comment Paper One: Machiavelli

While reading Machiavelli’s The Prince, certain issues brought up by Machiavelli in order to convey how to be an ideal ruler stood out to me.  What I found most interesting is how Machiavelli addresses the power of Fortune over men, and how to successfully minimize the impact of Fortune’s turning wheel of good and bad. In Chapter twenty-five, Machiavelli describes Fortune as “…one of those violent torrents that flood the plains, destroying tress and buildings, hurling earth from one place to another” and “…everyone yields to the force without being able to stand up to it” (115). He then stresses that to be a successful ruler, one must stand up to Fortune and adapt to the good and bad in order to minimize the impact, it could have on one’s power. To emphasize this point further he concludes that “Fortune is a woman, and if [one] wish[es] to dominate her you must beat and batter her” (118). What was most interesting in the passage about Fortune was his reference to Italy and how Fortune strikes in places that show little resistance, which was the case in Italy after the flood. Furthermore, he recommends that rulers not leave things to both Fortune and God. As mentioned in this week’s lecture, Machiavelli was opposed to universal declarations and politics, especially Christendom during this era. His belief that Christendom failed medieval Europe as being a source of political power, coupled with his declaration that a prince should attempt to resist Fortune, seems to express the idea that Italian princes had become lazy and dependent on Christianity, leaving their kingdom vulnerable to internal or external forces.

After listening to this week’s lecture, in my opinion I believe that the third interpretation of Machiavelli’s work as the creator of ‘foreign policy’ is most accurate.  Through his multiple chapters on how to successfully differentiate oneself and one’s kingdoms from other states and rulers, Machiavelli is definitely stressing the idea of creating borders and particularity in a world of universals. What I found most interesting was the point that Machiavelli believed that the prince himself constituted as the border from the surrounding countries and the prince’s own kingdom. I find this statement to be very true as Machiavelli constantly emphasizes the qualities of a prince in chapters fourteen through nineteen, and how the characteristics of a prince ultimately defines the security of his rule, and how others will perceive the prince’s kingdom.