Niccolo Machiavelli was a Florentine diplomat, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. His best-known work, The Prince, was published in 1532, five years after his death, and remains a primer for those whose designs are for complete and total power. He writes, for example, that “it is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.” Fear, not love, is central to what it means to be a Machiavellian prince. That it is built on the “baseness” of men is telling as well. The assumption – as English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, would echo a couple of hundred years later – is that human beings are naturally inclined toward their animalistic impulses and, therefore, cannot be trusted.
Another bit of advice is as follows: “…he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.” Machiavelli is basically saying that there are dupes among us who will believe anything, so if deception is needed to win power then there is no shortage of gullible men and women to act as enforcers, defenders, and spreaders of any lie the Machiavellian prince might come up with.
It is here, dear listeners, that I would like to turn to social media. Even though no argument has ever been won in a social media exchange – absolutely no one has ever said, “You know, you’re right about that, and I am wrong” -- folks continue to hurl virtual mud at each other. At first, I found this to be very perplexing. Would a person say to someone else what he just said on social media if that person were standing in front of him? Likely not. But the insults continue to fly nevertheless, which I should say here, seems to corroborate Machiavelli’s viewpoint on humankind. I am prompted, at this point, to consider the function of social media. Social media engineers want to sow seeds of disunion, which is also a play taken from The Prince in how the best way to rule a population, writes Machiavelli, is to keep them fighting among themselves.
So there we have it: deceit and fighting. But what about fear?
My thought on this is that human beings, for the most part, fear the unknown and that many posts of the political type are made without having all the facts at hand. Fear, in other words, is what drives the virtual flailing about for what is true – what gives meaning and purpose. In effect, the three qualities that are core to the Machiavellian prince – deceit, fighting, and fear – come together in disturbing ways. They dance to the Machiavellian prince’s tune, and that tune lasts 24/7. Truth be told, it is sad to see well-meaning individuals drawn into deranged and utterly fruitless conversations without all the facts ... with information that has been spun. To be free of this trap, I contend, we must – absolutely must – recognize social media for what it is: a tool used to keep people separated and at each other’s throats.
Consider what else Machiavelli says about leadership: “Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.” Hear this again, dear listeners: The goal is to not be good. It is as plain as day. A treatise on leadership written over five-hundred years ago reveals volumes about power struggles today. Indeed, it may even explain why conversations quickly devolve into name calling on social media. That end is by design. It is on purpose. Wiser individuals know this and aspire to take the higher road – to resist the temptation to respond to ignorance with ignorance, to stop dancing, to live a life far and away from the one dictated by angry and petty men.
