>At 03:38 PM 7/31/01 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>This is the sort of argument which I have elsewhere argued _does_ make a
>>difference -- Miles has articulated with great precision what I already
>>thought but didn't know, in these terms, that I thought. In particular,
>>I don't think (in the 21st century) it is possible to use the word or
>>concept of rationality except as shorthand for rational calculation.
>>This statement would seem to be a good primary premise to start out from
>>for any consideration of rationality over the last few centuries.
>
>Funny, isn't this exactly what Foucault said?
>
>Lacking a normative foundation, everything slides off into
>Machiavelli's lap. The proletariat may as well slit their throats
>now, because there is no hope for them, or anyone one else.
***** Antonio Gramsci
The Modern Prince
Machiavelli and Marx
The basic innovation introduced by the philosophy of praxis into the science of politics and of history is the demonstration that there is no abstract "human nature", fixed and immutable (a concept which certainly derives from religious and transcendentalist thought), but that human nature is the totality of historically determined social relations, hence an historical fact which can, within certain limits, be ascertained with the methods of philology and criticism. Consequently political science, as far as both its concrete content and its logical formulation are concerned, must be seen as a developing organism. It must, however, be noted that the way in which Machiavelli posed the problem of politics (i.e. the assertion implicit in his writing that politics is an autonomous activity, with its own principles and laws distinct from those of morality and religion - a proposition with far-reaching philosophical consequences, since it implicitly introduces a new conception of morality and religion, a new world-view) is still questioned and rejected even today, and has not yet succeeded in becoming "common sense". What does that mean? Does it mean only that the intellectual and moral revolution whose elements are to be found embryonically in Machiavelli's thought has not yet taken place, has not become the public and manifest form of the national culture? Or does it simply have a current political significance; does it serve to indicate the gulf which exists between rulers and ruled, to indicate that there exist two cultures - that of the rulers and that of the ruled - and that the ruling class like the Church has its own attitude towards the common people, dictated by the necessity on the one hand of not becoming detached form them, and on the other of keeping them convinced that Machiavelli is nothing other than the devil incarnate?
Here one comes up against the problem of Machiavelli's significance in his own time, and of the objectives he set himself in writing his books, particularly The Prince. Machiavelli's ideas were not, in his own day, purely "bookish", the monopoly of isolated thinkers, a secret memorandum circulating among the initiated. Machiavelli's style is not that of a systematic compiler of treatises, such as abounded during the Middle Ages and Humanism, quite the contrary; it is the style of a man of action, of a man urging action, the style of a party manifesto. The moralistic interpretation offered by Foscolo [10] is certainly mistaken. It is quite true that Machiavelli revealed something, and did not merely theorise reality; but what was the aim of his revelation? A moralistic aim or a political one? It is commonly asserted that Machiavelli's standards of political behaviour are practised, but not admitted. Great politicians - it is said - start off by denouncing Machiavelli, by declaring themselves to be anti-Machiavellian, precisely in order to be able to put his standards "piously" into practice. Was not Machiavelli himself a poor Machiavellian, one of those who "are in the know" and foolishly give the game away, whereas vulgar Machiavellianism teaches one to do just the opposite? Croce asserted that Machiavellianism was a science, serving reactionaries and democrats alike, just as skilful swordplay serves both honest men and brigands, for self-defence and for murder; and that this was the sense in which Foscolo's opinion should be taken. This is true in the abstract. Machiavelli himself remarks that what he is writing about is in fact practised, and always has been practised, by the greatest men throughout history. So it does not seem that he was writing for those who are already in the know; nor is his style that of disinterested scientific activity; nor is it possible to think that he arrived at his theses in the field of political science by way of philosophical speculation - which would have been something of a miracle in that field at the time, when even today he meets with such hostility and opposition.
One may therefore suppose that Machiavelli had in mind "those who are not in the know", and that it was they whom he intended to educate politically. This was no negative political education - of tyrant-haters - as Foscolo seems to have understood it; but a positive education - of those who have to recognise certain means as necessary, even if they are the means of tyrants, because they desire certain ends. Anyone born into the traditional governing stratum acquires almost automatically the characteristics of the political realist, as a result of the entire educational complex which he absorbs from his family milieu, in which dynastic or patrimonial interests predominate. Who therefore is "not in the know"? The revolutionary class at the time, the Italian "people" or "nation", the citizen democracy which gave birth to men like Savonarola and Pier Soderini, rather than to a Castruccio or a Valentino. It seems clear that Machiavelli wished to persuade these forces of the necessity of having a leader who knew what he wanted and how to obtain it, and of accepting him with enthusiasm even if his actions might conflict or appear to conflict with the generalised ideology of the time - religion.
The position in which Machiavelli found himself politically is repeated today for the philosophy of praxis. Once more there is the necessity to be "anti-Machiavellian", to develop a theory and technique of politics which - however strong the belief that they will in the final resort be especially useful to the side which was "not in the know", since that is where the historically progressive force is to be found - might be useful to both sides in the struggle. In actual fact, one immediate result is achieved, in that the unity based on traditional ideology is broken; until this happens, it is impossible for the new forces to arrive at a consciousness of their own independent personality. Machiavellianism has helped to improve the traditional political technique of the conservative ruling groups, just as the politics of the philosophy of praxis does. That should not disguise its essentially revolutionary character, which is still felt today, and which explains all anti-Machiavellianism, from that of the Jesuits to the pietistic anti-Machiavellianism of Pasquale Villari. [1933-34: 1st version 1931-32]
[10] Foscolo wrote in his famous poem Dei Sepolcri [On Tombs]: "Io quando il monumento vidi ove posa il corpo di quel grande | che temprando lo scettro a'regnatori | gli allor ne sfronda, ed alle genti svela | di che lagrime grondi e di che sangue;" [When I saw the monument where lies the body of that great man who, even as he strengthens the sceptre of rulers, plucks away the laurel leaves and reveals to their peoples to tears and blood running down it.] In other words Fosco saw Machiavelli as revealing the tyranny of the rulers even while he strengthened their power. But Gramsci condemns the moralism of this reduction of Machiavelli to little more than an encouragement to "tyrant-haters". For further discussion by Gramsci of Foscolo's and other interpretations of Machiavelli, see Note sul Machiavelli, sulla politica e sullo Stato moderno, pp. 115-19.
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/works/prison_notebooks/modern_prince/ch02.htm> *****
Whether you take Foscolo's or Gramsci's view of Machiavelli, you dismiss Machiavelli only by forgetting that there exist the rulers and the ruled. "It really must be stressed that it is precisely the first elements, the most elementary things, which are the first to be forgotten....The first element is that there really do exist rulers and ruled, leaders and led. The entire science and art of politics are based on this primordial, and (given certain general conditions) irreducible fact," writes Gramsci (at <http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/works/prison_notebooks/modern_prince/ch04.htm>.). Twentieth-century liberalism, be it Rawls's or Habermas's, has a tendency to make us underestimate all the obvious implications of this irreducible fact (in contrast to liberalism before the twentieth century -- see Kant for instance).
We can't even make the rulers behave differently, not to mention overthrow them, by urging them to read Habermas & reminding them of the virtue of the ISS. Habermasians should settle for a modest view that _among leftists in an established liberal democracy in times of peace_ we ought to give a pride of place to the practice of reason-giving with freedom, equality, & fairness in political discussion in the open.
Yoshie