The Prince

Machiavelli wrote The Prince as an instructional manual for a Renaissance ruler. The Prince is a mixture of practical, “real” advice and theoretical, “ideal” advice for the ruler operating under the best conditions. If you were about to become the ruler of your own country, which parts of Machiavelli’s advice do you think would still apply in the modern world? In your answer, explain and justify what advice you would personally keep and what you would disregard as a neophyte ruler. Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513 as a guide to obtaining a public office from the Medici. In these chapters he had written were guidelines and advice to becoming a great ruler. If I were to ever become a ruler of a nation or country, I personally would use some of the advice that Machiavelli wrote and some of the advice I would probably throw out and not use. The advice I most liked given the circumstance of being a ruler in today’s modern times is the advice from chapter 17 in his book. “On cruelty and pity, and whether it is better to be loved or feared, and vice versa” (James, Lawall, Paterson, Spacks, and Thalmann 1945-1961). As a new ruler in a country where no one really knows me I would suggest to myself to do something to gain the people’s attention and make them make a choice on whether they are with me or against me. I would not want to be feared by my people, I would want my nation to run smoothly. Not everyone is going to agree and there is going to be problems no matter what. Take the bi-partisian issues going on in our nation today. Nothing is really getting done because nobody will agree on the issues at hand. This is just an example of what I wouldn’t do as ruler of my new country. I believe I would have to something so extreme that I would earn the respect and the fear of the people. If my people do not agree with me or hate me there could be a rebellion and none of us want to fight, including me. Machiavelli said it best with “the

Cited: Meyer Spacks, and William G. Thalmann. The Norton Anthology Of Western Literature: The Ancient World Through The Renaissance. 8. New York: W W Norton , 2006. 1945-1961. Print.