Autor: Manent, Pierre

Buch: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Stichwort: Machiavelli 2; Aristoteles' Politik: Blickpunkt vom Zweck her - Machiavelli: Fokus auf pol. Pathologien, Hermeneutik d. Misstrauens, Aspekt d. extremen Situationen, das Gute "gründet" im Bösen

Kurzinhalt: The nobles have a positive end, but it is wicked: to oppress. The people have no positive end, only a negative one: not to be oppressed... only the prince who knows how to gain the support of the people in opposing the nobility, without confusing ...

Textausschnitt: 13a Machiavelli was Florentine. His "experience of modern things" was the experience of political life in a city-state. We have seen that the city-state was both particularly unfriendly toward the Church and particularly vulnerable when dealing with it. This situation of a quite powerless hostility naturally led to the idea of radically excluding religion from the city-state, of closing off completely the city-state from religion's influence. Certain historians consider that Machiavelli and those who followed him were not hostile to religion as such, only to its excesses and corruptions. But the only way to protect oneself permanently from these excesses and corruptions was to exclude all influence—"good" or "bad"—of religion on civic life. (Fs)

13b What do we know about Machiavelli when we know nothing about him? We know that he taught evil: how to take and keep power by ruse and force, how to carry through a conspiracy to a successful conclusion. He taught that one must not threaten or insult one's enemy, but that when one has the chance to kill him, then it must be done. We moderns, who like abstract words, readily speak of Machiavelli's political "realism." And it is true that in political "reality" there are murders, conspiracies, coups d'état. But there are also periods and regimes without murders, or conspiracies, or coups d'état. The absence, so to speak, of these wicked actions is also a "reality." Thus, speaking of Machiavelli's "realism" means having accepted his point of view: "evil" is politically more significant, more substantial, more "real" than "good." (Fs)

13c That there have been many evils, many violent, wicked, and cruel actions in political life was not taught to men by Machiavelli. They have always known it: how can the obvious be ignored? It is true, however, that the most authoritative authors dealing with political matters did not emphasize this point. Above all they saw in politics the goods that it brought. For Aristotle, looking properly at the city-state meant considering it according to its end: the city-state was the only framework within which man could fulfill his nature as a rational animal, by practicing the civic end moral virtues that permitted him to demonstrate his excellence. Aristotle knew very well that political life has its pathology, its revolutions, its changes of regimes, often accompanied by violence; he devoted book 5 of his Politics to them. But to have concentrated men's attention exclusively on these phenomena would have caused them to lose sight of their own end and that of the city-state. (Fs)

13d Machiavelli on the contrary persuades us to fix our attention exclusively, or almost exclusively, on pathologies. He wants to force us to lose what, after having read him, we shall be tempted to call our "innocence." Machiavelli is the first of the "masters of suspicion." Not long ago this term was applied to Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. The characterization is justified inasmuch as these three authors urged us to doubt our best motives. But Machiavelli was the first to carry suspicion to the strategic point of men's life: their political life. His suspicion has never left us since. Just listen to this portrait of the soul suffering from suspicion:
And it is not just in affairs of the heart that this moral weakening, this powerlessness of lasting impressions can be noticed: it is happening everywhere. Fidelity in love is a force like religious belief, like the enthusiasm for liberty. Now we have no force left. We no longer know how to love, or to believe or to desire. Everybody doubts the truth of what he says, smiles at the vehemence of what he asserts, and hastens the end of what he is feeling.1

14a One of the most deeply rooted traits of the modern soul is doubt of the good, the smile of superiority and mockery, the passion for losing one's innocence. To understand how modern politics was set in motion and developed, one must have previously grasped the change in what has to be called the status of the good. (Fs) (notabene)

14b How did Machiavelli go about trying to convince us of the central character of evil in politics? What he liked to study best were "extreme situations": foundings of city-states, changes in regimes, conspiracies. In contrast with Aristotle, he described political life from the perspective of its beginnings or origins—often violent and unjust—and no longer from the perspective of its end. He did not deny that in ordinary circumstances civic life can be quite peaceful, that what men call justice can reign there to an appreciable degree. He simply suggested that this "ordinary" morality depends on—or is influenced by—an "extraordinary" morality. The "good" happens and is maintained only through the "bad." Machiavelli did not erase the distinction between good and evil. On the contrary, he preserved it—and he had to, if he wanted to establish the scandalous proposition that "good" is founded by "evil." (Fs)

14c It is easy to grasp the consequences of this point of view on the definition of the city-state and its relationship to religion. It considers the city-state an artificial island constructed by violent means. It is not open to anything beyond itself; it is intelligible only in relation to what brings it about. That means that it becomes unwise and even absurd to want to "improve" or "perfect" the city-state's "good" thanks to a "superior" one that religion would undertake to provide. Such a contribution would only disturb the natural functioning of the city-state. An example will suffice. Christianity produced a certain softening of mores. The political consequence of this was that generally, when a city-state was captured, men were no longer run through with a sword and the women and children were no longer reduced to slavery. Machiavelli shows that from the moment that the citizen's identification of his instinct for self-preservation with the instinct for the city-state's preservation is lost, the motivating force of civic life and morality is fatally weakened. The public good can only be brought about by the power of violence and fear. To insist on the violent conditioning of the city-state, or to point out the political evils produced by Christianity's intrusion into civic life, therefore amounts to the same thing: the political order is now a closed circle having its own foundation within itself, or rather below itself. To assert the necessity and fecundity of evil is now to assert the self-sufficiency of the earthly, secular order. (Fs)