Diversity of Everything but Thought

Can't we all just get along?

Hey, man, I wouldn't ask anyone to read anything by that guy. Not even my enemies... Cycloptichorn

blatham wrote:

Ican

I'm not sure that not reading a book will have the consequence of your being more educated. On the other hand, there are likely very many books that, read as opposed to not read, will produce salutory gains in education. I can recommend some. Please just let me know.

Have you, Blatham, read the Horowitz book?

If so will you please transcribe that part that shows explicitly that Horowitz recommended that Republicans adopt the tactics Horowitz allegedly attributes to Democrats.

If not, then I recommend your next reading of contemporary American literature start with the book: "Think a Second Time" by Dennis Praeger.

Then, next I recommend you read: "John Adams" by David McCullough.

Then I urge you to read "American Soldier" by General Tommy Franks.

OK, your turn to recommend!

"Going On The Attack

As I pointed out in The Art of Political War, in political combat the aggressor usually prevails. Aggression is advantageous because pollitics is a war position. Position is defined by images that stick. By striking first, you can define the issues and can define your adversary. Definition is the decisive move in all political wars. Other things being equal, whoever winds up on the defensive will generally be on the losing side."

I would agree with that Cyclop except for the fact that most of the conservatives here on A2K have degrees or at least some higher education. I found a study awhile back--damn if I can find it again but will look for it--that those who listen to conservative talk radio generally have more education than the general population as a whole.

... Let's take a look now at Horowitz and his operation, starting with a quote from the fellow himself:

"...you cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do it by following Lenin's injunction: 'In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent's argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth." (from The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits")

...

Here's another quote, from the same book:

"Politics is a war of position. In war there are two sides: friends and enemies. Your task is to define yourself as the friend of as large a constituency as possible compatible with your principles, while defining your opponent as the enemy whenever you can."

Your treatise on this is equivalent to blaming Niccolo Machiavelli for advocating the distructive political tactics he wrote about, when he was not advocating but was actually describing the then lousey tactics of contemporary politics.

In these excerpts you lost their real context (as in deed you did with your quote of what I posted). Horowitz was describing and not advocating the lousey tactics of contemporary radicals.

I did not read Horowitz's book, "The Art of Political War and Other Special Pursuits."

I will not read this book until and unless someone, anyone, provides me persuasive evidence that Horowitz, in his book, recommends that the Republican leadership adopt the tactics which it has been alleged Horowitz described as the tactics of the current Democrat leadership.

... The Prince, however, was not a commentary upon, nor a description of the politics of his time, whether or not one would have characterized those politics as "distructive" [sic] or "lousey" [sic]. And, in fact, he wrote The Prince precisely as an advocacy of political method, basing it in large measure upon Cesare Borgia, for whom he worked as a diplomat. He very definitely was advocating political policy and method. ...

This alleged know nothing would appreciate it if you alleged know something would provide some evidence to support this opinion of yours.

"Because how one ought to live is so far removed from how one lives that he who lets go of what is done for that which one ought to do sooner learns ruin than his own preservation: because a man who might want to make a show of goodness in all things necessarily comes to ruin among so many who are not good. Because of this it is necessary for a prince, wanting to maintain himself, to learn how to be able to be not good and to use this and not use it according to necessity."

ican711nm wrote:

This alleged know nothing would appreciate it if you alleged know something would provide some evidence to support this opinion of yours.

Look in any dictionary/encyclopedia etc - the shortened paperback version will do.

... The Prince, however, was not a commentary upon, nor a description of the politics of his time, whether or not one would have characterized those politics as "distructive" [sic] or "lousey" [sic]. And, in fact, he wrote The Prince precisely as an advocacy of political method, basing it in large measure upon Cesare Borgia, for whom he worked as a diplomat. He very definitely was advocating political policy and method. ...

I an alleged know nothing who knows he disagrees, would appreciate it if you an alleged know something would provide some evidence to support this opinion of yours.

THE HARVARD CLASSICS
EDITED BY CHARLES W ELIOT LLD


THE PRINCE
BY NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI


VOLUME 36
INTRODUCTORY NOTE Pages 3-5
DEDICATION Pages 5-6

THE PRINCE Pages 7-90



P F COLLIER & SON COMPANY
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1910
By P.F. Collier & Son

Manufactured in U.S.A.

Designed, Printed, and Bound at
The Collier Press, New York


INTRODUCTORY NOTE

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, one of the most brilliant and versatile intellects of the Italian Renaissance, was born at Florence, May 3, 1469. He entered the public service as a young man, and between 1500 and 1512 he was employed in a number of diplomatic missions to the other Italian cities, to France, and to Germany. When the Medici returned to power in Florence in 1512, Machiavelli lost his positions, and suffered imprisonment and torture. On his release in the following year, he retired to the country and devoted himself to study and the composition of his most famous work, “The Prince.” Other writings followed; and in the last year of his life we find him again in active life, this time as a soldier. He died June 21, 1527.

A more detailed account of Machiavelli, by Lord Maccauley, will be found in the volume of “English Essays” in the Harvard Classics. [Volume 27]

Machiavelli’s aim in “The Prince” has been variously interpreted. His motive was probably mainly patriotic; but the exclusion of moral considerations in his treatment of politics led, even in his own century, to his name’s becoming a synonym for all that is diabolical in public and private policy. Whatever may be the relation of the methods expounded in “The Prince”; to his personal ideals, the book remains a most vivid and suggestive picture of political conditions in the Italy of the Renaissance.

Machiavelli’s “Discourses on Livy’s Decades” deals on a larger scale with many of the topics of the “The Prince”; his “Art of War” elaborates his views on the military side; and his “History of Florence,” his “Life of Castruccio Castracani,” and his comedy, “Mandragola,” are characteristic products of an accomplished man of letters who one time was a diplomat and soldier, at another historian, poet, and dramatist. Few men represent so thoroughly the extraordinary versatility of that wonderful age.

“Of all Machiavelli’s writings,” says Garnett, “ ‘The Prince’ is the most famous and deservedly, for it is the most characteristic. Few subjects of literary discussion have occasioned more controversy than the purpose of this celebrated book. Some have beheld in it a manual for tyrants, like the memoirs of Tibersus, so diligently perused by Domitian; others have regarded it as a refined irony upon tyranny, on the sarcastic plan of Swift’s Directions to Servants, if so humble an analogy be permissible. From various points of view it might alternately pass for either, but its purpose is accurately conveyed by neither interpretation. Machiavelli’s was a sincere though too supple a republican, and by no means desired the universal prevalence of tyranny throughout Italy. . . . His aim probably was to show how to build up a principality capable of expelling the foreigner and restoring the independence of Italy. But this intention could not be safely expressed, and hence his work seems repulsive, because the reason of state which he propounds as an apology for infringing the moral code appears not patriotic, but purely selfish. . . . With all his faults and oversights, nothing can deprive Machiavelli of the glory of having been the modern Aristotle in Politics, the first, or at least the first considerable writer who derived a practical philosophy from History, and exalted statecraft into science.”

You would have thought that the all-knowing Setanta, abetted by his claque leader, Walter, would have been able to cite the passages verbatim without needing to resort to links given how he has spent all those years studying, even to the extent that he can order anybody else he considers less learned or intelligent to keep silent.

What do you think Walter? I think Ican clearly won out on accuracy on this round.

What do you think Walter? I think Ican clearly won out on accuracy on this round.

So you can google a book . . . hooray for you.
I possess the book and transcribed the excerpts from it myself. Indeed, hooray for me!

I really don't like to transcribe, but necessity is a cruel dictator.

Simple question for you Ican, have you read the book?
No! I only read the 90 pages in volume 36 of the Harvard Classics that relate to and contains the entire "The Prince."

Have you read The Commentaries?
No! Is it relevant to Maciavelli's intent in writing "The Prince"? If so, how is it relevant?