It’s getting closer.
I figure around a week until I read the first page of The Prince by Machiavelli. I’m coming up on the end of Natural Law and Human Rights by Pierre Manent. When finished, I plan to spend a few days with 1 John for my neighborhood’s men’s Bible study group. But I figure around a week until I officially dive into The Prince.
What is beginning if you’re brand new?
My official book club is about to launch.
A few have raised their hand.
I recognize and know personally some of heavy hitters joining, which is going to make it a lot of fun.
Amazon delivered a pile of Pierre Manent books curated to help understand Machiavelli. I stumbled onto Manent recently via Daniel J. Mahoney, and knew I had to read his books, and serendipity struck, Manent’s works feature a substantive analysis of Machiavelli. Manent’s analysis of Machiavelli will benefit this book club immensely. I’m still looking through my bookshelf to see what else I can find to help unpack one of the most iconic, famous, and infamous figures of the modern West.
According to Jacques Barzun, the time period of Machiavelli and Luther birthed the modern West as we know it today. To get particular, Erasmus and Luther are the two who Barzun posits as birthing the modern West, and more so Luther. That it was Luther Barzun wrangles with, as Erasmus was the far greater mind, far greater writer, but it was what Luther offered to people that made him popular. I agree with Barzun, Erasmus is a far more potent, compelling, and far more intellectually powerful than Luther.
Pierre Manent, however, posits that Luther and Machiavelli combined birthed the modern West, along with a significant addition via Thomas Hobbes later. Manent recognizes the good in both Luther and Machiavelli, but he aptly details the consequences of their ideas. Manent particularly points out Machiavelli more so than Luther, and how Thomas Hobbes took Machiavelli’s ideas and made them more appetizing.
Machiavellians exist on both sides politically and inside of various worldviews. Machiavelli’s ideas imbue more than politics, they’re ingrained in art, personalities, business, dating, and we even find him abused and bastardized in a cynical manner in business and self-development.
Machiavelli matters. Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power is the Temu Machiavelli; Greene is a self-help author, a fun one; Machiavelli is the real deal. He’s had significant influence, impact, and continues to have significant influence and impact as his ideas have become almost second nature for some. He didn’t alter human nature, but he did, as Manent says in a trippy, eye-opening manner, contribute to the horizontal plane, a modern phenomena, of how humans make decisions. In short, the vertical plane is our intuition, inherited common sense, and the basic drives and motives from our agency. This is human nature, we share this in common with all humans. The basic human motives are: the pleasant, the useful, and the noble (or just). Our disposition, education (of all sorts not just school), and patterns dictate how our motives manifest. The motives expands into institutions and so on. The horizontal plane, however, is the more theoretical framework from where we, in a sense, obey to make a choice. A simple one, choosing actions and building an identity around opposing Donald Trump at all costs. The horizontal plane is the complex human added theories more unnatural to human nature, but people act from it, the vertical is included, but the horizontal is the person who buys “gender neutral” clothes for their baby. Trippy stuff, but Machiavelli is firmly on the horizontal plane in a distinct way.
This is why it’s important to read him and understand him. Gurus make Machiavelli into a life hack. That you can read him to 10x your passive income, seduce women, and have immense power, but instead of reading him, just buy this e-course. Pearl-clutching academics make Machiavelli into a monster (albeit many of them live in a Machiavelli influenced bubble, ironically).
Where is the truth?
Is it all bad?
Is it all good?
Personally, I’m curious to read Machiavelli since he arose out of the ashes of the Roman Empire’s western fall. That makes me curious as to what his perspective is, why he arose and was such a force, and what was the ghosts of that empire like.
I’m not a Machiavelli expert. But I will be learning it alongside you, and getting observations and wisdoms from some big hitter thinkers like Pierre Manent.
You don’t need to be reading either of the works to join along. You can think of it as a kind of MasterClass if you’re not reading along. This book club is open to ALL paying members. But I do hope to get a handful of brave souls to join in reading either or both of these iconic works.
The book club will feature access to the exclusive videos, chats, and you can ask questions.
If you haven’t signed up yet do so now.
We’re soon about to start.
If you are reading either of the works go ahead and say hi and tell us which of the books you plan to read in the chat thread Machiavelli seen HERE. If you plan to be an observer and not read, feel free to say hello in the chat if you wish — all paying members are welcome. Say hi HERE.
Okay, I may not be a “heavy weight”, but I’d be willing to do this. If James Carran stands by you, and what I’m reading sounds good already, time to learn some new things!