finished_summaries/shmoop/The Prince/section_15_part_0.txt
The Prince.chapter 15
chapter 15
{"name": "Chapter 15", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-15", "summary": "Now the controversy begins. Or something. We think the book has been pretty stinkin' controversial already, but Machiavelli tells us that the party has only just started. He makes a pretty underhanded slap at Plato's Republic and a ton of other books that at the time were giving impractical and morally idealistic recommendations to princes. That's dreamy pie-in-the-sky stuff. Machiavelli is all about cold hard reality. In Machiavelli's Real World, princes stop being polite, and start getting real. Princes can't be good all the time. That's real. Sure, Disney Princes can be awesome and perfect, since they spend most of their time rescuing multi-racial princesses, but real princes have to wage war and fight. Those are not nice-guy things. That's why nice guys are probably not going to make good rulers. The important thing is to look like you are a Disney Prince while doing all that not-so-nice guy stuff that you need to do in order to rule.", "analysis": ""}

It remains now to see what ought to be the rules of conduct for a prince
towards subject and friends. And as I know that many have written on
this point, I expect I shall be considered presumptuous in mentioning it
again, especially as in discussing it I shall depart from the methods of
other people. But, it being my intention to write a thing which shall
be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to
follow up the real truth of the matter than the imagination of it; for
many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never
been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one
ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to
be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who
wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with
what destroys him among so much that is evil.

Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know
how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.
Therefore, putting on one side imaginary things concerning a prince, and
discussing those which are real, I say that all men when they are spoken
of, and chiefly princes for being more highly placed, are remarkable
for some of those qualities which bring them either blame or praise; and
thus it is that one is reputed liberal, another miserly, using a Tuscan
term (because an avaricious person in our language is still he who
desires to possess by robbery, whilst we call one miserly who deprives
himself too much of the use of his own); one is reputed generous,
one rapacious; one cruel, one compassionate; one faithless, another
faithful; one effeminate and cowardly, another bold and brave; one
affable, another haughty; one lascivious, another chaste; one sincere,
another cunning; one hard, another easy; one grave, another frivolous;
one religious, another unbelieving, and the like. And I know that every
one will confess that it would be most praiseworthy in a prince to
exhibit all the above qualities that are considered good; but because
they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for human
conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficiently
prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which
would lose him his state; and also to keep himself, if it be possible,
from those which would not lose him it; but this not being possible, he
may with less hesitation abandon himself to them. And again, he need
not make himself uneasy at incurring a reproach for those vices without
which the state can only be saved with difficulty, for if everything is
considered carefully, it will be found that something which looks like
virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which
looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity.




Chapter 15
Now the controversy begins. Or something. We think the book has been pretty stinkin' controversial already, but Machiavelli tells us that the party has only just started. He makes a pretty underhanded slap at Plato's Republic and a ton of other books that at the time were giving impractical and morally idealistic recommendations to princes. That's dreamy pie-in-the-sky stuff. Machiavelli is all about cold hard reality. In Machiavelli's Real World, princes stop being polite, and start getting real. Princes can't be good all the time. That's real. Sure, Disney Princes can be awesome and perfect, since they spend most of their time rescuing multi-racial princesses, but real princes have to wage war and fight. Those are not nice-guy things. That's why nice guys are probably not going to make good rulers. The important thing is to look like you are a Disney Prince while doing all that not-so-nice guy stuff that you need to do in order to rule.