Machiavelli The Prince Rhetorical Analysis

Moustapha I Toure
Intro to Political Summary
Critical Response Essay #2
Many empirical things can often still be debated and refuted by experts, but there is a general admittance to the idea that power is the root of many evil things. In all fairness, we must admit that a many evil things can in their essence, be great. And that is one of the many theories advanced by Niccolo Machiavelli in his well-known work, The Prince. The Prince serves a dual purpose of both teaching a person how to attain power, but also how to retain it. Incredibly enough, history has proven most of Machiavelli’s findings and theories to work well, while some have failed to effectively secure power for the rulers who did, in fact try them. His work, does obviously highlight one main fact, which is, that power is a well sought-after attribute, and most who attain are willing to do whatever is necessary to keep it.
Machiavelli enumerated in his work, different types of princedoms and whether they are bound to fail from the start, simply based on their type and the way they are attained. Those princedoms are either Hereditary, Mixed, or completely New. Hereditary princedoms would of course be those in which power is passed down within a family. Mixed princedoms would be princedoms that are reinvented through

a mix of remnants of the previous princedoms and the new one, and New princedoms, allude to the creation of entirely new princedoms that have never existed before. He then, delves deeper into how to maintain power and keep enemies in check within these types of princedoms.
My obsession with Machiavelli’s work derives from the irrefutable accuracy of his assertions. With the current world situation, it is beyond ludicrous to even attempt to discredit his work. One can argue that his ideas of power are the ones driving current dictators, in governing the way they do. After all, Machiavelli recommended that a prince be cruel, rather than merciful, among many other things. It is fairly obvious that his concern was with power, rather than humanity. He recognized that in order for one to be powerful and to remain that way, abominable things would have to be committed. Syria is the perfect example of such a mentality. It has for decades, been an hereditary dictatorship, that Bashar Al-Assad, the current leader, have no intention of letting go off, despite the civil war which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands while forsaking a million others. Is Bashar Al-Assad a cruel human being? Yes. Has his power diminished as the war continued? Very much so. He still however, has power, and that is the end goal – to remain in powerful.
There is obviously no bias nor opposition on my part, to the things Niccolo deemed necessary to obtain power.

They were all very true and I certainly agree with most of it. It reminds me of the phrase, “with great power comes great responsibilities”, and while I do not condone violence nor the obsession of one, to remain in a position of power, I certainly do no object to the idea that many inhumane things need to be done in order for power to be kept. Crude power as presented in The Prince, requires that one be vicious, merciless, feared and respected. We are often told that, in life, we must do whatever is necessary to reach our goals. Why should the attention of power be any

different?