Get told over and over how cynical and malevolent Machiavelli is

These kinds of "manosphere" blogs would have you believe being a friendless callous sociopath is in your best interest and "machiavellian", don't take them very seriously.

I mean honestly I think the entire thing is absurdly wrong. But I'll try to demonstrate a few points that are just egregious misreadings.

>4. – Do not defend against your attackers, attack them; justification is a Machiavellian fallacy. Do not justify, stipulate.

His point about attacking first is that you don't want to wait until they are stronger than you, not to just go around killing people because you can. He specifically points out that, "When he does have to shed blood, he should be sure to have a strong justification and manifest cause..."

>7. – Attacks reveal intent, defence reveals priority. You don’t defend the unimportant. You don’t attack allies unless it’s a decoy, this simple concept can be extrapolated to any situation.

Just outright wrong, he manifestly reinforces being loyal in alliances, and devotes multiple pages to getting across the point of siding with weaker parties if you're invading.

"A prince will also be well thought of when he is a true friend or an honest enemy, that is, when, without any hedging, he takes a stand for one side and against another".

>14. – Machiavellianism does not determine one’s morals, one’s morals determine the use of Machiavellianism. He who believes he is too moral for Machiavellianism is no more moral than he is an idiot.

This is just retarded, Machiavelli reiterates over and over again that being moral is preferable to being immoral, and that being le edgy sociopath is a recipe for disaster.

"Whoever believes otherwise, either through fearfulness or bad advice, must always keep his knife in hand, and he can never count on his subjects, because their fresh and recurring injuries keep them suspicious of him....When misfortune strikes harsh measures are too late, and the good things you do are not counted to your credit because you seem to have acted under compulsion, and no one will thank you for that."

However, Machiavelli warns about the dangers of morals, since they may make you weak.
Also, he only warns about immoral things which may compromise your position, not all things immoral. See how he takes about miserliness and that which is immoral which brings a prince down.

Italianfag here, is Machiavelli really seen in such a bad light there? Never knew about that. Mind giving me some more details?

Holy shit this. I was so confused by that because I honestly believe that Machiavelli was being very genuine with his advice.

I was recently reading Rules For Radicals and the main gist of it is very similar. He advocates that every movement is only 'moral' as long as it benefits the movement. If 'morality' is lost the members will still justify their actions.

It's funny how Americans have been memed into hating the book, Goodreads is full of idiotic one-star reviews. It's not great but it isn't some kind of 'libtard manifesto', it's got a specific niche outside of the left/right duality.

$0.14 have been deposited in your account

Same thing for Sam Harris tbqh

"Machiavellian" has entered the vocabulary to mean cynical/scheming/cunning, based mainly on a pretty cursory reading of The Prince. It seems as though nobody has ever bothered to read Discourses on Livy to find out that Machiavelli was actually an enlightened republican who massively influenced the founding fathers of the US.

and 1 shekel in yours?

No one has read Livy either, so we're in a pretty deep hole

It's a curse in the Anglo world: people are remembered as being exactly the opposite of everything they strove for.

>Nietzsche is an edgy nihilist preaching about how everything sucks and nothing matters
>Dawkins is a fedroa tipping dogmatic retard
>Machiavelli is a plotting dickhead suffering from chronic backstab syndrome

Even a cursory examination proves it wrong, but even that is asking too much from people.

>>Dawkins is a fedroa tipping dogmatic retard

Careful not to fall for it.

>>Dawkins is a fedroa tipping dogmatic retard

Dimitri Yascherov
Nikolay Dudko
Petuh Opucshenny
Petr Golozubov
Arkadiy Mamantov

Thank you for mentioning his Discourses. They are terrific. I also like reading his dedication to the Discourses right after reading his dedication to the Prince, just to see his evolution of character.

Ouch. True, but it hurts.

has anyone ever even thought that?

americans on /pol/ probably

Hey, Dawkins really is that, AND he's from Anglola

>>Nietzsche is an edgy nihilist preaching about how everything sucks and nothing matters
>>Dawkins is a fedroa tipping dogmatic retard
>>Machiavelli is a plotting dickhead suffering from chronic backstab syndrome

All of those are truisms.

Are they true, or are they truisms? I can't tell if you're retarded or just using the wrong word.

Him, Maine, and Carlyle are Moldbug's cardinal influences.

I mean, I wouldn't call his advice THAT useful. It's centuries old at this point and you'd have to be a) smart enough to adapt it to modern times and b) use it on people dumb enough to not recognize your ebin attempts at cunning. You're not smart enough and the average person is not as dumb as you'll like him/her to be, so you might as well go back to watching anime.

Moldbug is a meme. Nick Land and Zizek are the only non-meme meme thinkers.

In comparison to the Platonic idea of the philosopher King and in the context of the inherently anti-materialist and anti-empiricist value system of Plato, Machiavelli's notions are distinctly and inherently unethical. This is the measure by which he was criticized in the past. In the context of modern values, which are materialist and empiricist at the root and the core, Machiavelli's ideas not only make sense but even seem tame. It this context that informs your reading of him. In this context, from this point of view, Machiavelli simply advocates 'realpolitik'.