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Post by Stal on Mar 30, 2013 0:48:49 GMT -5
"Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. . . . Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present."
--Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Discuss.
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Post by Gelquie on Mar 30, 2013 1:43:53 GMT -5
I've read the Prince before, which mostly seems to be an essay for the intention of guidance for leaders. It's an interesting read.
Before I go on though, I need to provide more context for the text itself (which is in the paragraph after that, actually).
I can see some truth in finding more security in fear. When one aspires to only be loved, they could be at a greater tendency to be used for someone else's purposes, even if the leader in question is smart. However, make oneself too feared, and they begin to turn on you. You could simply be overthrown, or you could be killed. How they turn on you depends on who you're talking to.
I think it would be to the benefit of a leader to be kind, however. Kindness given by one person inspires the other to be kind to them right back, which results in a net gain. Stay on someone's good side, and they could help you later.
Kindness alone sadly doesn't work all the time. There are complete jerks out there who will continue to be jerks or potential enemies, regardless of how kind you are to them. It could be because they just don't like you or because they're unreasonable. Regardless of their reasons, they're not likely to turn around and be your friend. When that happens, that's when you want--with them--to be feared. It can be an effective tactic to ensure that they stay away from you and don't attack you or to just keep them in check, regardless of their feelings.
In short, it takes a balance between the two.
Also, I think there's this other work around that serves as pretty much the opposite of The Prince in ideas, though I don't think I've read it. I will look around in my notes for this class I took and try to find it.
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Post by Huntress on Mar 30, 2013 4:27:39 GMT -5
Kindness alone sadly doesn't work all the time. There are complete jerks out there who will continue to be jerks or potential enemies, regardless of how kind you are to them. It could be because they just don't like you or because they're unreasonable. Regardless of their reasons, they're not likely to turn around and be your friend. When that happens, that's when you want--with them--to be feared. It can be an effective tactic to ensure that they stay away from you and don't attack you or to just keep them in check, regardless of their feelings. Current Estonian political profile with certain parts to the east :'D The standing policy is to be flexible and strive for a mutual cooperation and understanding between the two nations. Result being that we're not taken particularly seriously as a country. There seem to be a lot of "aw, cute, keep your republic... for now" vibes. As for the topic, are we talking specifically a leader-followers relationship, or any given human relationships? Because they probably vary across the board. When talking about a political leader and with the choice of one or the other, I'd probably prefer to be feared. You can't plausibly expect everyone to love you, there'll always be some fella with a proverbial goatee and pointy turban waiting to bop you upside the head and take over. So if they're not going to love you anyway and would quite like to bop you upside the head anyway, I'd want them to be aware that if they fail, they'll pay dearly. Granted, we're past the point of dungeons and shackles, but the point applies even more subtly to the sharkpit that is modern politics. But when applied to other human relationships, it either turns around or doesn't apply at all. A fear-based mother-child relationship is just plain sad, and an employee being feared by their boss doesn't make much sense (at least not in the long run). |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2013 14:40:10 GMT -5
It's ALWAYS better to be loved. A life without love is not a life at all.
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Post by Dju on Mar 30, 2013 17:05:58 GMT -5
Oh man, Machiavelli! I love that guy, I try to follow his philosophy all the time - but I'm not cold blooded like the theory of The Prince suggests, but I try to keep it in mind.
It's a tough question, I guess. I think we should go by The Prince itself and be feared by those who will only stop at that and loved by those you have granted, but when comes to choosing only one...well, at first I'd go for fear, with fear comes respect and reputation like Catarina Sforza e Al Capone.
But, like my best friend just said right beside me in real life, love grants you security, happiness and protection. Being feared requires power and you don't always have it, making people to abandon you when you've lost everything - but you don't need anything to fuel love, its it's own source.
So yeah, love. XD
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Post by Sheik on Mar 31, 2013 20:20:45 GMT -5
Can I pull a Michael Scott and say that I want people to be afraid of how much they love me? XP
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Post by Nimras on Apr 1, 2013 0:00:01 GMT -5
Can I pull a Michael Scott and say that I want people to be afraid of how much they love me? XP Hahaha. Yes. I suppose it depends on what you want to use this influence for. If you want people to all tightly band together for a short, but very effective, time, than it's probably better to be feared. Look how well it works in politics. If you want people loosely banded together working towards a common long-term goal, like living together, love is better. |
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Post by Celestial on Apr 1, 2013 6:44:27 GMT -5
I think for a leader it is best to strike a balance and go for respect. Respect is earned through a combination of love and fear so you get the benefits of both without going into the excesses of either. If people respect a leader, they will be happy to follow them secure in the knowledge that they are not doing so without a good reason. Fear can backfire in that some will not be afraid of you and will find ground to overthrow you and love, well, you can't please everyone and trying to please enough people will exhaust yourself and your resources.
Respect is hard to earn but much easier to maintain than love and more likely to serve your purposes than fear. You cannot forget what happens if people suddenly realise that there is nothing to be afraid of: they will want revenge. If they respect you, they might not like you but acknowledge that you are a worthy leader and even if they will not follow you, they will be more reluctant to challenge you.
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Post by Yoyti on Apr 1, 2013 12:51:31 GMT -5
I absolutely hated The Prince. I'm sorry. Machiavelli's writing just doesn't strike a chord with me.
Regarding this particular issue. I point toward post-revolution France, aptly called "The Terror." I point toward the Mongolian empire. I point toward Russia under Lenin/Stalin. None of these fear based government work. Fear is a temporary fix to a long term problem. Yes, if you instill horror into the hearts of your subjects, you can rule unconditionally for a while. Maybe your empire doubles in size. Maybe taxes pay for your twelve mansions. Maybe propaganda can turn you into a god for a while. But in the end, it all fails.
Not to mention, The Prince is outdated. It applied to a time of political turmoil. Things were already pretty bad when Machiavelli wrote it. And, of course, we don't have princes any more. I don't think there are any major world powers now run by a true monarchy (much less a monarchy with any actual political power (which is why I don't count the British royal family)).
And we can see in politician's tactics today a complete lack of fear. American presidential candidates don't try to make themselves look fierce, they want to look like fluffy political bunnies. Now, the extent to which they succeed at this is extremely subjective, but the point still stands.
That last paragraph was cut considerably, and I almost cut all of it from the final draft of this, but I really liked the fluffy political bunnies.
Basically, at the end of the day, fear could work on a small scale, and for a short while, but eventually, all of these fear based empires have fallen. History has spoken against Machiavelli, and so will I.
(Of course, fear failing, I think it goes without saying that my default position in love.)
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Post by Huntress on Apr 1, 2013 15:15:12 GMT -5
I point toward Russia under Lenin/Stalin. None of these fear based government work. Fear is a temporary fix to a long term problem. Akay, this hits a bit too close to home not to nibble on =D The Soviet Union was the most staggeringly effective fear empire I can think of. It ran on fear. You never knew if a colleague or family member would squeal on you if you said a word against the government, therefore you never said anything. If you did, more often than not you got unpleasant visitors in the middle of the night who shipped you off to a prison and thereafter to Siberia. Which sounds a lot like some sort of high fantasy-esque novel, but it happened to real people, by the thousands. Therefore, a La Resistance sort of thing couldn't happen. People couldn't band together to topple the power, since all attempts to do so were squished immediately before they could get off the "hey, so that chairman guy kinda sucks" level. I'm not even exaggerating. I was born shortly before the system collapsed, but here's how this point hit home for me: in 10th grade I had to write a report on how the country got collectivized in the late 40s. I interviewed my grandma for this. Or tried to. It took hours of coercing before I got snippets and tidbits about the life back then out of her. She was scared to talk about it. That was in 2004. Estonia was a whole new country, KGB was gone and the USSR had been dead and buried for 13 years. The fear wasn't. The union itself crumbled, yus, but it crumbled for economic reasons: it had lived primarily off its hump like a camel for a long while and sucked itself dry. And once poor ol' Gorbachev realized it and tried to modernize things and tried out this newfangled freedom of speech thing on his country, the floodgates were opened and everyone ran off with their slice of the freedom pie. But had he not given the freedom, I'm not at all convinced that anyone would've taken it. I agree that all such empires die in the end, but saying that they die solely because they're fear-based is a bit of a stretch. That sounds like the "everyone who drinks water, dies" analogy. |
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