Day 1. 12 November 2014
On the Machiavellian flight

So I’m back to school. Even at my age. That is whenever I’m on a trip and nothing better to do.

This time I’m reading is Machiavelli: Bullet Guide. It was published 2 years ago and a copy of it has been in my possession for 2 months. But I never had the time to read it. Until now. Since there’s nothing I can read on the plane. The inflight magazine as well as other reading materials are all in Chinese.

Machiavelli (1469-1527), according to the author as well as other commentators, is not much of a Machiavellian which is synonymous with treacherous. He “was in fact a rather different character: an able, shrewd and honorable civil servant, an Italian patriot who loved his native city (Florence) a witty and loyal friend,   and above all, one of the sharpest and revolutionary thinker of the Italian Renaissance.” What’s more he was also, “for the times, a loyal and loving husband and father.”

Nevertheless there is, without doubt, some justification in shunning “The Prince,” the treatise he wrote. “(T) he political thought by Machiavelli is often summed up in the proverbial ‘The ends justify the means.’ Throughout The Prince Machiavelli represents his ruler undertaking acts that, while morally objectionable in themselves, nonetheless have good outcomes.”

At the same time, it would be a mistake to paint him all in black. “For example, (coming into power) by murdering the previous ruler, Machiavelli, it comes as a relief to read, disapproves of this method.”

He also “distinguished between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ empires:
    ×   an empire based upon the dominion of one people over another
• an empire based on the voluntary association and collaboration of peoples

The former was inherently flawed and unstable, whereas the latter led to prosperity and peace.”

And with that, it won’t be a surprise if many non-Burmans are really sold on him on this point, if not on others.

So what is his basic political thinking? The author writes: “For him the key political question was not so much ‘How can we create the best possible political system?’ but ‘How can we act for the best now, at this moment, give these circumstances?’”

For Machiavelli, human affairs were, to a degree, a matter of Fortuna, “an unstable and fickle deity who turns states and kingdoms upside down as she pleases and deprives the just of the good that she freely gives to the unjust.” All the same, “I believe that even if it is true that fortune governs half our lives, she still allows us to take control of the other half.”

So how do we do it? By “Virtu” which “has little to do with the English term ‘virtue’, but roughly equals with ‘manliness’  and suggests the associated conventional qualities of men-courage, forcefulness, determination and so on.”

To a prince, Fortune is “the raw material that the ruler must mold to his will.”

The book is not hard to read. With graphics and pictures it only has 120 pages.

The challenge Machiavelli had laid down is simple: Whether rulers or ruler-aspirants should be idealists or pragmatists.

Or, as I ask myself, could they be idealists and pragmatists at the same time?

I have no time to answer, because just then the air hostess comes on the intercom telling all passengers to fasten our seatbelts because we have a reasonable chance of landing at Kunming Changshui airport safely.

A few minutes later, I’m in the Land of the Buddha Hills, also known as Western Hills.