Me, A Machiavellian?

Machiavelli is a pragmatic and empirical thinker, an emerging philosopher of the Renaissance.  The Renaissance, a period characterized by the intellectual vitality and rebirth, must have influenced Machiavelli on his ideas, and the emergence of modern scientific period must have also induced him to abandon medieval ideas that concerns governing man in moral terms.  Hobbes, on the other hand, was influenced by Machiavelli, but he exemplified on the idea of social contract, an agreement and necessity for sovereign for his own vision of state called the Leviathan.  Hobbes, as compared to Machiavelli, is more inclined to the scientific and mechanical way of ruling, while the latter is more politically persistent.

Given a choice on which type of government would I want to live in, I would choose Machiavelli’s idea of government.

I find Machiavelli very impressive on his ideas about his type of a ruler, fully detailed in his famous work, The Prince. Because he is a realist and a humanist, he differs so much with other classical and medieval thinkers who dwell on their own idealistic type of ruler: humble, morally good, intelligent, sympathetic, virtuous, etc.  The fact that these kinds of descriptions are not really possible and realistic for a good ruler is exemplified by Machiavelli, and it is only fit that we should be disillusioned with these kinds of ideas.   The kind of ruler that Machiavelli envisioned is the kind of ruler that impresses me: ambitious and crafty.  In The Prince, he laid out the almost seamless and concise descriptions of a ruler:  the combination of a fox and a lion, the fusion of craftiness and military genius, wary and devious to defend power, the one who would know the character of a beast to control what needs to be controlled.  To be a leader, you have to assert a certain kind of power as a dominant tool, or else the state you’d be handling would be vulnerable and weak to political uprisings and essentially won’t work.

Although Machiavelli is undeniably refutable on his ideas especially with regards to issues of morality, (the idea that he prefers to use violence to a certain extent to extend the power of a ruler) nevertheless you cannot deny that he is also a practical philosopher to make us aware that we should not believe in the goodness of all people, and thus be doubtful on the motives of the people around you.  Truly a realist, this can be applied basically in all regions of politics.

According the Machiavellian principles, the ruler must be entitled to do whatever he wants provided that it is for the satisfaction of the community.  Power should be separated from morality, ethics and religion, and power is more prioritized. We thought that to do acts that are permissive as prescribed by Machiavelli can be considered as ‘ethically and morally’ heinous crimes, but this kind of consciousness is only deeply felt because the medieval thought of the dominance of religion still has its after-effects on people.  I agreed with Machiavelli that even religion is a mere instrument of political domination and exercise of power, whether or not Man is aware of this.  After all, Machiavelli stressed that the interest of the prince was to be identified with that of the community, and the “the thing to be left out of a consideration of politics was morality.” (Bronowski and Mazlish, 1975)

There is nothing wrong of Machiavelli’s idea of virtu – men and power in the sense of masculine force, as long as we’d use the political power and use it well, as long as we don’t engender hate and just induced respected fear.  Machiavelli, for me, does not really advocate absolute power for he believes it would incur hatred.  Machiavellian’s prince is not immoral, for me he is just pragmatic.

The problem in the government that Machiavelli envisioned are those people who think that a man can get by sitting calmly and be ignorant of other people’s capabilities to be wicked.  The conflict will arise only if we study and hope for the ideal and neglect the real.

The Strength of Minor Characters: The Function of Chorus in the Play Agamemnon

The character of ‘the Chorus’ in the play Agamemnon play a very huge role.  The Chorus in the context of the play is a group of elder citizens of Argos who play significant multifaceted roles like advisors, commentators, narrators, etc.

The chorus give us the context and the necessary information as seen in the earlier parts of the play – the background story of the Trojan War, the abduction of Helen and the ten years of war between Greece and Troy (“Ten years the great contestants of Priam’s right / Menelaus and Agamemnon, my lord / … / put forth from this shore / the strength and the armies.”) It also give us either detailed or lengthy descriptions of the important events that didn’t happen within the context of the play, like how Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia in vivid details (“Her supplications and her cries of father / were nothing, nor child’s lamentation / to kings passioned for battle.”) how Menelaus and other Greeks were lost in the sea (“Ship against ship the Thracian storm shattered us / and gored and split, our vessels, swept in violence / of storm and whirlwind, beaten by the breaking rain…”) as well as the lengthy descriptions of the destructive and powerful presence of the beautiful Helen of Troy “so fatally in every way” or “the bride of spears and blood”.  The chorus act like omniscient characters who know everything that is significant for the audience to know and the job is to convey it to the spectators.  Definitely the chorus work like a narrator, but only differs in the fact that they don’t have limited appearances or they don’t serve as mere introductions to jumpstart the actions or the movements of the play.

Another significant role that the chorus play is the fact that they are capable of giving us commentaries about a certain event or a character.  The chorus can also ask the main characters what are their motivations for their actions.  They judge the behaviors of the characters geared in an objective point of view, but nevertheless supplying us with its own biased opinions sometimes.  The chorus tells us first of Clytemnestra (“But you lady / … / What is there to be done? What new thing have you heard? / what report do you order such sacrifice?”) as the chorus demand to know why the queen has ordered sacrifices to all the gods and celebrations throughout the city for the coming of his husband Agamemnon when in fact he sacrificed their own daughter.  Such inquiry to the main character gives the Chorus the respected dominant stance in the play.  Even the chorus have already biased the audience about the title character Agamemnon who only appeared briefly on the play by their own descriptions about him: his tragic flaw in the form of excessive pride ‘hubris’ (“the sinful Daring”) and the lengthy and gruesome information about Iphigenia’s sacrifice.  The chorus are capable of analyzing characters through words as seen in the eyes of others, and this is probably the earliest extant technique of limited or peripheral point of view that is common in some stories or other forms of narratives.

Other functions of the chorus – they give us the sense of foreboding especially when the chorus converse with another character Cassandra and the sense of premonition when the chorus say that Orestes will return from exile to avenge his father’s death.  The chorus are capable of debate, and the chorus can deliberate among themselves what is the best thing to do, as seen in the scene when Aegisthus and Clytemnestra finally triumph to kill Agamemnon.

I feel that in this play the chorus is seen initially as minor character but when I read the text it feels like they play an important role as much as Clytemnestra or Agamemnon did.  The chorus embodies a whole, a oneness in character of the elders of Argos, and stand as a very powerful character for they act like an all-knowing people.  They can debate, discuss, comment, advise, and converse among other characters and most of all, they are the carrier of the narrative string of the play.

The Importance of Burial in Antigone

The concept of ‘body’ in Greek culture is very holy that the Greeks deemed the physical body as something to be taken care of.  More so of the concept of burial, where it is a belief that without proper ritual or burial or any form of memorial service the body of the deceased will doom to wander in the River Styx in Hades.  The Greek culture puts a higher premium that the deceased should merit solicitous attention from the relatives.

This custom is very much exemplified in Sophocles’Antigone. The main character Antigone buried his brother Polynices “with a little dirt” despite her sister Ismene’s warning not to defy Creon’s orders.  Usually women in Greek culture are expected to mourn over a dead relative but because Creon forbids the burial of Polynices, Antigone must have felt like she was robbed of her duty to pay her last respects for her brother.  And so, the very courageous act of burying her brother Polynices “with a little dirt” jumpstart the first movement of the play.

Antigone’s decision to defy Creon’s orders does not mean that she wanted to be a martyr, or act heroic in any matter, but I think her decision to bury her brother is motivated because of filial love for her brother, the sincere outpouring of her loss.  This act also exemplifies the culture of honoring the deceased, a typical Greek custom.