Dariana Mota
Mrs. Viscosi
AP English Language
5 September 2017
Has Political Correctness Gone Too Far? The feeling of discrimination and subordination, the idea of judged by race and by who you are, the fear of being eliminated. Why? Why do many of these thoughts still exist today? Has political correctness gone mad? Well, the answer is yes. Many of us, no matter who we are or where we are, still experience the feeling of discrimination and being lost, the idea of being judged by race and who you are, and the fear of elimination, whether it be in real life scenario or maybe even a friend group at school. The point here is that these awful parts of life still exist today and are sadly continuing to progress. In The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli,
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The Prince, set in Italy, is best known for its notorious work. Machiavelli intended to make many changes with this book as he reflected his own political experience, purging politics of the moralizing and fanciful kind. He did believe a prince should be exhorted to be generous and honest but only when he can. This is when political correctness comes in because he also believed that a prince should be adaptable and, “know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.” By this he meant that a prince must be bold, resolute, prepared to break promises, act against charity, truth, religion, and humanity, and be devious, ruthless, and cruel when necessary. Part of his mentality also included the idea that if a prince is successful in conquest and more, he will be honored and praised regardless of the wrongness since actions are judged by their success in politics. “If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not to be feared.” From this time and forward, political correctness started forming more and more until in it was eventually officially
Student affairs is charged with finding the resources needed to better services, programs, student learning experience, and the teaching of technology to students (Jones, et all, 2011, p.539). In 1890 LeBarron Russell Brigs was appointed dean of men, the first dean appointed. Briggs’s duties as the first dean of men was dealing with student issues. As colleges developed into more than just a place for students to learn the dean of men’s role had changed, the role became focused on helping students to become more rounded in not only education but, help them to become better citizens, and to teach students to have a better social and moral foundation. There are several major roles of student affairs, helping in retention of students, learning
Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince give the world an insight on his thought about those who rule, virtue, military power, and human nature. He elaborates on his ideal prince who must take power, but also maintain power. The Prince is extremely relevant in modern society and often looked upon as the beginning of modern political thinking. Machiavelli gives this prince an outline of the tools needed to maintain power and reinforces these ideas by giving examples of other leader’s successes and failures. Machiavelli believes that the prince must complete understand the balance between war and government. Understanding this balance and being fluent in both politics and war is crucial for maintaining power. Politicians today still use some of the tactics given by
When you read the short excerpts from Machiavelli's The Prince from our text I hope that he made you feel angry and defensive. Reading Machiavelli makes me bristle; I want to argue with him. His formulas for political success contradict my most basic religious beliefs, those I have held from childhood, and help me to see why Mennonites have traditionally been so suspicious of politics. And yet I know that his pragmatic approach is the very basis of modern political theory. Because we have, as citizens of the twentieth century, to a large extent followed his advice, I am put on the defensive. I am astonished to see how
In the text The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli works to create a political system that recognizes failures in human nature and attempts to manipulate them in creating stability. Machiavelli proposes a concept of the Prince and the
Trying not to overstep the boundaries of the citizens to get kicked out of power or not doing enough that they replace you. With the power gained from leading it is expected that other princes will try to take power away so the only way to prevent this from happening is to make alliances and maintaining a strong military. Later on, in the novel Machiavelli goes on to focus on what qualities a prince should have and how virtu plays a role in making a proper prince. Although a short novel, it is Machiavelli’s most widely known work and is responsible for creating a negative view on rulers/politicians and also making it seem like anything you do, even immoral, is justifiable if the end goal is worth it. Machiavelli writes “He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation” showing that the use of immoral means is justifiable when the end goal is survival and glory. This book follows the ideals of Italian humanism from the author being from Florence, the heart of the renaissance, dedicating the novel to Lorenzo de’ Medici, an example of a man who invested a lot in helping people learn about philosophy and such subjects to become better humanists.
In The Prince, Machiavelli explains what a good and successful prince should be like. He advocates a strong, cutthroat authority figure and encourages the winning of power by any means necessary. The main theme in The Prince is that mob rule is dangerous, for people know only what is good for themselves and not what is good for the whole. The common people, in Machiavelli’s view, “are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit; while you treat them well, they are yours”. He believes that these commoners should be
The Prince is essentially a guide book on how to acquire and maintain political power. We can think of it as a collection of rules and methods to achieve a level of superior authority. Its main focus is that the ends—no matter how immoral—justify the means for preserving political authority. While some may agree with this mindset of thinking many today dismiss Machiavelli as a cynic. The book shows rulers how it is that they should act to survive in the real world to maintain authority. While Niccolo Machiavelli’s ideas can be radical, they helped to spark a revolution in political philosophy. Although his ideas might have not been completely original, they were very different and unheard of at the time, The Prince, was published. Machiavelli uses many methods to convey his messages including biblical comparisons and of course metaphors. This character can be viewed in several manners. He is almighty and powerful, stopping at nothing to achieve his goals or have his ways. While this quality does qualify him to be a might leader it also raises the question of immorality. How far will one go to maintain order? Would you stop at nothing to achieve this task? Machiavelli shows this by saying, “it is
In The Prince, originally written in 1513 and later published in 1532, Florentine administrator and diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli argues that a ruler must take appropriate action based upon pragmatism and independence in order to seize and hold power. Based on the circumstances, a ruler must be able to select between contrasting influences: liberality and parsimony, virtue and immorality, prudence and recklessness. The book was very controversial when first published because it contended the Christian ideals that rulers should always be good and just, but the novel is highly acclaimed today. Machiavelli not only proposes a series of revolutionary political ideas in The Prince but also offers a persuasive and masterful defense of them.
It was under these circumstances that he not only witnessed, but also experienced that inspired his writing. The Prince contains many rules, themes, and historical anecdotes one must be aware of to be the Machiavellian prince one of the most important being the idea of relationship between the few vs. many, the oppressor vs. the oppressed, the Greats vs the People, and other relationships within a society. In chapter IX, Machiavelli argues that oppression as a means for gaining power is the many desire of the power-hungry individual. While no one wishes to be oppressed, man is simply incapable of doing unto others as one would want unto himself. In other words, men will always put down those who are weaker and oppress the less powerful. Machiavelli then attempts to deconstruct the conflict posing two key questions to be answered: Why are those who are already in a position of power, the Greats, so inclined to pick on the little guy? And furthermore, if this cannot be rectified, how does a society to the best of its ability protect the disenfranchised People from the Greats?
The book The Prince brought a different outlook on political stands but one of the most important one is one about how it is better to be feared. In The Prince Machiavelli would go on to write,” It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both”. This quote can be looked at different ways but he point comes off as be a strong ruler and show no compassion. Machiavelli would go on and even give an example of Cesare Borgia. Borgia was the man who restores Romagna by being
"Machiavelli identifies the interests of the prince with the interests of the state." He felt that it was human nature to be selfish, opportunistic, cynical, dishonest, and gullible, which in essence, can be true. The state of nature was one of conflict; but conflict, Machiavelli reasoned, could be beneficial under the organization of a ruler. Machiavelli did not see all men as equal. He felt that some men were better suited to rule than others. I believe that this is true in almost any government. However, man in general, was corrupt -- always in search of more power. He felt that because of this corruptness, an absolute monarch was necessary to insure stability. Machiavelli outlined what characteristics this absolute ruler should have in The Prince. One example of this can be seen in his writings concerning morality. He saw the Judeo-Christian values as faulty in the state's success. "Such visionary expectations, he held, bring the state to ruin, for we do not live in the world of the "ought," the fanciful utopia, but in the world of "is". The prince's role was not to promote virtue, but to insure security. He reasoned that the Judeo-Christian values would make a ruler week if he actually possessed them, but that they could be useful in dealing with the citizens if the prince seemed to have these qualities. Another example of Machiavelli's ideal characteristics of a prince
At the turn of the 16th century, the Italian Peninsula was marred in brutal conflicts. Nations across Europe, such as France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire constantly raged wars to keep each other out of the numerous territories around Italy. During this tumultuous time period, a man named Niccolo Machiavelli studied in Florence and witnessed firsthand the issues that rulers often faced while attempting to conquer these Italian cities. His experiences prompted him to write a literary work on his opinion of the ruling class, and his philosophy on how rulers should rule over their subjects. However, his novel The Prince, is an interesting outlier of the time, as parts of it contradict the popular social view of Humanism, which focused on the
In The Morals of the Prince Machiavelli expresses his presumption on how a prince should act. He expresses that a prince should be feared, merciful, stingy, etc. He is right because if a prince is loved and too generous then people will take advantage of him and that will lead to his down fall. A prince must act appropriately to remain in power. Machiavelli gives his best ideas to keep a prince in power.
Machiavelli goes on in Chapters Fifteen through Twenty Three to discuss his advice to the reader in the ideal behavior and characteristics of a prince. He mentions that doing good would only lead to the ruin of a prince’s kingdom. He claims that a prince should be stingy and cruel as opposed to generous and merciful. He then, of course, adds in examples of successful rulers who were both moral and immoral alike. A prince should break promises more than he keeps them, according to the author. He also suggests that, while behaving in the aforementioned ways, a prince should do his best to avoid being despised by leaving his subjects’ land and women alone and by undertaking great projects to boost his reputation. As suggested at the beginning of Chapter Nineteen, a prince should not be “fickle, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, [or] irresolute,” (70). ¬¬¬He should also choose wise, as opposed to flattering, advisors.
When reading Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, one can’t help but grasp Machiavelli’s argument that morality and politics can not exist in the same forum. However, when examining Machiavelli’s various concepts in depth, one can conclude that perhaps his suggested violence and evil is fueled by a moral end of sorts. First and foremost, one must have the understanding that this book is aimed solely at the Prince or Emperor with the express purpose of aiding him in maintaining power. Therefore, it is essential to grasp his concepts of fortune and virtue. These two contrary concepts reflect the manner in which a Prince should govern while minimizing all chance and uncertainty. This kind of governing demands violence to be taken, however this