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Summary Of Politics In Shun Tzu's The Prince By Machiavelli

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When we look at ancient times (back way to Greek philosophe Aristotle), politics was considered as a so called branch of ethics. Ethics is characterized by the moral behavior of people. We can define politics as “morality” of people when they are organized in social groups. Machiavelli however, was the precursor of a view that politics should be separated from the morality and treated as a separate “special” branch.
If we look at Machiavelli’s “The prince” it sorts of reminds me Shun Tzu’s “Art of war”. It has similar way of guiding and educating the reader, how war (or in this case politics and ruling of lands) should be done. While reading “The Prince” we can see that the author was not especially interested in ethics and morality. He …show more content…

We may not like what we read and are faced with, but in a long run (and probably deep down inside) that pure soul of power (even the democratic power) is the use of violence to protect it. That is why we have so many wars that were fought in the name of “preserving our values and way of life”. That’s is not very ethical and not very “Christian like”, but it happens all the time and even though some groups protest, it is still being done for the greater good.
Of course, pure violence is never justified, and violence for the sake of violence is bad (and Machiavelli is very clear about that).
One of the best examples of such a behavior is portrayed in my favorite TV series “Scandal”. Our main characters are the ones “in power”. President, his ( and hers ) advisors and famous Chief of undercover Section B613 are the ones who have to face the reality of every day politics and touch (and most of the times very questionable form ethics points of view decision). We can have a sneak peak ‘behind the curtain look” of how its done. Assassinations and manipulation are almost “daily bread” there. Very often we hate the decisions they make, but in the “big picture” it was for the good and sake of “the republic”.
I think that politics should be separated from this “lovey dovey, lets all love each other ethics”, but it should not be separated to far. Its goal should be to work for the greater good of people, and some decisions

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