{"id":361,"date":"2012-11-16T18:17:07","date_gmt":"2012-11-17T00:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=361"},"modified":"2012-11-16T18:17:07","modified_gmt":"2012-11-17T00:17:07","slug":"the-politics-of-deception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2012\/11\/16\/the-politics-of-deception\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Deception"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist.\u00a0 If all men were good, this precept would not be good; but because men are wretched creatures who would not keep their word to you, you need not keep your word to them.\u00a0 And no prince ever lacked good excuses to colour his bad faith.\u00a0 One could give\u00a0innumerable modern instances of this, showing how many pacts and promises have been made null and void by the bad faith of princes: those who have\u00a0known best how to colour one&#8217;s actions and to be a great liar and deceiver.\u00a0<em><strong>Men are so simple, and so much creatures of circumstances, that the deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived<\/strong><\/em>.&#8221; Niccolo Machiavelli, <em>The Prince<\/em>, trans. George Bull (London 1961), 55.\u00a0[Emphasis added]<\/p>\n<p>Niccolo Machiavelli, the (in)famous writer and political leader of Florence in the late 15th and early 16th century, applied his knowledge of domestic and foreign policy here.\u00a0 He advises wise\u00a0political leaders to be prepared to lie.\u00a0 It&#8217;s that simple.\u00a0 If you want to succeed as a politician you must be willing to deceive others.\u00a0 Why? If you keep your word it will make you\u00a0weak since others are lying to you.\u00a0 Therefore, a prudent leader will act as circumstances dictate and break his word when it will benefit him or his state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist.\u00a0 If all men were good, this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2012\/11\/16\/the-politics-of-deception\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,29,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deception","category-government","category-machiavelli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}