Running Head: Being Bad to Remain Strong 1

Being Bad to Remain Strong

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Running Head: Being Bad to Remain Strong 2

Being Bad to Remain Strong

Essentially, Chapter XV of the Prince explores Machiavellis perception of how the

world is, a viewpoint that was increasingly singular to that of his advisors. Largely, a

preponderance of his advisors was oblivious to how the world functions, resorting to imagining

it, in lieu of living it. Deriving power from the will of the governed is a common phenomenon

that typifies most secular democracies. In this chapter, Machiavelli advances the unassuming

notion that it is better to be merciful than cruel. He then goes on to suggest that compassion

ought to be handled with a lot of restraint. However, Machiavellis discourse increasingly

complicates the notion of being good. In this treatise, Machiavelli posits that being good is

secondary to being powerful, asserting that, being good makes leaders seem weak to the people

below them, thus making them vulnerable to being overthrown or not obeyed (Machiavelli 61).

By so doing, Machiavelli summons utilitarian reason to contend that being good begets more

harm than good. Take, for instance, a leader that metes out excessive clemency. Such a leader

may be unknowingly inviting a spat of uprisings, or civil war at worst (61). This incidence,

therefore, gives credence to Machiavellis assertion that being excessively good leads to ruin.

Good leadership, from his perspective, comprises a perfect balance between good and cruelty,

with a leader acting in accordance with the context.

The past is meant to be a lesson to people today so that they do not follow in the steps of

those who went ahead of them and suffer great consequences. One of the major qualities that is

considered to belong to good princes and leaders is being generous (Machiavelli 61). Generosity

draws the hearts of people to a leader and the masses tend to treat such kind of leaders with

respect and honor. The providing quality of such leaders gives them the profile of great father

figures of the nation with people placing a lot of trust in them. Just like power this great love
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from the subjects soon gets into the heads of the leaders and becomes a great obsession to them.

However, people cannot always love someone for long without demanding something in return.

As such, these leaders tend to give their people many promises just to remain relevant to the

politics of the day in that nation. As times goes by people will constantly remind these leaders of

their promises to them until a point comes when these leaders have to fulfill some of the

promises even at the expense of the welfare of the economy. This may lead to the inadequacy of

funds to fund essential sectors of the economy such as healthcare and education thus plunging

the country into economic turmoil. Economic sabotage is one of the worst points a country can

find itself in since there is general lack of commodities and an increase in the costs of goods that

is accompanied by a decrease in employment level. The citizens soon lose trust in the

government and their leaders and begin demonstrations and movements to remove the leader of

the day. This identifies the effects of trying to play good as a leader by being generous to the

people.

Honest on the other hand increases peoples trust in the government and the head of state

at the time. The people get attracted to truthful leaders since they always seem to carry the

interests of people at heart (Machiavelli 62). However, such honest carries with it a huge cost for

the leaders involved. These leaders are subject to telling their citizens the whole truth about any

of their concerns. Such a situation can cause panic among people especially even when there is a

small issue on the security of the nation that can be solved within the disciplined forces without

causing fear among the people. This norm of the citizens of a nation having too much access to

important information endangers the sovereignty. This is because terrorists and other enemy

nation have easy access to the countrys secret details even on sensitive matters like security and

are thus able to blackmail the country into conceding to their demands. It also gives greater room
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speculation among a countrys population giving fertile ground for propaganda especially from

opposition groups. The government is forced to waste time proving its legitimacy and

disapproving the lies spread by the opposition groups about it and its operations. Such

propaganda thus limits the level of development in a country since most of the time and

resources are wasted during these arguments and counter-arguments. This means that the

government has little time to fulfill its promises to the people thus earning itself a bad image

among the people and even in the history of the nation. These disadvantages of honesty as a

quality in a leader proves that only limited sensitive information should get into the public

domain.

Those with experience in leadership and have been successful in their leadership such as

Alexander the Great and Napoleon were all known for their meanness. This raises the question as

to whether meanness should be encouraged among leaders (Machiavelli 61). Being mean is

simply the habit of people to spend resources sparingly even when they have huge amounts of

resources. This mean character among the leaders of a country can have its benefits and demerits

to the people of that nation. First, mean leaders are mostly destined to steal and hide resources

from the public coffers due to their selfish nature. However, on the other side, these leaders

prove to be very good economists by the fact that they can sanction the number of public funds

being allocated to various sectors of the government to avoid money wastage. Such leaders are

also very likely to start very profitable development projects for the country in an attempt to put

public funds to the best use possible. Such kind of leaders would, therefore, have a good impact

on the economy of the country boosting it and providing more job opportunities for their people.

It is also a fact that due to their mean nature these leaders will make sure that their country

benefits the most from all the economic deals that they sign. This means that the products of their
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country may reach a wider and global market since the deals are made to the advantage of the

country and its trade commodities. Such countrys industries are also likely to expand in such

situations thus increasing the countrys revenues and employment level. This shows that mean

leaders can indeed positively impact the nation by expanding the economy of the country.

Fierceness is considered a trait of hostility among people and is disliked especially when

those who are fierce are in authority over people or are related to people. However, fierceness in

leaders can happen to be a profitable course to the reign of that leader (Machiavelli 61).

Fierceness instills fear among the subjects of a leader thus reducing the chances of them being

treacherous to them. This means that such leaders enjoy an atmosphere of political calmness and

are thus able to focus on implementing their manifestos for their country. However, it is also true

that too much fierceness directed to those around the leader can lead to rebellion from those

close to that leader. As such it is important that leaders try to balance fierceness and attention to

the opinions of those around him or those who advise them. Fierce leaders are better off since it

is hard for them to get manipulated by their advisers who fear to stress their opinions on them.

This means that they only take and implement the best ideas in their work plans thus assuring the

country economic and social excellence. As such they may be hated by their subjects during their

reigns but are later appreciated when people realize the huge development they had done in their

reigns. There is also the issue of protecting public funds from theft by government officials.

Fierce leaders can ensure that corrupt politicians are prosecuted due to their huge influence in the

government and that the stolen funds are returned. These leaders also protect the interests of their

people in international forums to ensure that the country is not oppressed during the signing of

agreements with other countries. Submissive and kind leaders are subject to manipulation by

their henchmen and can thus make huge mistakes in dealing with the country.
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The manner in which leaders should lead remains as their personal decision. However, it

is clear that having certain negative character traits suit a leader well than having admirable

traits. Some good traits such as honesty and generosity in a leader may not work to their benefit.

Generosity makes leaders vulnerable to exploitation by their citizens while honesty makes

leaders controversial and may put the country at risk of insecurity. Negative traits like fierceness

and meanness in leaders surprisingly have good results to the reputation of the leaders

(Machiavelli 61). Fierceness gives ample space for leadership since those around the prince or

leaders are afraid of manipulating the national decisions. Meanness on the other side ensures that

public funds are not wasted or stolen by government officials. However, not all negative

character traits are advisable. Some like rapine, cruelty, and rapaciousness are evil and work to

the oppression of the nation. Rapine and rapaciousness involve greediness for public funds and

properties like land and government assets. This means that leaders with these qualities are

bound to steal from the countrys public coffers thus rendering the country poorer. Such leaders

are also likely to lead to economic crises in their countries since money meant for recurrent

expenditures like fuel importation is stolen away. Cruelty on the other side leads to the

dehumanization of a countrys citizens since their leaders do not mind killing them to fulfill their

desires. These belittle the true meaning of leadership where leaders are installed to protect the

citizens as well as their rights in this life.

It is, therefore, a moral responsibility of any leader or prince to ensure that they deal with

their subjects with a humane heart even when displaying negative characters. This means that the

leaders should not oppress those below them by; stealing public funds, killing their opposition

members or being dictatorial. The negative characters should only help leaders in ruling justly
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but not in carrying out heinous activities. It is also advisable that the leaders display some level

of positive human character traits to ensure they are in touch with the livelihoods of their people.
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References

Machiavelli, Niccolo, (n.d). Chapter XV: Those Things for Which men and Especially Princes

Are Praised or Blamed. In The Prince, Mansfield, Harvey C. (Trans.).