The inspiration for this post is drawn from 666's blog which had a small snippet on Lucrezia Borgia whose family was famed for their Machiavellian politics during the Renaissance papacy. She was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI which has me a little confused since I always thought celibacy was an important criteria for occuping the highest post of the Vatican. Her marriages were arranged to men of importance and duly terminated in a vicious manner once they ceased to be of any use to the Pope.
Coming back to the term which means someone characterized by subtle or unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency, or dishonesty. Machiavellianism is primarily the term some social and personality psychologists use to describe a person's tendency to deceive and manipulate others for personal gain.
The concept is named after Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe (The Prince), in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.
Sources : http://en.wikipedia.org, http://sixsixsixx.blogspot.com/
7 comments:
Hmm, its amazing how different words and phrases come into being. With you three on team Semantica, this blog has become my favorite!
Its a bit too long a word though.. my tongue performs weird contortions to get the phonetics right :-)
jas: we really appreciate that :):)
666: its fun trying :)
i came across the book "The Prince" sometime back while casually browsing thro' the school library....felt like picking up the book, its pretty thin a book really and that makes it more tempting of course...but i have maxed out my lib. borrowing limit right now.......and this one will have to wait a li'l longer, unless of course i decide to read it online......which i generally am averse to...
The link to read it online, chapter by chapter, if anyone cares is :
http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/64/
111/frameset.html
Am glad u got the label right....referring to "eponyms"..:)
does this whole concept remind anyone of Chanakya ???? or is it just moi???? 666, Su ...does it ???
@moi: it atleast made me read up a lil on Chanakya:-). cant comment on the similarity between Machiavelli and Chanakya, dunno either that well
moi: the prince was based on cesare borgio the brother of lucrezia and the son of pope alexander, so u can call him the original machiavelli. he was very ruthless and carried out his violent acts on the basis of sheer will and total disregard for his religion. I guess chanakya was a milder version of him and he was known as 'the Indian machiavelli' wasn't he :)
was he ??? dont know that bit....Chanakya came to mind out of blue......i havent read anything on him at all..remember him briefly from the DD serial...that's abt it :)
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