Machiavelli and the World

Power trumps all. Today I am not going to tell you for the upteenth time that Machiavelli believed that the ends justified the means. We know that he professed that in politics, if one can't have both, Machiavelli professed that it is better to be feared then loved.

Rather than rehash all of Machiavellian thought in this post, I thought perhaps we could focus on just how much Machiavelli's political theory still seems to resonate in the modern world [and in far more eclectic ways than the evil 'Machiavellian' mentioned in the textbook].  Consider:

This post that culls business / management lessons from the pages of The Prince.  The author makes an apt connection between individual success in the business world and Machiavelli's political advice from the Renaissance era.

Here a British journalist compares Vladmir Putin and his plans for Syria to our Florentine thinker.

Machiavelli has found his way into the comics:

http://lifeexaminations.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/calvin_and_hobbes_ethics.jpg

This philosophy professor sees a link between Machiavelli and Tupac here.

And of course, Michael Scott shared his take on Machiavelli here:

So perhaps it is given that we need to pull the question of morality away from Machiavelli's advice. Yet questions do remain.  Does his advice easily dovetail with all of the other self-centered aspects of the Italian Renaissance?