Notes for modern day Princes #1: Il Principe

[Cain]

I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.
- Niccolo Machiavelli

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.
- Niccolo Machiavelli


I'll admit it: I screwed up.  I knew this was coming, and I didn't make the necessary preparations.  The Greeks have a word for actions like mine: hubris.  I was farsighted enough to see the coming risk, and I thought knowing would be enough to outlast the worst of the effects.  And I would have been right.  If the system had just held a year or two more without a major hiccup...then my plan would have gone off without a hitch.  I can live very frugally when needed (a skill I have used excessively in the last six months), 9 months to a year in a factory or retail hell would be....bearable, and I would have had enough to flee the country.

And that freedom would have given me options.  More options than I do now, anyway.  I still have enough money to leave, though just barely.  It would have to pay off, if I did get out.  Because if it didn't...well, we all know what happens to people in unfamiliar lands with no money.

But I didn't.  I made a mistake.  The credit crunch came, and the banking system went down like a stack of cards, just like I predicted.  Only when the cards fell, I was among those caught in the mess.  That hadn't been my plan.

And for a while I kept my optimism.  It doesn't help, not really, but it puts you in the right, cheery and somewhat inane state of mind necessary for job interviews.  And I kept missing out, coming so close to the positions I wanted, but always being beaten by someone with more qualifications or more legitimate experience for the position.  As for the lower paid jobs I had expected to do...don't even go there.  By October, I had fully reached the end of my tether.  And despondency and a level of depression set in.  Not because I'm the sort of person who desperately needs to have a job to validate his existence, but because I'm the sort of person who has plans and an agenda, and one that involved not being stuck in a country town in the second most backward part of the country.

As usual, when things do not go your way, and the world is uncertain, I turned to a certainty.  Something small, almost silly really, but something I knew by heart and was in many senses a rock in times of need.  I picked up a copy of The Prince and began to read.  I didn't even really need the book.  I can recite the words from memory, in most cases.  And, by luck I guess, I came across other books about Machiavelli on the internet at the same time.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Italian philosopher of power, and his life, there is a significant parallel you should be aware of. 

Machiavelli was, for a while, one of the highest ranking functionaries of the nascent Florentine republic.  He served as their diplomat to the great powers, and saw how pathetic his home city truly was when compared to states like France or the Holy Roman Empire.  He also studied the conduct of dangerous men, such as Cesare Borgia, up close.  He oversaw Florence's military preparations, trying to wean them from their dependency on the unreliable mercenary companies who really controlled Italian politics.  And his work was all for nothing when the Medici, traditional rulers of Florence, were restored to power, imprisoned previous members of the republican council, and tortured Machiavelli before expelling him entirely from public life.

Obviously, a pretty dramatic, and terrible situation.  Machiavelli, who had laboured so long for the republic, was thrust out into the cold, left to country home to brood, read and get drunk.  And that he did.  But he used his time wisely.  Drawing upon his extensive literary and historical knowledge, he created a prodigious output of works, including several plays and treatises on government.  He in fact intended for his most famous work, The Prince, to win him back into the good graces of the Medici family, even while he consorted with conspirators who would orchestrate assassination attempts and rebellions aimed at subverted their rule.

My situation is, of course, nowhere near as bad.  I wasn't targeted for lack of employment.  It was a large macro-economic trend I had no control over.  But it had something of a similar effect.  I was, for a while, the consummate insider.  Especially when I studied.  I knew people, and I knew groups.  And I knew how to manipulate them, to get the results I wanted.  I knew how to play the game and I could play it well.

But now, I'm outside in the cold.  The problem is, I have been applying insider logic to the game I am currently playing, not realizing it no longer applies.  I'm so used to being able to get my foot inside the door, I have always taken it for granted, used it as a starting point.  That is not the case anymore.  I can no longer rely on that.  Down here...well, this place is a shithole.  Not a quarter of the interest or fun I had while studying in a town of comparable size, if not smaller.  Most of my friends have gone, and with good reason.  This place has little to offer. I certainly wouldn't have stayed here, unless I had no other choices, which is clearly the case as things now stand.  I cannot play things the way I used to any more.  It is clearly not working.

The Prince is, in many ways, a special book.  For starters, it is not just a book on politics.  Its aims are very precise, its subject matter picked carefully, in order to make its points with as much accuracy as possible.  The Prince is not a manual of statecraft per se, it is a manual of statecraft for princes and principalities.  In other words, not republics.  Places where the rule of law and equality cannot be taken for granted.  Secondly, while he talks about hereditary principalities, those used to being ruled by a single family for generations, they are not very interesting, since a Prince need only be competent to have the loyalty of his people.  No, what interests Machiavelli is how a Prince who has won his domain through force of arms can maintain control.  The logic of a revolutionary, an outsider.  What better strategic thinking to employ for today's modern day, cut-throat market place, which embodies many of the values of Renaissance Italy's never-ending conflict and conspiracy.

I am an outsider now.  I have little resources, few favours I can call on and no "in's" into the system.  I can use a few hacks, temporarily gain access to places and people I cannot, but this can't be sustained.  So I have to change my style of play.  I have to force myself to think in this new mode, and establish myself in ways other than I am used to.

I have sat down, and considered my plans.  While I still have some laid out for conventional employment, mainly to please the idiotic bureaucrats sent to watch over me and dole out barely enough money to live on, I have other plans I intend to put in motion.  One is obvious.  Using my few remaining political connections and my intelligence, I am networking.  Using the blogs, some skill at writing and my native understanding of foreign policy, I am slowly but surely winning over people who may be willing to use such skills.  Nothing comes for free, after all, so no doubt mutually beneficial arrangements will work out.  Secondly, I'm working to establish a backlash against current events.  Verwirrung's relaunch is, in part, going to help with this.  There is going to be a big pool of angry, intelligent, talented and broke people out there, and I want their names, contact details and to be in their good books.  We could certainly stir things up.  And finally, this town deserves a better class of egotistic genius.  Its boring, its dull and it doesn't have the sort of scene I would enjoy.  Same for my friends who actually still remain here, mostly for reasons similar to mine.  Its time to change that.  And there is no point in moping around and hoping something cool will develop.  That offends my punk aesthetics.  If you want something and it doesn't yet exist: there is only one solution.  Create it.  Which means this town is going to have to get weird.  Very soon.

I've been a useless, moping, self-pitying idiot for the last 6 months.  But that's over.  Its been over for a while, but it officially ends today.  Cain, ladies and gentlemen, is back.  The real Cain.  The one who won't let a silly little international crisis or some such shit stand in the way of a good time.  The one who is always three steps ahead because he pays attention and has a better handle on reality than our supposed leaders, or the people it uses to carry out its commands.

And he will have his fun.  More later.

[Idem]

If you want something and it doesn't yet exist: there is only one solution.  Create it.  Which means this town is going to have to get weird.  Very soon.

[Jenne]

Good on ya!    I look forward to hearing about your exploits...just be sure to change the names to protect the innocent...

Very inspirational, and really, I hope you get what you want.

[Cainad (dec.)]

RAH!

[Requia ☣]

Good on ya!    I look forward to hearing about your exploits...just be sure to change the names to protect the innocent... guilty

Very inspirational, and really, I hope you get what you want.

Screw the innocent

[Pariah]

Good on ya!    I look forward to hearing about your exploits...just be sure to change the names to protect the innocent... guilty

Very inspirational, and really, I hope you get what you want.

Screw the innocent

Innocence?
I scoff at such an idea

[Reginald Ret]

shit, now i'll have to reread il principe with this view in mind.

[Jenne]

Good on ya!    I look forward to hearing about your exploits...just be sure to change the names to protect the innocent... guilty

Very inspirational, and really, I hope you get what you want.

Screw the innocent

I have.  I like the guilty better...more flava.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I've been a useless, moping, self-pitying idiot for the last 6 months.  But that's over.  Its been over for a while, but it officially ends today.  Cain, ladies and gentlemen, is back.  The real Cain.  The one who won't let a silly little international crisis or some such shit stand in the way of a good time.  The one who is always three steps ahead because he pays attention and has a better handle on reality than our supposed leaders, or the people it uses to carry out its commands.

And he will have his fun.  More later.

Welcome back, you Horrible Bastard.

[Cain]

I've been a useless, moping, self-pitying idiot for the last 6 months.  But that's over.  Its been over for a while, but it officially ends today.  Cain, ladies and gentlemen, is back.  The real Cain.  The one who won't let a silly little international crisis or some such shit stand in the way of a good time.  The one who is always three steps ahead because he pays attention and has a better handle on reality than our supposed leaders, or the people it uses to carry out its commands.

And he will have his fun.  More later.

Welcome back, you Horrible Bastard.

Thanks.  Now, to work.  More rants to come soon.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Right on, Cain!

I had a similar shift/epiphany yesterday, after I pounded an expensive piece of machinery into fragments with an axe.

I am now actively engaged in planning for the Apocalypse, and if it doesn't come, I will MAKE one.

[LMNO]

Great read, Cain.  I look to the future.