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Speaker 2: And do it there. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Peaking Yana Show.
Thomas is back and he is going to continue talking
about continental philosophy. Where are we going today, Thomas.
Speaker 2: I was gonna segue into a discussion in Machiavelli if
really for the last really, like says, the Eisenhower era,
I don't know what it's like now when I speculated
it's the same. But basically in the nineteen fifties, from
the post war era, when the university curriculum was was
was sort of re established and reconfigured. Until the nineteen nineties,
if you studied political theory or Western philosophy that had
an at like at undergraduate level for example, that had
a component of political theory, you'd the preculum would teach
them Hobbes, Spinozza, and Machiavelli basically as one subject matter.
Now Hobbs and Spinozza succeeded Machiavelli. Hobb is literally born
right about a generation subsequent. But the reason why that's done,
it's an oversimplification, but I get it the internal logic
of it. Machiavelli and Hobbes are are considered to be
the fathers of modern ployable science. And you know, like
I said, people like Meerscheimer are considered to be like
a complete midwind. I mean, he's preferable to the abject
morons and Cretans who generally populate the Academy and and
Department of State. But he's he's he's gotten a real
grasp of political philosophy. But people like him. They claim
that Machiavelli is the father of political realism, which doesn't
really make any sense. But what is true is that
Machiavilli was very much in dialogue with the Nicomachi and others,
and arguably in a punitive way. But that's the whole point,
is that Machiavilli was arguing as an Italian Catholic, and
like all Italians and really all Roman Catholics, there's this
there's this tension between Athens and Jerusalem's philosophical pole stars,
you know, uh, Christ and Pericles, if you will. That's
different than the enterprise that Hobbs took on. That's not
what Hobbs was doing. Hobbs literally thought that he was
creating a science of the political, you know, and he wasn't.
He wasn't trying to reconcile that which is wholly literally
with you know, that which is pragmatic and necessary according
to the demands of power, you know, and the discrete
domain of political activity. It's like a difference between It's
like trying to compare Ernst and no to say, like Clausewitz,
because Nolty was a guy who wrote about the epistemological
and phenomenological process of war and peace and where it emerges,
whereas that Clausus is writing about, like how war is
waged and how you accomplish victory conditions within the domain
of political realities. Or it's like comparing a book on
physics to like a manual on how you build a bridge,
you know. So I think it's misguided that these things
are lumped together at the same time. It does big
a question as to whether Hobbs and Spinot, said Red
Machiavelli in my opinion, for reasons every said the scope
right now. But I'll get into if people want me
to later. I think Spinoza probably did. I don't think
Hobbs did, because it wouldn't have interested in them, you know,
other than maybe it's like, oh, well, that's what these
that's what these latins are doing in this their little
warring states conflict that seems to never end, you know.
But there's also two there's also represented by Hobbes and
Machiavelli too. You know, when to the modern state emerged?
Was it Cromwell's Was it? Was it with Cromwell's protectorate,
you know, the republic he created literally after killing a king?
Or was Ferdinand and Isabella's Spain like the first Westphalian
state as we would think of it. That's an interesting
question and I don't have an answer to that. It
depends on what your criteria are, and it depends on
what consolation of historical factors and privilege. But that's that's
why it's important to the kind of discuss Mockavillian, Hobbes
and and also Spinoza. But so you know, not I
don't place the same emphasis on Spinoza, not that he's
not important. But I'll get into why when we reconvene
for the next episode and explicate my reason. But that's
why I'm treating them kind of as a singular subject episode,
as it were. And that's also why, like I think
I willed to the other week, you know, in a
series on coinn of philosophy, you know why am I
talking about English mathematicians turned political theory as well? Because
from that point forward, basically every man who wrote about
the politics was. You know, obviously in Dialogue we Aristotle,
but also with Cobbs. Okay, And you know, for clarity,
it's not so much a Macchiavelli wrote in The Prince
that's so important. It's what the impetus was for him
writing it, I think, is what's significant. And there's a
certain naivete, I think to a lot of academic types
as well as people you shouldn't know better, people who
are insinuated into parapolitical roles. You know, this idea that
in classical antiquity, you know, a prince or a king
or a warlord. He had, you know, he was exclusively
committed to these kinds of high falutin ideas of like
an elevated morality and discerning what you know, magnanimous virtue is.
And and he would recoil at the idea of you know,
a kind of cold hearted realism and how to apply
power like that's preposterous, it's ridiculous, you know. And Athens especially,
but all the Peloponnesian cultures within that milleu, they were
very aesthetically oriented. There was things you didn't talk about,
like appearances mattered, you know the fact that the fact
that generals and and and princes and nobles, they didn't
air out the kind of nasty aspects of war and
peace and the kind of dirty business of palace intrigues,
even among their peers. That doesn't mean anything other than
the fact that, you know, they were highly dignified people
who were kind of upset by the uglier aspect of life.
You know. I mean, I that's there's a literalism too, agady,
and particularly in social sciences, that's quite literally retarded. I
don't mean that like colloquially. I mean it's like a
stunted way of approaching the human condition, and especially in
when dealing with the matters that are impacted by discrete
cultural conventions. But the uh, the key distinction, you know,
like I said, Machiavelli's in direct dialogue with the Nicomachy
and ethics, or as you'll run across, especially a lot
of stuff from the first half of the twentieth century
that that refers to Aristotle's at as distinguished from the politics.
They're talking about the Nikamachian ethics. Okay, the subject matter
of the Nicomachi and Ethics was virtue and everything in
the Aristotilian paradigm. And this isn't unique to Aristotle. This
was this was what you know, the classical mind. There
there wasn't there's an integral quality to knowledge, you know. Uh,
it wasn't. It wasn't bifurcated by subject area, and there
wasn't an understanding of well discrete domains of human activity.
It called for, you know, any any equivalent discrete moral
convention that government action within these spheres. You know, it's Aristotle.
Virtue is is the kind of governing pole star of
any human activity. You know, it's also the tillos of
political life and action. And you know, it's critical to
define what virtue is and what can you understood to
be its zenith or its most complete manifestation, you know.
And one of the one of the big criticisms of
Socrates by his enemies and by Aristotilians, you know, axiomatically,
is it Sogriti spent events. Socrate spent a tremendous amount
of time you know, in his in his discursive dialogues,
attempting to define and like unpack and identify the the
constituent elements of what is virtue. And uh, in some
basic way, the entire Socratic enterprise was, you know, defining
what exactly virtue is and to and to hold forth
on the concept of it and to clarify it. And
there's a subtext that any truth, truly satisfactory resolution in
this regard will never be arrived at you know what
his high sophistry. And that's that's incredibly subversive within the
cultural paradigm I'm talking about. Like, in contrast, Aristotle very
much clarified these things in absolute terms, which had been
the sort of cultural core of Athens that had seen it.
That's despite the fact that you know, Aristotle was a
contemporary of Alexander, you know, like he taught him. Okay,
at the Athens was still enjoyed tremendous cultural cachet, but
there were a civilization profound decline by the time. But
that's often the case that kind of in the twilight
of or at least that you know, post zenith, a
cultural form will produce some of its strongest thinkers because
they have at least on matters of things like ethics
and aesthetical subjects, because they're far enough removed from the
zenith of of cultural production as it were, that you know,
they have a kind of detached perspective. We'll still being
very much insinuated into a culture that, although in precipitous decline,
is very much like a living form of life. The
Nica Mokian ethics, it's totally unambiguous in its definition of virtue.
Arisol defined what he called the crowning virtue as magnanimity.
Mananimity is the quality of being great in mind and heart,
which in turn makes possible the elevation of all other
like subjugated virtues. You know, it's a code of honor.
It's an intellectual orientation, and it's an aesthetical commitment. It's
it's kind of like, uh, it's kind of like bushido
with the added layer of you know, uh, a rigid
intellectual discipline overlaying it. That's an impart analogy. But I'm
trying to convey this in a way that people will
find intelligible. But it's also it is literally pagan. You know,
it does not call for men to be humble or
to embrace humility. Now, make the mistake. The magnanimous man
he's never self deprecating, he's never humble, but he's also
not arrogant because he has a correct understanding of his
own abilities. He never tries to inflate those abilities for
clout or to capture power he doesn't deserve. But he
never tries to diminish himself in the eyes of others.
To make people, you know, find no more approachable or
anything or abide is some sort of you know, egalitarian
convention exists, didn't exist in in classical antiquity as a concept.
Magnanimity men who possess it, they're gonna be singularly oriented
towards seeking greatness and great things. The way to understand
that is what we're considered to be like living historically, okay,
you know, it's a psychological orientation that adorns all other
virtues and trades a character. It's not so much a
discrete virtue into itself as it is, you know, a
way of being. And you know, a magnanimous man again,
he's not gonna forego, for example, he's not gonna forego
material wealth or an interest in women, or you know,
he's not gonna live with some kind of hair shirt
or live like John the Baptist or something. But he's
not gonna play some new value on these things, you know,
And aristotles are very clear, like men who try and
capture wealth because they want the trampings of magnanimity, they
don't possess it because a man so constituted doesn't care
about that kind of thing. You know. I'd say Pericles
is probably the best example from within the cultural milieu
from which Aristotle was speaking, you know. And it's uh. Again,
the Aristotilian model of human psychology and kind of human
essence is a highly integral So the understanding is that,
you know, there's not discreet geniuses in different fields. You know,
there's men who are oriented towards greatness. I have the
capability to achieve it, and they've got the psychological foresight,
and they're comfortable enough with their own mortality to pursue
these things in a complete capacity. You know, I'd think
of Napoleon, Muhammad, promwell, Adolf Hitler, Okay, but I don't
think like an ancient person. You know. If I would
transported back to conversation there was style, he would probably
say that a man like me is is far too
mired in the business of like high politics, you know,
at at the expense of other things, which is probably true.
But one of one of the objections I have the
people who trying to adopt the kind of pagan mindset,
Like I don't mean, I don't mean goofballs who you know,
take trips to Stonehenge and like a run around naked
on the solstice or something. I mean, I mean people
are geting to been a wat. They seem to think
you can take on some sort of mindset of class antiquity.
You can't do that. That's not other things work, you know,
and I you can kind of create an intellectual prestiche
of the way people thought within that cultural framework, but
you can't really immerself in it. It's not possible.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting about that is is that a
lot of the people who are doing that consider their
ops to be Zionists. And that's exactly what Zionists do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, and there it's it's like this make
believe identity of deracinated people who are like race idolators,
among other things. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. And
well it's also I mean we're getting a lot of topic,
but it's like what I don't understand, like why they
care about Zionism. It's like, well, if you if you
were jec logos and you want to pretend to be
some pagan, like why do you care about why do
you care about zionis? You know, like you shouldn't like
you you like your your view is that there's this
kind of binary and primitive tribalism that if dressed up
with adequate aesthetical and intellectual foundations is you know, represents truth.
So you know, you shouldn't care that you shouldn't care
that you know people who are ja logos and you know,
to think that they're above God, like you shouldn't care
about what they think, or you shouldn't care that they
oppress you for other people, you know. But yeah, no,
that's a subject worthy of the dedicated discussion. But the
there's a now, make no mistake, I mean there are
this isn't people misunderstand this Origilian paradigm and kind of
the same way they misunderstand in the Chian's post Christian
ethical orientation. Like Ariosolam makes the point again and again
and the nicomachia that's that you know, for example, look
about what what's morally upright in conventional terms? You know,
young young people should develop a sense of shame because
or in their immaturity, for example, like they can't help
making mistakes. So you know, like a like a very
young man, or the potential for to be magnanimous if
he if he went around declaring that he was never
wrong and he simply knew better. I mean, that did
make him a fool, you know, and that would preclude
the achievement of greatness in his moral life. Okay, but
this is distinguishable from you know, uh, a belief that
that which is holy must always supersede worldly ambitions and greatness.
You know, the the Leo Strauss and Joseph Crops the
book and political philosophy, and Leo Strauss is a problematic theorist,
but he did produce some great scholarship that the value
neutral sort. And you know, the first prophet that presage fear,
you know, arrival at Christ was Isaiah. I mean, if
you're like a Bible prade, that's the way you look
at it. Catholics might look at it differently. I honestly
don't know. I know something about Roman Catholic theology because
I had to take it at Leola as an undergrad,
but I I'm very much a layman in it. But
if you're a if you're a Bible Protestant. The view
is that, you know, there's a lineage from like Isaiah
to John the Baptist, you know, to Christ. And when
Isaiah received his location, like when God spoke to Isaiah
and you know, inform him he was to be a messenger,
you know, Whi's what a prophet is. You know, he
was overwhelmed by this idea of his unworthiness. You know,
he said, I I can't really exact quote, he said,
I'm a man of unclean thought and speech, indeed, okay,
and I live amidst of people who are equally unclean
and their thoughts. Indeed, I'm not worry to serve God.
You know, you must find a better man. You know,
this kind of like implicit condemnation of the idea that
you are destined for greatness. That's completely at odds with
the pagan idea and the classical I mean ideal of magnanimity,
you know, like if uh, and that's that concept of
the holy and that bifurcated understanding of the transcendent from
the world league. That's totally alien to the classical perspective,
you know, and that's why Leo Strauss, Russell Kirk Commercia Eliotti.
They're always talking about, you know, at Then's Contra Jerusalem,
and that's what they were talking about. Okay, and this, uh,
Machiavelli is shot through with this. You can go as
far as to say that that's the entire catalyst for
his discourse. Okay. You could even go as far as
to say, and Hobbs did, reading between the lines, it's
clear that he did, you know, a philosophy that's based
on faith or premised on a theological paradigm, even as
just a framing device as to what sets the tenor
of an absolute morality, which which must frame discussion of
political activity is they can't. That's not really properly a philosophy.
You know. Philosophy is an integrated science. Okay, and obviously
in the early modern period there wasn't this integral view
of knowledge. But it's not an accident. I mean, Hobbs
literally said he's establishing a geometry, a science of the
political that has nothing to do with faith based ethics,
you know, anymore than there's a moral content to studying physics.
You know. So Machiavelli kind of agonizing over this stuff,
which he did. People don't understand Machiavelli, or they they
heard some like rap album or something that invoked the name,
or they think the colloquialism has some actual definitive weight,
so they think, oh, Machiavelli, this like unscrupulous guy rubbing
his hands together and talking about plotting against people in institute.
That's not. Machiavelli was actually like an arch moralist, and
he was a pious Roman Catholic, and that was exactly
why he was he agonized over this stuff like the
guy who was a moratlist. Okay, Hobbes was not, and
that's essential, you know. Nevertheless, I would say that serious
people who study political philosophy and political theory, there's people
who aim to understand political ontology and sort of the
anthropological causes of political behavior, the kind of symbolic psychology
that underlies it, the kind of data that can be
drawn from conditions tending towards war or peace, and the
cyclical paradigms, if they do, if they exist, that can
be identified, as you know, for the purpose of predictive
modeling and analysis. You know, those are the kinds of
this kind of that tendency that like split off with Hobbes.
The people quite literally talking about political ethics and how
to manage the demands of moral behavior with the brutal
realities of state craft, and how these things can be reconciled,
and what the relationship is between temporal authority and you know, uh,
moral authority. You know, that's that's the Machiavellian enterprise, so
I mean capital liberalism. It was a lot more to
Machiavelli than as the Hobbes. Okay, even though people like
John Locke they tried to invoke the language of Hobbes
while hanging all this sort of moral content on uh
the thought experiment or the rather the conceptual model of
the state of nature, you know, but it was very superficial.
I think. I think people like Locke are incredibly overrated.
But this is important because you know, it's not this
is kind of like linear progression from oh, Machiavilly to Hubbs,
the Spinoza to you know, Hunt or whatever it's. And
it's also again like Machiavelli, he actually represented the opposite
tendency of what people is associated him with, you know
it uh, you know, and it's something too. There is
a parallel that's interesting because both Haus and Machiavelli came
out of what could be considered, you know, how's the
actual progeny of of the thirty years of War? I
think the conditions that created it. And obviously in the
UK they were hit especially hard, even though the even
though Great Britain, the British Isles weren't the battlespace, you know,
a microcosm of what was happening on the continent emerged
with the War three Kingdoms, you know, and h Cromwell
was a great man. He was a hero in the
Carlisle sense, in the collopial sense. But that was a
tremendously traumatic thing, you know that he did. You know,
it was an act the creative destruction, and unlike any
other within the political domain. But you know, this was
this constellation of factors was well underway when Hobbs reached
agent majority, and Machiavelli was a you know Italy, I mean,
Italy is still like a mess in terms of its
political culture, but it quite literally was mired in a
perennial civil war that rages Zenith around the time of
Caesar Borgia's stewardship, and Maggioli served at court a Caesar
Borgia for about a year, which had to be something
of a terrifying experience. I mean, even if borgill like you,
you know, and so there's a bias in favor of
identifying remedial measures when conditions tending towards civil war are
emerged in both men's conceptual models. But arguably, I mean,
that's the ultimate challenge of uh staate craft as a
executive crisis actor, you know, and I think people don't
necessarily realize that. And aside in the fortunes of the
of the police or the state or the nation, you know,
that stands to tear yourself apart if conditions of depending
towards civil war are mismanaged. You know, your own neck
is literally on the line. You know, you're gonna you're
you're gonna you're gonna die with the failed state you
preside over. I mean not you've got to be prepared
for that if you're a magnanimous man, or if you know,
if you're any kind of man worthy of of the
office or the station. But that that does tend to
insinuate a sort of mortal seriousness into the into the
subject matter. I think that goes out saying, but that's
it's important and textualize that. And like I said, I think,
I think arguably that renders both men's kind of conceptual
modeling more relevant than something that's you know, only held
discrete significance in the peculiar epoch in which you know,
their body of work, respectively, was emergent. But the uh,
you know, and the last thing, I'll say, the kind
of comparative direct comparative analysis between the two men, you know,
again give his whole enterprise was this discursive engagement with
Aristotle Hobbs to the Baby out of the bathwater. Hobbs
quite literally said that there was no science of politics
before he wrote Leviathan. You know, he regarded himself as
the true founder of political philosophy, you know, writing treatises
on ethics or on the aesthetical aspects of the magnanimous man,
or you know, agonizing over you know, what constitutes a
moral life in the core of the prince. There's nothing
to do with science, you know, and thus it has
nothing to do with the study of politics, which, like
physics or like biology, is reducible to a science. You know.
In Hobbes's words, these things are the stuff of dreams,
not science. You know, and this is important because if
you're going to literally craft a science of politics, and
the central subject matter of the science of politics is
to to mitigate or ideally eradicate the state of war
within the polity, what are you going to be What
criteria are you going to base that on? Like, what
are your variables? What are your inputs? Magnanimity isier input.
There's got to be some sort of common engagement mechanism
that is universally relevant to every constituent member of the
body politic And I think you're going to this last time.
Hobbs says, well, human beings are idiosyncratic in the configuration
of their desires and motives and other things, but what
is universal to them is their susceptibility to the economy
of vice. And the economy of violence is what governs
the state of nature and is the core essence of
the political And there's no idiosyncrasy between how men view
self preservation and how they view being availed to a
violent death at the hands of the sovereign, who wields
absolute authority over life and death. You know, that might
seem like a base criteria for a variable engagement, but
it's a very concrete one. And more importantly, it's a
realizable criteria that can be utilized within the geometric paradigm
that Hobbs was devising, something like magnanimity and higher virtue.
It's not a variable that can so constitute such a science,
you know. So it doesn't matter that this is debasing
the kind of soul of politics or something, or that
it's precluding the emergence of men suited to greatness and
situated towards those potentialities, you know, because again it's like
it'd be like arguing over you know, it'd be like saying,
I can build the strongest bridge over this ravine or
over this chasm based on this structural configuration. But then
there's a counter argument emergent that but that bridge isn't
beautiful enough, you know. Okay, well you're gonna have a
bridge isn't gonna collapse and people traverse it, or you
canna have a beautiful bridge that doesn't work as a bridge,
you know. Is that reductionist? Yeah, but there is there
is an internal logic to that paradigm that is pretty admirable.
And again it helps to the Hobbes if you approach
how beasy in theory like Schmidt did, and you know,
you don't even need to go as far as the
posit Well, this is this is a domain in human
activity that just takes place beyond good and evil. No,
we're we're talking about quite literally the anthropological, the symbolic, psychological,
and lack of a better descriptor, the mechanistic aspects that
constitute the essence of Warren P's and the economy of violence,
which ultimately is you know, the essence of the political
the Now moving on a bid to some misconceptions about Machiavelli,
I believe, and I reread The Prince the other day
in preparation for this. I read it a bunch of
times in college and subsequent but I believe the chapter
on Caesar Borgia and his machinations. You know, Borgia was
you with the illegitimate son of the pope. This uh
was a very decadent family, and they were incredibly ruthless people,
you know, even for that culture and era. I got
a lot of love for like Latin people. I think
they I think they're they're sanguinary aspects and their passion
is really beautiful. I'm not saying bad things about them.
But they're capable of incredible violence of a very hot
blooded sort. It's and my people are ruthless as fuck.
But it's uh, there's something that there's something, there's something,
there's something frightening about like a Spaniard or an Italian
crisis actor on the warpath. And there's a kind of
genius for the economy of violence some of the Italians,
I think, and it's stimmed. But but the uh, in
talking about the case of Caesar Borgia Machaelia, makes clear, well,
you know, a prince at all times he should appear manly,
you know, morally, upright, brave, pious, you know, a religious
believer in control its faculties all time. Incidentally, when a
Machiavelli's Big Macy was a big critic of Alexander, which
is interesting, and he said one of the things that
brought Alexander down was that the perception was that he
was ruled by his mother. And Alexander may have commit
to patricide. I find it persuasive that he killed his father.
But whether you accept that or not, he was Alexander
has view as a mama's boy, as good as a
guy who was dominated by women. And that's not an
admirable characteristic, and that's a frailty that is literally fatal
in power politics, you know. Magavelli emphasized again and again,
these things can't just be superficial appearances, like you've got
to actually aspire to these things, you know, but you've
got to be capable of You've also got to be
a capable of being a monster. You know that That
doesn't mean that you put on airs and act like
a degenerate because that makes you hard or something like,
not at all. Quite the contrary. Machiavelli was very much
a believing Catholic, you know. But a man who thinks
he's above doing monstrous things can't be a prince because
you're gonna be called upon to do monstrous things that
are totally offensive to your person and that are totally
offensive to God, you know. But that's that's that's how
every prince. But that's the trade off for the great
wealth and power and esteem a prince enjoys on earth.
But that that also, I mean, everybody has their cross
to bear, like every man, no matter how you know,
like lowly in his worldly station or how elevated the cross.
The prince bears is that he's gonna have to do
horrible things, okay, to protect his people, to protect the poulas,
to defeat his enemies, to guarantee that posterity of his dynasty,
all these kinds of things. Now, the case of Borgia
is interesting because of how Frank Herbert is a big
Machiavelli guy, and uh Vladimir Harkonen he's kind of a pastiche,
and both Lynch Dune and uh villainu Dune. I don't
think either one really nails his character adequately, but he's
suppose he's He's in a large part of Caesar Borgia.
He's kind of like a cross between like Caesar Borgia
and Stalin. But Borgia was made is made commander of
the papal armies by his father, who was the Pope,
Pope Alexander the sixth. The the papacy at that time
wasn't at Alexander. They were highly reliant on mercenaries, and
Malachia was coming out to this point that mercenaries are ship.
You know, you've got to have men who are will
will die for the police or die for the state. Interesting.
Machae is one of the first political theorists to invoke
the term state, but you know you can't. And all
in all these like mafia movies, like this batridization of
the query likes it better to be like feared or looved,
you know, that's not a query in it's it's obvious.
It's better to be like revered. Like if people fear
you and the men under under arms bite for you
because you pay them, like it's you're you're gonna be despised,
like people hate what they fear. You know. People need
to fear your temper, they need to fear transgressing you.
But you know, if you're if you're just just like
an object, if you're just like an ogre, who's this
object of fear, like men obey under pain of mortal
jeopardy here because you're paying them, you're gonna be murdered
at first opportunity, you know. But uh, bringing it back
the uh, the Orsini brothers, who uh were very much
insinuated into the French court. They were these uh they're
they're these kind of like mercenary aristocrats, you know, and
uh the pope had a real problem, okay because he
depended on these guys. But their battlefield aptitude, you know,
and their ability to kind of finesse uh interstate power,
political concerns and intrigues like as the you know kind
of Italian states were warring with themselves. But obviously they've
very much had the Vatican kind of by the short hairs.
You know what what Caesar Borgia did to consolidate his
own power and cultivate and curate a view of himself
as a liberator the kingdom that was key to papal authority,
oh to the military paradigm then underway Rismomanya. So what
Caesar Borgia did was he basically promised they were Seni
brothers that if they'd break with the French court when
he conquered Romagna, you know, he both pay them better
and he'd give him official government posts. But the essentially
had to stand down from military command. And they were
Seni brothers said yeah, that's great, but you're not going
to pacify Romanya. That's laughable. Well, what Caesar Borgia did
was he hired this guy who was a notorious ghoul
really named Ramiro, the otracle Ramiro to order go Machiavili
refrod him literally is a beast, okay, and in Dune,
you know, the beast Rabon. This is exactly what Baron
Harconen does, ramierdo de Orico. He goes through Romanya and
he starts utterly brutalizing people. You know, he slaughters people wholesale.
He doesn't give a fuck, you know. And Caesar Borgia'll
let this continue for months on end, you know. And
when the people appealed to Alexander, like, you know, we're
being slaughtered and brutalized. Their wives are being raped, their
children are being murdered, we're living in terror. Well, Caesar
Borgia says, I'm gonna liberate Ramanya and I'm gonna cut
this brute Orco in two. And that's exactly what he did,
you know, just like Baron Harconen. His big plan was
to deployed beast Rabond to Oracus. And Rabond was such
a psychopath and such a brute and such a ghoul that, uh,
when fade are out, the you know, overthrew him and
like cut him into to liberate Oracus. You know, he
he'd be viewed like Pericles or like Caesar, you know,
this like great man who who not only not only
he was like a great warlord and a real man,
but you know, a liberator who killed the monster, who
killed the beast who was enslaving us and brutalizing us,
you know, and Machiavelli he says, like Caesar Borgia doing that,
He's like, that was an incredibly brilliant thing to do.
And it was like ma didn't say, like Caesar Borgia
was a nice guy, and I want him to fuck
my sister, or like I I think he's the kind
of person I want to go bowling with, and you know,
like tell sea stories too, Like he was saying that,
you know that that that required a genius for intriguing
and ruthlessness. Most men simply don't possess and Caesar borge.
Caesar Borges ultimately came to a bad end, but he
guarded his father's dynasty and posterity. And this was a
tenuous position too. I mean he was he was, here's
the illegitimate son of the pope. This was delicate, you know.
So he basically he bought off and neutralized his enemy,
his main enemies. He pacified Romagna, he conquered it, and
then so doing everybody viewed him as a hero, you know,
despite the fact that he caused all of this, like
that's that's utterly incredible, you know, like I don't know
what else to say about that. But not once that,
not once in magia Eli said that this was a
good thing, you know, and in fact, if anything, the
there is no other boards that are kind of synonymous
with this, literally like incestuous kind of palace intriguing and
this kind of gross brutality. It is because of Macchiavelli,
because I mean, he described how awful this stuff was,
but you know, it also represented an aptitude for power
that basically almost nobody possesses, and that that's why the
Italians are a great people. It's not it's not just
because they make like the best food and really cool
sports cars and produce pretty women. I mean, I like
all those things too, but you know, they really do
have like a genius for for for politics of us,
really sanguinary sort. But we're coming up on an hour
on a well, we'll wrap up uh Machiavelli and get
into Spinoza next time, if that's.
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds good to me. Tell everybody where they can
find you right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm uh uh uh jay Byrne and I just
dropped a new episode of Radio Free Chicago. It seems
to be popping really good. My home right now is substack.
It's real Thomas seven seven seven at subseck dot com.
And uh, I can't remember if I shouted this out
last week or not. I Uh, since we got nuked
off at Discord, I've been looking for a new home
platform to do our like Saturday night streams and uh
and I started doing them on a rumble that seems
like a natural fit for us. I've been playing around
with the with the platform like since we got back
from Nashville, and I'm comfortable with it. So this Saturday,
we're gonna go back to our weekly live stream schedule
like nine pm Central Standard on Saturdays. It's not my
there's an announcement of my substack and my t gram
then they'll be like a link to it. But yeah,
that's I'm in the proces of reconfiguring my content. But
the substack's popping very good. And there's a lot of
stuff there. There's this stuff I do with Jay Burden.
There's a bunch of my own like videos. There's my podcast.
There's a bunch of like long form stuff. There's my
science fiction novel that is serialized on there and in
its complete form. So yeah, if you want to get
engaged with what I do, that's the way to do it.
Speaker 1: All right, Thomas, thank you so the next episode.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you, yea.