Machiavellian Musings

I couldn't sleep so when my mind is racing, I give it a track to drive on until it runs out of fuel. Tonight that track is this. What tells a man what he can or can't do? For the past ten years, at least, I've argued to myself and other netizens (remember when that word was a thing? Maybe deprecated since some don't like it but those people don't count as humans) that at the root level, nothing does other than a man's force and will. I know many people won't like to hear an argument for this prototypical point of view which may have an anarchistic under-tones but of course there's many factors influencing this and when all typical roles of power are effected, it leads to stability as we know it.

A picture tells a thousand words so I thought I'd make this crappy image to sum my points up. In the main circle, you have your primal, seemingly anarchistic physical laws of what one can or can't do. Below that, you have more concrete territorial laws of country, state, household and so on. And those are influenced by the powers that be, powers we all have to some extent. For example, the obvious physical power, a more primal power but still very effective today. Military power is largely derived from this but in modern times, intellectual power has started to play a larger role here. If you're well trained physically and can effect physical power upon people, this can lead to a higher social power. Social power is a generic type of power that may be composed of powers such as financial, political, physical, etc. People love people with power, this is the basis of social power. And social power, the ability to affect and manipulate people is a big part of the political game. Incidentally, my passing but long and casual interest in WWII was largely because of my interest in how one man could manipulate so many. Of course, when you delve into WWII history you realize it wasn't so simple. The waning power of the populace after WWI combined with the Treaty of Versailles, both of course leading to less financially independent citizens and country, were part of the extremities which led to more extremities. None of which could excuse the atrocities but an example of the animalistic phenomenon of desperate, unsure times calling for desperate, unsure actions.

But back on topic, I'm reminded of the OSI model in how social relations have a primal and hard physical layer at the root of it all and on top of it, you have softer and more abstracted layers of communication protocol with ways in which we effect our varied non-physical powers to affect our or others' social status. For instance, let's use the power of the court jester in medieval times as an example of softer powers. I've read in internet commentary, which should never be a real source of truth, that the jester could express opinions or actions that otherwise wouldn't be suitable in the king's court because of the jester's ability to wrap the coarse and offensive with more digestible layers of ambiguity and humor. This social power is sometimes under-rated in society, at least as far as having some sort of Machiavellian-type of influence which I don't think many people tend to think about much when they think about comedy. Being under the guise of comedy and absurdity, you can get away with a lot of falsehoods but still nonetheless influential. This type of power in society, as I said, may be under-rated but is often used and abused. If you regularly read internet commentary, there's far too often many humorous comments, or so the person may intend, instead of juicy, substantial and serious commentary. But the power of comedy in society can't be understated. Think of how much influence our modern day jesters have or have had such as Chico Marx, Charlie Chaplain, Bob Hope, Seinfeld, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Andy Kaufman, Betty White, and so on.

Another force in society falls under the social category, the power of compassion. Tangentially, I've only read small bits of Machiavelli, I admit, but from the bits I've read I think I can conclude to be an admirer but I'm not so keen on his "better to be feared than loved" mantra. I excuse myself from reading it partly because I admit I'm very impatient for many things that could otherwise be summed up in smaller text. Kind of ironic in that my blog posts tend to be rather long and drawn out, to me anyway. The other is that I like to have my own original viewpoints. In many cases, there's more reward and quality in discovering for yourself through your own experiences than there is in learning from someone else so by this token I can somewhat understand the notion of prideful and willful ignorance. But not to digress, I tend to think of compassion and comedy as soft powers while the more brutal and primal physical powers would be hard powers. I notice these hard and soft powers sometimes divide political parties and opponents as well as certain religions and people. One may take the softer approach of compassion in certain subjects while the other may take a harder approach of little social tolerance but largely they tend to take whichever works for them in various aspects. But personally, I think I'd rather be loved just as much as feared. Fear works as well but it's such a socially shallow quality that ties alliances with breadbag ties instead of chain links. Alliances gained through fear tend to break very easily. Not just that but personally I'd say I'm naturally more compassionate than hateful, depends on who you ask. I can seem a bit cold, dry and not very sociable but underneath it all, I side with compassion more often than not.

On another related note, I sometimes play a game online with argumentation. A political or religious side may take one approach yet I argue their side using an opposite approach to make the person or group think more about their intentions or logical validity. A related approach that I sometimes use is what I call "playing shepherd". If I want a group or person who has the opposite view to at least somewhat agree with me, I find the proverbial fence to which I want to herd them in, then I compose verbal gates, so to speak, a way to steer them out and away from their original viewpoint into my own gateway and if all's successful, you have one more sheep in your gate, or at least out of your opponent's gate so they can roam more freely with what was once opposing thought. It's not some formal game I play, just one I do for fun when bored. I don't think I ever take one side too seriously as I always try to see the validity in the other side's views but I'm human and do catch myself taking argumentation too seriously sometimes. But the power of compassion in society can't be understated either. Some of society's most well-known figures were known for their compassion such as Ghandi, Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, Martin Luther King, and many others; the list is far too long to type. The compassion of humanity is one of its greatest features and you could argue that is a big part of what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom and without it, we wouldn't be as successful as we are. Understanding and compassion have great strategic function; they create and nurture alliances. They give us the drive to take care of our allies when they're at their weakest and when nurtured to strength again, create a leap-frog effect in which we have collateral support.

I also named intellectual power which is also another obviosity (if that's not a word, then it should be). When you're intelligent, you can manipulate people and the world to your will easier. Be it in a less direct and typical approach such as work and study in intellectual fields that can make you more influential and in a more direct psychological approach to manipulate others. Intelligence, if the Googles are correct, is somewhat correlated with financial success in life but can't find the source now. And if this source is correct, money to a certain extent can bring happiness. Money as well as other forms of power attract people and with people, power, if you play your cards, or people, right. I know it seems objective and cold to view people as banks of power but if we're playing the Machiavellian game here, it's the main form of currency. Somewhat conversely, emotional intelligence, potential for compassion, also plays a big role in society and to some extent success. Some of the obvious big players in the intellectual game here are Albert Einstein, Steve Wozniak (Apple engineer), Linus Torvalds (the internet and most smart phones run on the kernel of code this man's responsible for),  the "Google guys", John Carmack (Doom forever!), etc. And on the financial side, obviosities such as Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Amancio Ortega, Vladimir Putin, and families such as the Mars, Walton's and Rothschild's.

Lastly but not finally, we have political power. There's many forms of power that people make use of in society but I'm covering the obvious ones here. I'm sure if you crowd-sourced this idea, you'd have many people covering many different forms of power that I don't state here. But political power can be composed of and play a mutual role with all of the above. A successful ruler tends to incorporate, practice and be well at these to some extent.  If you compare it to weightlifting, you might say it's the squats of power. If you're good at squatting, you're likely to at least have decent core power, a good basis for building more. And despite the initial anarchistic feel this post may have, anarchy will never reign in a world where power is a currency of humanity. And to be fair, nor will order. Life where there is little power, the have-nots, has a propensity to love the chaotic and changing while the haves tend to love the order that created and nurtures their current power. A life with all haves fulfilled is no life nor is a life of constant, unquenched hunger.

But before I close this post, you may be wondering what brought me to write this. I feel like we've lost sight of natural laws. We've become so inundated with the comforts of modern society and the protections that come with it, we count on all of these new intricate laws and gods to protect us in some form. And when those fail, which they inevitably will at some point, some may be left wondering why. Why did my god or gods fail to protect me? Why did my society's laws fail to protect me? When that happens in its online form, I observe frustrated people. People who may've had good intentions by ignoring the more primal and harsh physical laws of man and universe because those laws may be seen as antiquated or uncomfortable to confront. 'Thou shalt not bear false witness' is great but when truth doesn't work, they become frustrated and ill at society, a prospect which they didn't intend. I also covered this topic in another post about the strategic validity of deceit. But sometimes people become so insulated by their own little social community and laws that when they confront the real laws, the ones that apply on more basic and universal levels, it's like they've had the rug pulled out from underneath them. I've observed this online in many ways and forms, mostly people transitioning from one religion to another, or usually from one religion to none, or transitioning from one country or culture to another. They find out the dogma which wrought peace in one society, place and time doesn't work in another and in this transitional phase, they either change their own ideology or re-interpret written ideology they previously followed until it's diluted into a web of metaphorical and ambiguous verbal sludge. This transitory phase can create frustration and illness towards a person or people, especially if the transition was involuntary, something brought about from a learning experience, until the frustrated realizes the validity of the new culture, laws, beliefs, etc.

It's true enough that you can take religious texts and use them as building blocks for traversing life as well, to build with them what you like or interpret how you see fit. Many take their religious texts to mean anything they want and out of thousands of years, thousands of gods throughout history and thousands of possible interpretations, they may assure others that they have the right god or gods, the right interpretations and they're the rightful chosen people. But in my opinion, disregarding the ambiguous nature of it all, using a religious text isn't optimal when those building blocks are static words, not dynamic ideas of using basic building blocks of power to traverse this game of life in Machiavellian fashion. Don't always count on people telling you how the universe works as the universe more tells you how it works with more variables involved than can be written in some holy text. Some religious folk may claim that their religion is something more, or other than, just rules to traverse through life. They may claim it links to a higher order so they can distinguish themselves and their religion from other philosophies or moral beliefs. I can also make the same claim that my way of traversing life links to a higher order in this universe. After all, however this universe was brought about, the physical rules created which I try to be in tune with, are linked to its creation, rules that I view as more optimal for myself and possibly others. My views are tied to a high order also. The religious don't hold a monopoly on views of "higher order", as some may use that phrase.

But if you ask me, if most of us accepted basic, ingrained societal building blocks that I've mentioned, we'd be less frustrated when the gods, religious texts, dogmas and laws fail to reconcile or adapt with differing situations and times. I can't speak for anyone else but understanding and using those basic building blocks to traverse life (yes, I use that phrase too much but I like it), I find myself more at peace with my own self and everything else. And if I find myself getting angered, I tend to refer to any means of power I have to either build a defense or offense. In other words, it's better for yourself to get even than to get mad. Or just as well, don't do either. Not every petty wrong needs to be righted, for your own sanity and others. And of course, I know I'm kind of an oddball to think about these kinds of things and to think about the more meta properties of society. When I was younger, if I came across The Prince and if I would've even read small parts of it, I'd probably be perplexed as to why something such as just living life needs a manual. 'Just live it, duh', I could hear myself saying. Most of us just happily go about life without having to think a lot about these things. There are some that swim and are very good at it that it seems to be almost instinctual. I'm not one of those people; I tend to think about things far more than I should. In a lot of cases, of course, you either don't have the luxury to think much about them or it's less optimal to think much. In reality though, I never learned to swim well. I was usually too busy panicking and being overly analytical of my failures of thrashing about rather than just being calm and in tune to instinctual reflexes. If you have to be relaxed to be good at something, whatever that something is, you can bet I'm not very good at it. My yearning to understand life was partly born out of my ignorance and frustration of it and so my growing understanding of life has lead me to be more at peace with it in a lot of ways. Understanding brings familiarity, familiarity brings tranquility.

I don't like to end so abruptly but this car has run its course for the race and running out of fuel so I'm going to head to the pits. Maybe one or two people who come across this blog recessed in the boonies of the internet might gain something from it, if not, no loss. It gives my mind a cathartic release to write out what it's thinking.

This post brought to you by Apocalyptica - Nothing Else Matters. Such a great cover. Most of this post was done with the song on repeat.