Talk:The Prince

Sentence in lead

Plasticwonder can you please give a better explanation for your revert [1]? Your edsum is that my edit says "Good faith, but faulty edit summary. The phrase "seemingly takes for granted" is not at all found within the source cited." The source is Leo Strauss's book, and your remark raises some questions.

The original version which you first removed: As a remarkable general theme, The Prince appears to take it for granted that immoral acts are justified if they can help achieve political glory.

My preferred version: The Prince shocks many readers by assuming that immoral acts are justifiable if they achieve political glory.

Your preferred version: Many commentators have viewed that one of the main themes of The Prince is that immoral acts are justified if they can help achieve political glory.

I think mine is better written (or at least shorter), and more accurate, and I'm asking you to consider whether you can justify your edits. Furthermore, the wording "takes for granted" seems to originally come from our article body, as it should. I don't really know when the footnote in the lead was added, but I think it was tagged on later? The addition of a footnote cannot make the wording wrong (and differences between our exact wording and source wording are not necessarily a problem either). In more detail:

• If we are being strict about it, when I look at the quote being used to support this sentence in the lead, I do not see how it supports the importance you seem to place upon the term "main theme". The quote given is not about any "main theme" at all? It is about ideas associated with NM. As it is not self-evident, please explain why you think my wording is less consistent with the quote than yours? Here is the quote from HOPP which is currently in the footnote.

"Machiavelli is the only political thinker whose name has come into common use for designating a kind of politics, which exists and will continue to exist independently of his influence, a politics guided exclusively by considerations of expediency, which uses all means, fair or foul, iron or poison, for achieving its ends – its end being the aggrandizement of one's country or fatherland – but also using the fatherland in the service of the self-aggrandizement of the politician or statesman or one's party".

IMOH this is not a great footnote to use here, because it is not claiming to define a main theme. For further consideration about whether Strauss would have seen this as the main theme, you can compare this quote to Thoughts pp 80-81 for example.

• Secondly, I have to admit I have not been following the additions of such footnotes but normally it is not best practice to be putting footnotes, or novel conclusions needing footnotes, into the lead. These should be in the body, with sources, and the lead should summarize the body, making footnotes unnecessary. If you look in the body there are for example these, which have their own footnotes: The types of political behavior which are discussed with apparent approval by Machiavelli in The Prince were regarded as shocking by contemporaries, and its immorality is still a subject of serious discussion. and In The Prince he does not explain what he thinks the best ethical or political goals are, except the control of one's own fortune, as opposed to waiting to see what chance brings. Machiavelli took it for granted that would-be leaders naturally aim at glory or honour. So in this respect I think my preferred sentence follows the norms, by trying to sum up what is explained below. The problem is the footnote, which does not seem to connect well to any version of the sentence in the lead. It can however be removed, don't you think?
• I suggest the best way forward is to think about what the message should be, and then find the right wording which summarizes the article body. I've been skimming through my copies of Strauss's works just to reassure myself, and he certainly empashized that Machiavelli was "shocking". On page 79 of "Thoughts" he describes his "shocking teaching about the most shocking phenomena". I think this is a notable fact about Machiavelli's book and can best be included in the lead. Your edit deleted mention of it.
• The third difference in meaning between our preferred versions (after "main theme" and "shocking") seems to be the idea that Machiavelli "assumes" or "takes for granted" that immoral actions are justifiable. The wording might not be perfect but I think the important here is to leave room for the fact that immoral acts, and the defence of them, were not invented by Machiavelli, and therefore not his "main theme", in any straightforward way. Instead he accepts or takes for granted the way which princes already act, and always will, as a kind of scientific reality, and then he insisted that we deal with reality. It is Christianity which has been responsible for young princes being trained in a strange new way, making them weak. See Thoughts page 81 for example: once one grasps the intransigent character of Machiavelli's theoretical concern, one is no longer compelled to burden him with the full responsibility for that practical recklessness which he frequently recommends.
• FWIW Strauss does mention a main theme. In HOPP for example, a couple of pages later he says: The chief theme of the Prince is the wholly new prince in a wholly new state, that is, the founder.

Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello Andrew Lancaster,

I like your preferred version actually, I have added it in the lead.

In general, I prefer for the text to at least match up with the source so we don't run into "synthesis", but your preferred version avoids that. Plasticwonder (talk) 17:02, 22 December 2024 (UTC)