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> The reason Machiavellianism is stupid is that the grand ends the means aim to obtain often never come to pass That doesn't feel quite right as an explanation
by hansvm 1y ago
> The reason Machiavellianism is stupid is that the grand ends the means aim to obtain often never come to pass
That doesn't feel quite right as an explanation. If something fails 10 times, that just makes the means 10x worse. If the ends justify the means then doesn't that still fit into Machiavellian principles? Isn't the complaint closet to "sometimes the ends don't justify the means"?
- somenameforme 1y agoYou have to assume a grand ends is achievable through some knowable means. I don't see any real reason to think this is the case, certainly not on any sort of a meaningful timeframe. And I think this is even less true when we consider the typical connotation of Machiavellianism, which is through 'evil' actions. It's extremely difficult to think of any real achievements sustained on the back of Machiavellianism, but one can list essentially endless entities whose downfall was brought on precisely by such.