Essay --

Morality is the single most controversial and mind-boggling train of thought currently known to human-kind, and no particular individual more so exemplifies this conflict (or better summarizes my own personal beliefs) than Niccolà ² Machiavelli. Few writers in the whole of the human history have inspired the kind of personal hatred that Machiavelli has in the last 500 years, and few works have been as vilified, (or as popular) as The Prince. Machiavelli has been slandered and portrayed as a defender of tyrannical government, an atheistic promoter of immorality, and a manipulator whose interests were all self-serving. Today, the Oxford dictionary still characterizes "Machiavellian" as "of, like, or characterized by the political principles and methods of expediency, craftiness, and duplicity set forth in Machiavelli's book, The Prince; crafty, deceitful, and so on." Folk legend holds that "Old Nick," a slang term for the Devil, is derived from Machiavelli's first name, Niccolà ². Wi th that context kept in mind, isn’t morality founded on a specific set of core ideas? Isn’t it always defined by the acknowledgement of a central moral allegiance dominating all the others? From individualism to families, from tribalism to racism, from nationalism to religious fundamentalism or the allegiance to a totalitarian party what we see is the drawing of different â€Å"circles† centered on a basic, paramount moral norm. And Machiavelli is definitely not isolated in positing the interest of the nation as the foundation of his moral thinking. At the beginning of the 21st century we are still living within that same ideal nationalist realism. What could be more â€Å"Machiavellian† than the saying â€Å"My nation right or wrong†, which seems to be a still very popul... ...day? How can we maintain that, in an era when, from migrations to terrorism to the Tsunami to Chernobyl to aviary flu to AIDS, we are obliged to cope with challenges that are global, â€Å"group ethics† (be it tribal, religious or nationalistic) matches our reality, our needs, our stage of human development? We are definitely not on the eve of a global state, and yet we are no longer able to confine our economic, political, cultural but also moral scope within the limits of the borders of our national republic. There is no easy solution to our moral quandrums (another much discussed idea in the Discourses. Machiavelli’s daring, his awareness of unadorned reality, his honesty and anti-hypocrisy, his republican commitment can help us, if we are able to grasp the essence of his politics and his ethics, also in this very complex and problematic stage of human development.