On Reading 'The Prince' and Vowing to Use Fewer Run-on Sentences
Will reading "The Prince" help me avoid pitfalls in my own writing, and, more importantly, will I finally figure out what went wrong when I played "Civilization"?
The Prince
I just bought these gorgeous, whimsical flowers* that look like strawberries (see below)—I swear, the simulation keeps making things up whenever my back’s turned—and The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.
The Prince is one of two essential books on concreting power, the other being The Art of War, notable in Sun Tzu’s emphasis that appearing intimidating and thus avoiding war is half the battle. (Well, the entire battle if we’re being literal.) Machiavelli’s book is also the successor to a diametrically-opposed treatise: Aristotle’s Politics.
“Machiavelli was interested, not in discussing ideal types of government, but in exploring one of the principal questions Aristotle poses in the Politics: what sorts of
government are best suited for what sorts of society?”—Humphrey Butters** in The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli
I’m reading The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli to be able to contextualise it, and what it suggests is that The Prince is significant for its acknowledgement of the grubbiness of politics and human nature:
“In Machiavelli’s time, Aristotle was the most famous political thinker in the West; in our time, Machiavelli is. […] His innovation was instead to inaugurate an entirely new “discourse” about politics, one that eviscerated the reigning humanist pieties and recommended force and fraud to tyrants and republics alike.”
—Victoria Kahn in The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli
The Prince does double-duty as an indictment of men like ‘The Most Illustrious Lorenzo, Son of Piero De’ Medici’ to whom it is dedicated; and is supposedly laced with sardonic disapproval of the whole endeavour. Well, let’s see if I’m clever enough to pick up on it! Either Lorenzo De’ Medici was not, or Machiavelli was correct in asserting that men—“so willing to deceive themselves”—are easy prey for fine flattery. (At least, that was my theory; apparently, Lorenzo simply ignored it. Princes, like most people, don’t like to be told how to do their job.)
So far, I’ve found Machiavelli’s writing to be unbearably longwinded. A sentiment like ‘Don't give up authority to the Church or foreign rulers in order to avert war as it will put you at a disadvantage when war inevitably occurs' takes him several pages. His sentences contain more clauses and subclauses than Hugh Hefner’s prenuptial agreement. It’s making me want to tear my hair out.
It’s making me rethink my own grammatically death-defying sentences. I've never once met a thought that couldn't be improved by introducing several others into it. I’m a great fan of em dashes and parentheses (and parentheses—do you get the joke?—in em dashes). However, now I’m more sympathetic about how the reader will perceive this.***
I’m reading The Prince out loud, by the way. I’m using Descript (for future podcasts and audiobooks) and anticipating that my stamina and my enunciation will get better over time (as reflected in the accuracy of the transcript generated). Previously, I recorded myself acting out the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio play. Since I’m pretty sure Ford Prefect is from around the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not “belt a goose”, I need more practice still.
Further, I hope to finally figure out what went wrong in my own princess-ipality. When I played Civilization as a child, it took until the 30th Century for my civilisation to have late 20th Century-style aeroplanes. (Hey, at least it wasn’t just grass huts.) Things went pear-shaped somewhere during the aqueducts stages of my thereafter stunted technological progress. (In no small part owing to my unhealthy obsession with aqueducts.) All in all, it’s a sign that I’m not suited for stewardship of the human race.
I used those aeroplanes to bomb the nations that declined my diplomatic overtures, by the way. I felt very slighted. You’re either my ally or ashes; I will not be ignored. (Why didn’t they want to be friends with me?) I never played the competitive setting in Civilization as I was the sort of child who cried if Pac-Man lost even one life or if my Queen was eaten in chess (even if I was about to win regardless). Given this, I’m not even sure those other civilisations were able to attack me preemptively (or even in retribution). Too bad for them, but they were only bits-and-bytes, after all.
I think my relative lack of flourishing was down to my impatience. In Civilization, every year is one turn that enables you to change parameters and/or move a ‘piece’ across the board—an aeroplane or a foot soldier, whatever the case may be. I was far more interested in getting immediate feedback on my parameter changes. That came with no shortage of disillusionment. Machiavelli was right; people are “ungrateful, fickle, deceitful, cowardly and avaricious”.
For example, shortening the workday to eight hours did little to bolster morale in the village—I vindictively switched it to twelve hours forevermore—nor did building extravagant cities. In particular, I grappled with the problem of discontented citizens living on the outskirts while wishing nothing more than to extend my territory. (The game factors in the distance from the capital to calculate satisfaction.)
I couldn't alleviate the inferiority complex of these folks even though their city was a jewel, its grandeur first equal to that of the capital and then surpassing it in all its splendour. (Quite the sunk cost.) I guess my subjects couldn’t have known that, and there’d always be some twat of a bard singing about how “The capital has solid gold fountains, its roads paved with emeralds, and all its citizen working no more than eight hours a day”.
In Sim City, I mostly set fires. Purposely. And when I played The Sims at a friends house, I recall being utterly flummoxed by child services taking away the three-year-old considering the seven-year-old (intelligence set on high) was taking care of her. All those 1990s game developers really needed to rethink their programming.
Was this meant to be a writing blog? I forget sometimes. Well, one of the best ways to get better at writing is to read more, so it makes sense to let you know what I’m reading. I’m procrastinating Psychology for World Domination, as always. I could get the ball rolling by reading a paper on how women prefer not only narcissistic men’s personalities but also their faces. (This is for the chapter on attraction.) I might do that now.
And so, I bid you adieu.
Footnotes
*You know, I think flowers lift one’s spirits; anything beautiful does. Purchasing flowers also facilitates the sort of chitchat that doesn’t work if you’re buying something as uninspired as, say, dish soap. I had a rather pleasant chat about the Strawberry Fields bouquet, the Art Deco vase, and about whether they have a refrigeration room—a wistful inquiry on my part considering Melbourne’s scorching run of weather. (“You do… May I see it? Live in it?”)
**What a name! A "cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon", "cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot" totally made-up but somehow quintessentially British-sounding crumbly, honeyed, crumpet-y very much not tinny sort of a name. (The links are to A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Monty Python skits on names and language.)
***I lied; I’m wholly unrepentant.
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Writing tip #1
If you’re like me and can never figure out what ought to be capitalised in title case—Pronouns? The second word after the hyphen?—this converter is a godsend: https://capitalizemytitle.com/#