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Entry: Ross Douthat's Chutes and Ladders Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/ross_douthats_chutes_and_ladders#32636 Post contents: Ploni Almoni wrote: Machiavelli was not a technocrat. He was vitally concerned with the goods of politics--what you call the “why” as opposed to the “how"--in the Discourses and even in The Prince. Very true and I am not sure what is with all the Machiavelli bashing lately. We should not bring this great thinker's name into a discussion of the kind of bureaucratic materialism that passes for "realism" these days, he has been slandered enough. I agree with John Zmirak that questionable means increase the risk of corrupting noble ends, but it is odd to make the assertion that they inevitably corrupt them (a notion I think belongs more to utopian liberalism than to the right) and then praise Franco. I am no Franco-basher, believe me, but to attack Machiavelli and praise a man who assumed the role of a classic Machiavellian ruler to protect what was noble and sacred seems contradictory. I mean, I understood the point Zmirak was trying to make with this article, but Machiavellian to me pertains more to a man he rightly defends here than those he deplores. And you have to look at the rational as well as the irrational motives behind a leader or movement's power, the material interests and the ideals. You look at just one or the other. Sam Francis, a real neo-Machiavellian thinker, understood that well, as did Machiavelli himself. Sent at: 2008 12 01