Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Tuesday, November 22. 2005

Tomb of Machiavelli

In Santa Croce, ten paces from Michelangelo's, and twenty paces from Galileo's. Lousy photo - they don't allow flash.

As Maggie's Farm readers know, Nick Machiavelli (1469-1527), the father of modern political science, was no dark, cynical, sinister thinker, just a hard-headed realist about human nature and the handling of political power. Practical, and a good writer, too.

A few of my favorite sound bites:

"Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society."

"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him."

"The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous." 

"The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love." 

Posted by Bird Dog in History at 07:00 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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"Although psychoanalysis has a variety of views on when ego psychology began, most who identify with the ego psychological school place its beginnings in Sigmund Freud's 1923 book The ego and the id, in which Freud introduced what would later come to be called the structural theory of psychoanalysis. The structural theory divides the mind into three agencies or "structures:" the id, the ego, and the superego."

from "ego" - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego


"There are only individual egos, crazy for love."
-Machiavelli(??)

so you're saying Nick
had read Freud?
#1 gumshoe on 2005-11-22 14:33 (Reply)
that's a good question.
Freud never used the word "ego". He used "ich" - the "I." The words he used were translated latinate style by Lytton Strachey - to make them sound more scientific?

And I know not who did this translation of Nick.
#2 bird dog on 2005-11-22 15:01 (Reply)
the phenomena of selfishness and self-interest
are as old as man,
so that wasn't why i replied.

the choice of terms in the quote is,imo,
anachronistic,
and the tendency to evaluate the past
from present values and viewpoints,
bungs up the whole point of reading history.

PS - posting seems to have improved here for me.

did you recieve my email Re: Miniato,bird dog?

PPS -

"Freud never used the word "ego". He used "ich" - the "I." The words he used were translated latinate style by Lytton Strachey"
-b d


for somebody who
"had a high-school education (or GED), but [all] had ADD",
you certainly do like to read.

man,you neo-con hippies.

heh.
#3 gumshoe on 2005-11-22 15:55 (Reply)
freedom is a sweet thing,ain't it?
#4 gumshoe on 2005-11-22 16:10 (Reply)
yes it is.
#5 bird dog on 2005-11-23 09:10 (Reply)

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