Fortune and the Dao : A Comparative Study of Machiavelli, the Daodejing, and the Han Feizi 9781498500531, 9781498500524

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Fortune and the Dao

Studies in Comparative Philosophy and Religion Series Editor: Douglas Allen, University of Maine This series explores important intersections within and between the disciplines of religious studies and philosophy. These original studies will emphasize, in particular, aspects of contemporary and classical Asian philosophy and its relationship to Western thought. We welcome a wide variety of manuscript submissions, especially works exhibiting highly focused research and theoretical innovation.

Titles in the Series Fortune and the Dao: A Comparative Study of Machiavelli, the Daodejing, and the Han Feizi, by Jason P. Blahuta Metaphor and Metaphilosophy: Philosophy as Combat, Play, and Aesthetic Experience, by Sarah A. Mattice Brahman and Dao: Comparative Studies of Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion, edited by Ithamar Theodor and Zihua Yao Nietzsche and Zen: Self Overcoming without a Self, by André van der Braak Ethics of Compassion: Bridging Ethical Theory and Religious Moral Discourse, by Richard Reilly Reality, Religion, and Passion: Indian and Western Approaches in Hans-Georg Gadamer and Rupa Gosvami, by Jessica Frazier Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism, by Adrian Kuzminski

Fortune and the Dao A Comparative Study of Machiavelli, the Daodejing, and the Han Feizi Jason P. Blahuta

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2015 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Blahuta, Jason P., 1971Fortune and the Dao / Jason P. Blahuta. pages cm. -- (Studies in comparative philosophy and religion) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4985-0052-4 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4985-0053-1 (electronic : alk. paper) 1. Political science--Philosophy. 2. Civilization. I. Title. JA71.B53 2015 320.01--dc23 2015000241 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For John R. A. Mayer Friend and Mentor

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

1 2 3 4 5

Living in the Shadow of Conflict: Renaissance Italy and Warring States China Fortune and the Dao The Centaur and the Dragon Machiavelli and the Han Feizi Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi: Scope, Efficacy, and Possibilities

29 47 97 147 177

Bibliography

213

Index

219

About the Author

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vii

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to many people for their help over the course of this book’s development. First and foremost is Dr. John R. A. Mayer, who introduced me to the Daodejing in particular and Asian philosophy in general. John’s inspiration in the classroom, wisdom as a mentor, and warmth as a friend had a profound impact on me both personally and academically (my interpretation of the Daodejing is unquestionably influenced by John’s presentation of it so long ago). I am also deeply indebted to Carl Young and Laure Paquette for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript, to Michel S. Beaulieu for his observations regarding the introduction and proposal, to Carolyn Hample for her guidance in style and structure, and to the anonymous reviewer for Lexington Books and series editor Douglas Allen, who provided many insightful comments and useful suggestions. I am also grateful to my editor Jana Hodges-Kluck and her assistant Kari A. Waters for helping me through the publication process. Chapter 4 was presented as “Machiavelli and Legalism” at the 2009 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, and I am much obliged to both the anonymous reviewers at the Canadian Philosophical Association as well as Adam Riggio for his commentary on the paper. The cover image, “Aporia,” was created by artist and good friend Ryan Slivchak. The image represents the two goddesses that appear in Machiavelli’s philosophy: Circe in her forest dwelling and Fortune holding her wheel. On the wheel both the centaur and the dragon, the iconic images of the prince and the sage, swirl in an interpenetrating pattern of light and dark, each trying to follow the “way” that has disappeared on them, leaving them in the state of aporia that is Circe’s domain.

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I would also like to thank my brother Andrew, a computer guru, for saving the manuscript (and two terms of work) when a data key inexplicably malfunctioned and I was foolish enough not to have made a backup copy. I am also appreciative of Wendy Donner and Bela Egyed for generously loaning me their offices while they were on sabbatical, providing me with a place to work on this project while I was a sessional at Carleton University. And finally, I must mention the library staff at both Carleton University and Lakehead University for their help in acquiring research materials. As for moral support, I am indebted to my grandparents Katherine and Joseph, and my uncle Ted, none of whom unfortunately lived to see this book’s publication, but who always encouraged me in every way possible to work hard and continue with my studies. I also thank my parents, Lawrence and Jenny, for supporting me even though it has never been clear to them what exactly I’m doing, and my wonderful wife, Michelle, for her understanding, love, and unending patience. Thank you to the following for granting me permission to reprint materials: Duke University Press Allan Gilbert, Ed., “Volume 2: The Art of War,” in Machiavelli, Nicollò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, pp. 561–726. Copyright (1965) 1989, Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder. www.dukeupress.edu. Allan Gilbert, Ed., “Vol. 3: History of Florence,” in Machiavelli, Nicollò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, pp. 1025–1435. Copyright (1965) 1989, Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder. www.dukeupress.edu. Allan Gilbert, Ed., “Tercets on Fortune,” in Machiavelli, Nicollò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, pp. 745–750. Copyright (1965) 1989, Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder. www.dukeupress.edu. Columbia University Press From Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu. Translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964. Copyright © 1964, Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

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Penguin Classics Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated with an introduction by D. C. Lau (Penguin Classics, 1963). Copyright © D. C. Lau, 1963. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher. Oxford University Press Machiavelli: The Prince, 2nd ed. trans. Peter Bondanella (2005). 1,378 words from pp. 5–6, 12, 14, 20, 29, 31, 37, 40, 52, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 81, and 84–7 and 262 words from pp. 53, 60, and 64 to be used as three epigraphs. By permission of Oxford University Press. Machiavelli: Discourses on Livy, trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (2003). 2,398 words from pp. 24, 26, 28, 30, 35, 36, 38, 45, 47, 52–5, 71, 78, 95, 105, 136, 152, 155, 159, 174, 235, 236, 248-9, 246, 248, 249, 252, 282, 289, 311, 323, 328, 331, 340–1 and 73 words from p. 105 to be used as an epigraph. By permission of Oxford University Press. W. W. Norton & Company Niccolò Machiavelli, “On Occasion,” trans. Luigi Blasucci. In The Prince: A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Interpretations, Marginalia, 2nd ed. trans and ed. Robert M. Adams (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992), 134–135. Copyright © 1992, W. W. Norton & Company. Republished with permission of the copyright holder. Ryan Slivchak “Aporia,” © 2014, Ryan Slivchak. Producer: Ryan Slivchak, Model: Viviana Mendez, Photographer: Marvin Manalac. Reprinted with the permission of the artist and copyright holder.

Introduction

“Anyone who studies current affairs will easily recognize that the same desires and humours exist and have always existed in all cities and among all peoples. Thus, it is an easy matter for anyone who examines past events carefully to foresee future events in every republic and to apply the remedies that the ancients employed, or if old remedies cannot be found, to think of new ones based upon the similarity of circumstances.” —Machiavelli, Discourses 1 “Heaven and earth are enduring. The reason why heaven and earth can be enduring is that they do not give themselves life. Hence they are able to be long-lived.” —Laozi, Daodejing 2 “For the sage does not try to practice the ways of antiquity or to abide by a fixed standard, but examines the affairs of the age and takes what precautions are necessary.” —Han Feizi, Han Feizi 3

Turbulent political climates often elicit creative and unconventional ideas. Such was the case of Warring States China, which saw the flourishing of the Hundred Schools of Thought, as well of fifteenth-century Italy, which gave birth to the Italian Renaissance. Out of the chaos of these historical periods emerged the legendary and likely fictional figure of Laozi (c. sixth century B.C.E.), as well as Han Feizi (280–233 B.C.E.) and Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), all of whom promised their intended readers, that is rulers or would-be rulers, continued political success and prolonged personal survival in the face of tumultuous social conditions. The counsel found in the texts of these thinkers is insightful, profound, sometimes radical and, in the case of Machiavelli and Han Feizi, thoroughly pragmatic, yet history is strewn with examples of those who have attempted to apply this counsel to governing, only to fail. In China, both the political philosophies of the Daodejing and the Han Feizi lost out to Confucianism, and not without good reason. The 1

2

Introduction

Daodejing calls for a small, anarchic state, which the size and population of China during the Warring States period and afterward clearly made impossible. While the Celestial Masters did administer a state based, to some extent, upon Daoist principles, the Masters made no attempt to realize the ideal state advocated in the Daodejing. 4 In their turn, the Qin adopted aspects of the Legalist philosophy that enabled them to bring an end to the Warring States period, unite China, and form the first imperial dynasty, but the harshness of Legalist doctrine was too much for their subjects and Qin rule lasted only fifteen years. As far as the Renaissance writer is concerned, “Machiavelli” and “Machiavellian” quickly became pejoratives, but that has not prevented legions of self-styled Machiavellians, almost none of whom ever truly understand or fully embrace his ideas, from trying their hand at ruling even though they would be condemned by Machiavelli as corrupt, shortsighted tyrants. These individuals typically end up deposed, assassinated, or, in democratic regimes, voted out of office. The political theories of these three political theorists capture elements of the political experience in unique and compelling ways, and each treatise can be interpreted from a variety of perspectives. The works have been read as accounts of human nature and as explications of the dynamics of human history; they have been studied for what they say about the nature and foundation of laws, and for insight into the relationship between politics and ethics; finally, they have been taken simply as advice on how to persuade others to enact one’s will or to fight on one’s side, especially when the odds are against success. Set against these themes are ruminations on the personal and social price of political success, as well as on the dire consequences of political failure as it would play out in their respective historical periods. Unfortunately, neither Laozi, nor Han Feizi, nor Machiavelli offers a political philosophy that successfully encompasses and integrates all these themes, and this may be why their followers, no matter how skilled, have all failed, or at the very best been able to secure only a partial victory. The failure of these would-be rulers is, at least in part, attributable to shortcomings of the texts they have consulted. In the first place, none of the three thinkers is concerned to set forth a fully developed political system, but rather focuses on identifying the source of the social and political discord in his day and offering a remedy to it. Han Feizi and Machiavelli do, however, offer sketches of such systems, from which a fuller picture can be developed, and while the Daodejing falls short of this goal, it does lay the foundation for a political system, and so it is possible to fill in the blanks and connect the dots to extrapolate a coherent Daoist political philosophy from the text. Even so, the political philosophies of the Daodejing and Han Feizi are incomplete in their scope. Legalism is a doctrine for ruling during times of conflict, and the Daodejing is a guidebook for ruling during times of peace. Only Machiavelli’s corpus acknowledges that conflict and peace succeed each other cyclically and of-

Introduction

3

fers guidance for ruling in both situations. Nevertheless, Machiavelli’s vision of rule in both instances falls short because of the importance he places on the role of the ruler’s ego. As I will explain in due course, this is a systematic problem affecting how he conceives of the human condition and politics, and how he formulates his advice to the ruler. This deficiency will sabotage even the best ruler, and while Machiavelli understands the big picture in a way his Warring States counterparts do not, he is unable to guide the ruler through this dangerous landscape effectively. In the following chapters, I will show in detail where the shortcomings of each theory lie, with emphasis on the similarities among Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi. I will also argue that if Machiavelli’s philosophy, the most comprehensive of the three theories, were supplemented by aspects of the Daodejing, the revision would potentially overcome the deficiencies of the original. Every philosophical system is, in an important sense, a closed system. To critique a system, build upon it, or perform a comparative analysis with another system, one must ultimately take said philosophical system out of its historical context. While doing so always runs the risk of distorting the system, failure to do so amounts to being unable to do anything other than look at the system as if it were some rare object of art on display in a museum. The task of the scholar who wishes to interact with the philosophical system is to extract what is timeless from the context, without damaging or distorting the original contextual work. As much as this is a critical evaluation of the philosophies of Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi, it is also an exercise in interpreting Machiavellian thought through the spectacles of traditions to which it has not yet been subjected, and vice versa. However, although I will argue that there are significant affinities between the three systems of thought, this is not to imply that Machiavelli had any knowledge of the earlier texts; the Daodejing and Han Feizi were not introduced to Europe until many years after his death. In light of this, the congruencies between Machiavelli and the Warring States period texts remain fascinating, and may suggest something about human nature and the nature of politics that thinkers from very different cultures, separated by great lengths of time and space, conceived of and responded to political turmoil and the human condition in remarkably similar ways. MACHIAVELLI: A SYNOPSIS A multitude of interpretations of the Daodejing and the Han Feizi have been put forth over the years, each interpretation colored by the commentator’s particular perspective, and disagreements abound. In the case of Machiavelli, the number of conflicting interpretations is far greater. I suspect the reason for this is due, at least partially, to the fact that, while the Daodejing and Han

4

Introduction

Feizi are relatively limited and self-contained texts accessible to scholars, Machiavelli produced no less than five major treatises in which he develops his political philosophy, and this is in addition to his comedic plays, a novella, poetry, and personal correspondence. Few interpretations of Machiavelli’s philosophy take all of these texts into account; instead, most accept the interpretation of his philosophy that is popular at the time of writing, supplemented by a quick reading of The Prince and a selective reading of the Discourses. In short, the range of Machiavelli’s writings, as well as the obscurity of some of them, means that a comprehensive view of his political philosophy is a rarity. Given this characteristic of commentary on the writer, I will proceed on the assumption that the reader has a general familiarity with the Daodejing and the Han Feizi, but not of the whole of Machiavelli’s body of writings; thus, a brief overview of Machiavelli’s philosophical schema drawn from his various texts is useful here. There are two prominent modes of thought present in Machiavelli’s works, and the failure of commentators to acknowledge their necessary roles accounts for the vast number of divergent interpretations of his philosophy, many of which are incommensurable. 5 The first mode of thought is a straightforward prescription for maintaining a strong and secure state; an insightful, if at times crude, political science grounded both in Machiavelli’s account of human nature as self-interested and in the cyclical perspective of history he adopted from classical sources. The second mode of thought is an articulation of power politics, the art of pursuing unabashed self-interest. Unfortunately, in many of the commentaries that link Machiavelli with Warring States Chinese philosophy, the power politics mode of thought eclipses the political science mode, distorting much of their analyses. Thus John C. H. Wu maintains that Machiavelli “was of the same mold of mind and personality as Shang Yang.” 6 Robert T. Rowe argues that Machiavelli and Han Feizi “agree on morality, the role of the ruler, and the exercise of power,” 7 while Benjamin I. Schwartz claims that the most appropriate Warring States counterparts to Machiavelli are the “international strategists.” 8 Let the following brief account of Machiavelli’s political science serve as a framework for this discussion. According to the account of history which Machiavelli adopted from the classical period, states rise to power and good order and then fall into chaos in recurring cycles. While the entire historical cycle proceeds under the jurisdiction of the Roman goddess Fortuna, the ascending half of the cycle is driven by Necessity while the descending half is caused by Laziness. 9 This cycle can be prolonged or reset in three ways, by a lone individual, by prudent social planning, or by Fortune, depending on the situation. If the state is already experiencing severe disorder, characterized by military weakness and widespread disrespect for the law, evidenced by the presence of contending internal factions and the pursuit of personal interest as

Introduction

5

opposed to the good of the state, order can be restored only through drastic and violent measures. Aware of the impotence of committees, Machiavelli sees such measures as being the work of a lone individual, the prince or, if a state has been well and prudently organized, of a constitutionally sanctioned dictator. 10 This is the element of power politics, frequently taken out of context and misappropriated by politicians and power-mongers, that has caused so much abuse to be heaped on Machiavelli. It must be noted that Machiavelli always grounds the prince’s self-interest in the good of the state; thus the good (strength) of the state and the prince’s self-interest are inextricably linked. The underlying assumption is twofold: first, a state will not remain free and prosperous without effective leadership, and second, one cannot lead effectively for any significant length of time unless one is secure in one’s power base. Unfortunately, there is a blurring of these assumptions by Machiavelli, for as we will see, the life of the prince is not one to be envied. Machiavelli was well aware of the fact that those with the capacity for effective leadership would not likely be altruistic individuals, and would have to be seduced and persuaded that the sacrifices they make in order to lead others served their interests too, if not primarily. For many commentators, this blurring facilitates the ruler’s pursuit of self-interest eclipsing the social good Machiavelli sees as inseparable from it. Once order has been established, the prince can attempt to prolong the state’s tenure at the top of the cycle by organizing the social institutions of the state in such a way that they mirror as much as possible his virtù (a nebulous term used by Machiavelli to define the set of skills and dispositions necessary for successful rule). If the prince does not do this, his virtù will die with him, and the state will not long outlive him. This is Machiavelli’s preferred way of maintaining a healthy state: order through laws embedded in social structures. Clearly, the designing of social institutions is more political science than power politics. If the state is beginning its descent into weakness and corruption, the downward motion of the cycle can be reversed by returning the state to its beginnings, to the hungry condition where leaders and citizens are compelled to act out of necessity for the survival of the state. Such an act of renewal can be prompted by two sources: one internal, the other external. Internally, citizens can return the state to its beginnings if the corruption has not spread too far. If corruption has become extreme, then the rise of a prince (constitutionally sanctioned or not) is the only effective course of action open to one who seeks to salvage the state. Externally, Fortune can bring a city back to its origins through a variety of calamities. Machiavelli is loath to leave anything to Fortune, for Fortune is ultimately beyond a political agent’s control. So, while he credits Fortune with returning Rome to its origins by allowing a crushing defeat at the hands of the French, Machiavelli clearly prefers the state to instigate and carry out its own rejuvenation. Thus, both power poli-

6

Introduction

tics and political science are present in Machiavelli’s philosophy, but each is appropriate only at certain stages of the historical cycle—power politics for times of crises and extreme corruption, and political science for times of peace and order—and each must be directed toward prolonging the life of the state as a strong, autonomous political body. MACHIAVELLI, LAOZI, AND HAN FEIZI While I will speak of Daoism and Legalism, it is important to remember that these so-called “schools of thought” were constructs imposed after the fact, initially by Sima Tan and later largely accepted by scholars both within China and abroad. Whether any Warring States period intellectual would characterize his own work as “Daoist” or “Legalist” is debatable. As Aat VerVoorn maintains, “[m]any of the thinkers involved appear not to have felt bound to any social tradition or school of thought; they borrowed, exchanged and adapted ideas from each other or any source available to them.” 11 Thus, there are clearly family resemblances between Shen Buhai and Han Feizi, but it is not the case that these two thinkers are following a common script or are students of a common “master”; rather it is their similarities that create the idea of the school. The labels “Daoist,” “Legalist,” and “Confucist” are convenient shorthand methods of indicating that a particular thinker shares a set of basic ideas or tendencies with others, but should never be taken to mean that the thinker accepts all aspects of that tradition. Kidder Smith characterizes the idea of the schools, or jia, succinctly: “all the practitioners of his [Sima Tan’s] jia are somewhat hypothetical. . . . As much as anything they indicated a conceptual area, a style of practice.” 12 For the sake of readability, unless otherwise stated, whenever I use the terms “Daoism” and “Legalism” they should be taken as synonyms for the philosophies found in Daodejing and the Han Feizi. It is my contention that of all the Warring States–period philosophies, it is the Daoism of the Daodejing that is most closely echoed in Machiavelli’s thought. The significant affinities between Machiavelli and Laozi are numerous: the concepts of Fortune and the Dao as being both unknowable and operating broadly through a cyclical process, the interconnectedness and interdependence of reality, their not dissimilar conceptions of history, and the emphatic advice that the key to successful governance lies in the flexibility of the ruler. There are significant differences, however. The key concepts of virtù and de, while similar in that each is a personal characteristic of the ruler and the ultimate expression of his flexibility of mind and conduct, are very different constructs. The concept of humanity found in the Daodejing, that the human race is an integral part of the natural order, is alien to Machiavelli’s understanding of humanity in terms of Greek and Christian tradition, as

Introduction

7

separate from nature. In keeping with these opposing perspectives, Laozi conceives of civilization as an evil that leads away from nature and the Dao, while Machiavelli proudly views it as the victory of humanity over nature. Machiavelli’s celebration of civilization gives rise to a second fundamental and irreconcilable discrepancy between him and Laozi: the role of history within each system. For Machiavelli, history is one of the classrooms in which leaders learn how to become great and how to deal with Fortune; and the prince’s historical legacy is the lure by which Machiavelli seduces would-be leaders to undertake a life of hardship and sacrifice, fraught with dangers. On the other hand, when Laozi encourages the sage-ruler to hold to antiquity, he is speaking of a more primordial past, one in which peace prevailed because persons had not lost their connection to the Dao. History is also, in this sense, a classroom for Laozi, but it is a classroom in which only one lesson is ever taught: how to live in accord with the Dao. This difference is amplified by the fact that Laozi never glorifies history or the events it records as Machiavelli does; nor does he use it as a motivation for rulers. The scope of Machiavelli’s conception of history (as both cyclical and possessing pedagogical value) is thus more comprehensive, his counsel more likely to be effective, because it includes advice for ruling during times of disorder as well as times of order. In contrast, the Daodejing ill-equips the sage-ruler to reform a corrupt state. The parallels between the Daodejing and Machiavelli seem obvious enough, yet the comparative literature tends to ignore them, and focus only on Machiavelli’s connections to Legalism. This tendency can be explained by three factors: some links between Machiavelli and his two Warring States counterparts are misattributed, some are distorted, and some are ignored. The Legalism of Han Feizi, arguably the perfection of Legalist thought, was heavily influenced by the Daodejing and included the earliest-known written commentary on Laozi’s text. Thus, some of Machiavelli’s apparent connections to the Han Feizi are actually connections to the Daodejing that have been incorrectly attributed to the Han Feizi. The kinship between Machiavelli and Laozi is that of two philosophers, each born into troubled times, who spend their days trying to make sense of the social chaos that surrounds them, for the sake of their own survival as well as for that of their beloved societies. The connection shared by Machiavelli and Han Feizi is markedly different. Their relationship is akin to that of two colleagues—civil servants devoted to providing their ruler with the most effective counsel possible. The concerns they would discuss if they ever met face to face are almost entirely pragmatic; the level on which they would speak is strictly practical. Put another way, a dialogue between Machiavelli and Laozi would be predominantly concerned with theory, while one between Machiavelli and Han Feizi would be devoted to practice. Moreover, while Machiavelli and Laozi share the use of generalized and gnomic advice, such as be a ravine to the empire (Laozi) or

8

Introduction

adapt to Fortune’s whims (Machiavelli), Machiavelli is like his Legalist counterpart in being preoccupied with the specific and practical means of implementing such generalities. However, the former’s links to Laozi are overlooked, both because prevailing opinion sees Machiavelli as purely a pragmatist, and because, whereas Laozi envisions the state as a small, isolated, agrarian society, Machiavelli and Han Feizi are firmly rooted in the realities of existing political bodies of greater scope, proud of their histories and cultural accomplishments, and both dream of empires that will last for centuries. Central to such political bodies are bureaucracies and social institutions, which are not only unnecessary from a Daoist perspective, but are signs of a growing corruption. For Machiavelli and Han Feizi, however, such constructs constitute the very fabric of political and social order. Additionally, although the Han Feizi shares a deep affinity with Machiavelli’s cyclical conception of history, it, like the Daodejing, is concerned with one phase of the cycle. Consequently, Han Feizi formulates his advice to rulers on an incomplete basis. Third, the harshness of Han Feizi’s philosophy resonates strongly with the generally accepted interpretation of Machiavelli and with some elements of his power politics, especially when it concerns the law’s application (or lack thereof) to the ruler. The heavy-handed nature of Han Feizi’s state is necessary to instill order in times of severe corruption and chaos, but it is illsuited to ruling in times of peace. Ironically, the more appropriate connection between Machiavelli and Han Feizi is their focus on creating social institutions that would keep the competing interests of all citizens in check. Han Feizi’s system is designed to be a perfectly running bureaucracy, a set of social institutions par excellence, to the point that the leader is all but unnecessary, a figurehead rather than a true leader. This subtle truth of Legalism should be reassuring to many contemporary politicians: in a Legalist state the leader can be a complete idiot, and so long as they do not interfere with the laws, the state will continue to be strong and affairs will run smoothly. Han Feizi has designed a system that, if implemented properly, effectively removes the human element—personality, intelligence, abilities, and virtues and vices of particular individuals—from politics. Machiavelli does this too, although from a republican angle. However, as his cyclical vision of history demands, the republican mode of governance that replaces the human element of the ruler with a bureaucracy mirroring the prince’s virtù, can only last so long before corruption sets in. At such time, if individuals of virtù cannot return the state to its beginnings, the human element in the form of the prince becomes necessary. A political system needs to work both in times of peace and war, and while both the Daoism of Laozi and the Legalism of Han Feizi were constructed with the longevity of the ruler and the state in mind, it is obvious that neither political philosophy could be effective under both conditions. Con-

Introduction

9

cerning Daoism, Roger T. Ames asks to which situation the politics of Laozi is best suited: [I]s the political state recommended in the Lao Tzu characterized by a popular and widespread realization of the tao by all the people, or is this Taoist enlightenment a characteristic of the ruler alone? Is the Lao Tzu a handbook on how to stupefy the people and achieve political control, or is the objective of the Taoist sage-ruler . . . to lead his people towards their own fulfillment? 13

In this respect, the Daodejing finds itself caught in a set of polarized characterizations similar to those that plague studies of Machiavelli: the argument over whether he is to be read as promoting the self-interested seeking of The Prince or as recommending the social institutions of the Discourses. Ames does, however, argue that “[t]he ambiguity of the Lao Tzu is such that it can quite comfortably accommodate both interpretations.” 14 While I agree with him that the text can support either reading, I question Ames’ contention that the duality can be dismissed as mere ambiguity. I believe that both readings are equally legitimate and further that both are necessary to the political program of the Daodejing. This program resonates strongly with Machiavelli’s idea of history as recurring cycles, fluctuations between states of order and disorder, and also with his analysis of the different forms of rule required for each half of the cycle. Just as Machiavelli sees republican rule as appropriate to a healthy and well-ordered state, and princely rule as necessary when the society has suffered decay and its social fabric been corrupted, rendering it weak and ineffectual, so too does Laozi envisage the role of the sage-ruler. The sage-ruler is a shadowy presence in times of peace, but becomes noticeable in times of corruption. In both cases, the visible ruler is a sign that the political order is failing. There is no controversy in labeling the Daodejing an anarchist text, but there is disagreement as to the nature of the anarchism found in the Daodejing and what it entails. John P. Clark calls the Daodejing “one of the great anarchist classics,” 15 and maintains that it “rejects the state, law, and coercion.” 16 Joseph Needham avoids the term anarchist, but claims the political philosophy of the Daodejing is suited to a “primitive collectivism,” 17 and discussing Daoism’s place in the tradition of Chinese anarchism, Peter Zarrow maintains that the “truest forms of traditional anarchism in China were thoroughly Daoist.” 18 While Ames maintains that Daoism can be considered anarchist given certain qualifications, the links with Western anarchism are often problematic because of cultural differences in how the relationship between the individual and the collective are conceived. In particular, he argues that the state cannot be dismantled as Western anarchists desire, because “the correlativity between person and state, does not reject the state as an artificial structure, but rather sees the state as a natural institution, analo-

10

Introduction

gous perhaps to the family.” 19 This is why Frederic Bender points out that the Daodejing cannot, strictly speaking, be anarchistic in the revolutionary sense—the sage-ruler is necessary to the implementation and success of its political program. 20 Zarrow dismisses the revolutionary anarchism as erroneously applying a modern, Western understanding of anarchism to ancient China: “Daoists did not set the individual against society: both participated in the Dao while neither could be imagined alone. Perhaps partly for this reason, no revolutionary program ever emerged out of Daoism. Rather, progress consisted in abandoning civilization; education and conventional morality were attacked with particular vigor.” 21 So if the Daodejing is anarchist, it will not be the revolutionary anarchism of the contemporary West, but will be a reformative variant of anarchism, one that retains both the state and the sage-ruler, but which minimizes their roles and ability to use coercive force. Having to account for the repeated references to the sage-ruler and his central role in the state, Clark and Ames scrutinize the authority of the sageruler and argue that the sage-ruler is really no ruler at all. Clark suggests that a “subtle, non-coercive authority is attributed to the ruler. There is nothing in this kind of authority that is contrary to anarchism: it is neither imposed on anyone nor used to manipulate.” 22 In a similar vein, Ames suggests that the authority of the sage-ruler is not to be conceived of as coercive in nature, but rather as “organizational rather than authoritarian,” 23 and as being largely ceremonial or “one with carefully delineated, non-coercive functions dealing with specific areas of group life.” 24 However, the conception of the sageruler’s authority that Clark and Ames sponsor glosses over passages of the Daodejing where deceit, manipulation, and coercion are expressly or subtly put forth as possible tools at the sage-ruler’s disposal. Further, the insistence that the sage-ruler has no coercive power serves to underscore the Daodejing’s limitations of scope: its ultra-minimal government and the non-interference policies of the sage-ruler are only possible in small societies that are isolated from foreign influences and are not afflicted with serious internal corruption. Implementing the political program of the Daodejing in a society that is not Daoistoriented, or ensuring this community’s survival in the face of foreign, nonDaoist states, is a near impossible task, but when that political program is conceived of as anarchist in nature, its ability to be implemented and survive in anything other than ideal conditions is even more unlikely. Clearly the illegitimate use of such power invalidates the authority of the sage-ruler, but the question is not one of coercion versus non-coercion, but of legitimate versus non-legitimate use of force. Clark further rejects the notion that the sage-ruler is special in any significant way, maintaining that in a Daoist society “knowledge (like art, religion, and politics) is integrated into the life of the community, rather than reified by becoming the possession of the members of a hierarchical institution.” 25 Clark makes an excellent point, for when knowledge becomes the exclusive

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11

possession of a class of persons it creates the conditions of inequality as much as the exclusivity of private property does. However, there is inequality in the Daodejing, as is made clear by the repeated references to the sageruler and the people, whose roles are not of the same kind and cannot be interchanged as seen in the image of the wheel found in chapter 11. Furthermore, as Ames’ question makes clear, a corrupt people will not simply adhere to the Dao on their own, but will need to be led back to it. The sageruler, superior to them already because of his understanding of the Dao, can lead them back. Thus the Daodejing seeks a reformation by the sage-ruler which can be spread throughout society via the state, not his elimination and a dismantling of the state by means of revolution. The real issue is not the existence of inequality between the sage-ruler and the people, but the nature of that inequality, not of rulership per se, but of the type of rulership, and by extension its legitimacy. The sage-ruler leads the people to an understanding of the Dao by, as much as possible, occupying the lower position and placing himself beneath them, putting them before himself, and taking their mind as his own. There is little to object to in that form of inequality. What will become contentious is when the sage-ruler must deal with extreme corruption and foreign aggression, when the survival of the community will require tactics of non-contention and the taking of the lower position to have darker tones. When Ames asks whether the people realize the Dao spontaneously or whether they need the process facilitated by the sage-ruler, he is inquiring about the relationship between the Dao and the people. I argue that both relationships must exist. There is no way that a mass of people, their minds mired in the “unnatural” desires that the Daodejing decries, would all suddenly realize the Dao on their own. They would need someone, the sageruler, to lead them in this direction, and while the Daodejing proclaims that this is to be done through seemingly peaceful means such as policies of noninterference, there are repeated hints throughout the text that much harsher means may be necessary. As such, the Daodejing’s claim to promoting a reformative form of anarchy is not as clear-cut as Ames and Zarrow portray it. However, the sage-ruler’s role is a temporary one; once the people have realized the Dao, regardless of the methods used to get them into this state of being, there is no longer any need for him. At such time, the second interpretation becomes dominant, and the people rule themselves through realization of the Dao in a natural, anarchic fashion, without the aid of the sage-ruler. The relationship between the sage-ruler and the people is akin to that between the prince and the state: once the people have realized the Dao, the sage-ruler is no longer needed. Analogously, only once the state is strong and secure and order has been restored can Machiavelli’s ideal prince create the social institutions that are to replace him upon his death (or sooner). In both philosophies, the ideal ruler is one who is so successful that he works himself

12

Introduction

out of his job, leaving the people and the state to run smoothly of their own accord. The Daodejing does a wonderful job of depicting how its natural, anarchic state should be run—and the sage ruler is all but absent from it. The problem is that this peaceful state of affairs cannot last indefinitely. It is only when corruption has begun to manifest itself that the sage-ruler becomes visible. Aside from logistical concerns, such as foreign aggressors encroaching on or seeking conflict with a well-ordered Daoist state, the metaphysics of the Daodejing make it clear that this peaceful condition, as all circumstances are, can only be transient. This is where the political philosophy of the Daodejing begins to fall apart; Laozi alludes to heavy-handed measures being necessary to maintain order, but never develops them. This is a serious shortcoming, for it is unclear how a highly corrupt people, their minds polluted by what the Daodejing would see as unnatural desires, would transform of their own accord simply because of the shadowy presence of the sageruler. Perhaps more telling is the legend of Laozi that records him leaving the state he served, Zhao, because it had begun to decline. Were the political philosophy of the Daodejing capable of reforming a seriously corrupted state, surely this venerable sage-ruler would have stayed and ministered to his homeland. That he did not suggests that even the early Daoists recognized the limits of their political philosophy’s efficacy. This is where the Han Feizi fills out the other half of Machiavelli’s recurring cycle. Whereas the Daodejing is an appropriate method for ruling during times of order, the draconian doctrines found in the Han Feizi are appropriate for ruling during times of corruption and disorder. In my discussion of Legalism, I will focus on Machiavelli’s resemblance to Han Feizi for three reasons. The first is that Han Feizi’s text acknowledges its indebtedness to the Daodejing. The second arises from the tension between politics as a science and the advocacy of power politics, a tension that permeates the thought of Han Feizi as much as it does the works of Machiavelli. The third stems from the fact that Han Feizi was not the only thinker who advocated ideas considered to be Legalist in nature, but his treatise is viewed as the most robust articulation of Legalist thought, both because of its depth and breadth, and as well, because he synthesized the works of other Legaliststyled intellectuals into a cogent system of thought. Specifically, he drew upon Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, and Shen Dao, all of whom advocated a variety of Legalist-styled policies, but each of which was limited in scope. Han Feizi is most indebted to Shang Yang, from whom he adopts not just the universal applicability of clearly formulated laws, but the emphasis on agriculture and military matters as the foundation of a state’s wealth and strength, and his ban on all other activities and philosophies. All of this is sage counsel for survival in the intra-state chaos of the Warring States period. Where Shang Yang falls short, however, is the administration of this, or any,

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13

large society. The legal, agricultural, and military apparatus of a state require both a ruler with authority and a bureaucracy to manage them, and Han Feizi turns to Shen Buhai and Shen Dao for theories to flesh out and implement Shang Yang’s vision. Shen Buhai maintains that the ruler needs to maintain isolation from his ministers to prevent being manipulated by them, and provides the ruler with a means of controlling his subordinates, by means of the tallying of names (ensuring that one’s actions match one’s job description and promises) and by holding onto the two handles of government (the means to reward and punish performance or lack thereof). From Shen Dao, Han Feizi appropriates the central importance of the authority of the ruler and the idea that this authority is located in the office, not the moral or intellectual qualities of the office-holder. This is the standard view of Han Feizi’s relation to his intellectual progenitors advocated by Schwartz and Watson, 26 but will always remain open to speculation and dispute. The exact lineages of Han Feizi’s ideas can only be assumed from his own statements in the Han Feizi, because few fragments from Shen Buhai and Shen Dao have survived, and what is now referred to as The Book of Lord Shang is not only incomplete, but was probably not written by Shang Yang himself but by later adherents of his ideas. While there are many differing interpretations of the Han Feizi, the text is sufficiently unambiguous that these interpretations are nowhere nearly as divergent as those that haunt Machiavelli and Laozi. The problems that arise in discussions of Legalism occur primarily when its two most famous advocates, Han Feizi and Shang Yang, are not adequately distinguished from one another, and when Legalism is examined in respect to another school of Warring States thought. 27 A secondary goal of my overall argument is to draw out the violent tendencies in the Daodejing, and elucidate how Laozi’s philosophy acknowledges the necessity of brute force; at the same time I will illustrate why his counsel is ineffective for dealing with a corrupt state even if it is well-suited to governing during peaceful times. Similarly, I will deal with the inadequacies in Han Feizi’s Legalism, showing why, despite its being a potent remedy for a state plagued by disorder and lawlessness, it cannot sustain itself through times of prolonged peace. To ensure continued success over time and through history, what is needed is both philosophies. One must rule like a Han Feizi Legalist when founding a new state or restoring a corrupt state to order, but one must also rule like a Laozi Daoist once peace and order have been established—and Machiavelli’s philosophy, grounded in his cyclical vision of history, promises to do just that. At the same time, looking at the Daodejing and the Han Feizi gives us insight into the shortcomings of Machiavelli’s philosophy, specifically the limitations regarding the ruler’s flex-

14

Introduction

ibility. Machiavelli was aware of these limitations and lamented them throughout his writings, but was at a loss to formulate solutions for them. THE STATE OF THE LITERATURE: MACHIAVELLI The literature concerning Machiavelli can be divided into two general categories: historical (often referred to, but not synonymous with, the “Cambridge School”) and ahistorical. The first is written by those scholars who maintain that the only way to truly understand what Machiavelli is saying is to execute a rigorous analysis of the text with a constant eye to the historical circumstances in which he wrote. In fact, these scholars generally claim that any understanding of Machiavelli that does not view him through the perspective of his own historical setting is at best a misunderstanding and at worse a fabrication. This historical approach to Machiavelli has produced many powerful pieces of scholarship such as Quentin Skinner’s The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Allan H. Gilbert’s Machiavelli’s “Prince” and Its Forerunners: The “Prince” as a Typical Book de Regimine Principum, Anthony J. Parel’s The Machiavellian Cosmos, Peter S. Donaldson’s Machiavelli and the Mystery of State, and all of Maurizio Viroli’s works on Machiavelli, From Politics to Reason of State, Machiavelli, and Machiavelli’s God. However, there are two drawbacks to such a rigorously historical approach. First, there is no consensus on which historical factors were the most influential on Machiavelli, leaving the historical approach with an awkward melange of interpretations. For example, Parel is critical of Isaiah Berlin’s interpretation of Machiavelli as a value pluralist, arguing that there is no trace of the liberalism that Berlin claims Machiavelli is anticipating in the Florentine’s writing, 28 but Viroli sees in Machiavelli a paragon of tolerance and an appreciation of diversity. Machiavelli, Viroli claims, knew “too well that human fragility and weakness do not allow for the pursuit of moral perfection, which he also considered to be intolerably boring; he enjoyed the variety of individuals’ inclinations, tastes, and passions and never even conceived of the idea that there is but one right way of living one’s life.” 29 Which tradition Machiavelli is part of is also an open question (this assumes, as many scholars seem to, that he cannot belong to multiple traditions simultaneously). Gilbert, for instance, interprets Machiavelli’s The Prince as a spin on the mirror-for-princes genre of political texts, while Donaldson looks at political writers who view Machiavelli as part of the arcana imperii tradition that conceives of the political authority of kingship as a mysterious and sacred property, exclusive to royalty. The second unsatisfactory aspect of the historical approach is that it often creates the impression that Machiavelli and his message are dead, that they can only be understood or have relevance

Introduction

15

within the context of Renaissance Florence. Clearly this is not the case; as the persistence of authors who continue to contribute to a growing variety of ahistorical interpretations of Machiavelli suggests, there are dimensions of his thought that transcends his historical context and are relevant to other historical periods. Undoubtedly, Machiavelli never intended to send the messages that some later intellectuals claim to have discovered in his writings, but that does not invalidate the fact that much of Machiavelli’s thought is relevant and applicable to contexts beyond Renaissance Florence. Despite these two problems, the historical approach remains a potent way of guarding against basic misunderstandings of Machiavelli, such as when Viroli employs the historical approach to correct the common perception of Machiavelli as the primary formulator of the doctrine of the reason of state. 30 The shortcomings of the strictly historical approach make it ultimately unsatisfactory, and highlight by way of contrast the strengths of ahistorical readings of Machiavelli. This approach, while recognizing that Machiavelli was writing in the context of Renaissance Florence, had the concerns of his day in mind, and was addressing his works to specific audiences of his contemporaries, maintains that much of what Machiavelli said is relevant to and holds meaning for other historical epochs as well. The fact that Machiavelli bases his methodology on the assumption that human nature is a constant, that “the same desires and humours exist and have always existed in all cities and among all peoples” 31 and that what worked in ancient Rome would work in Renaissance Florence, lends his own imprimatur to the ahistorical approach. Adherents to the ahistorical approach try to extract what they see as the core (or one of many central doctrines) of Machiavelli’s thought. They assume that these ideas are often hidden and latent, or are otherwise formulated in terms unrecognizable as relevant to contemporary readers. The work of such commentators is then to polish, refine, or even reconstruct these aspects to make them accessible. Thus, Isaiah Berlin sees Machiavelli as a proto-value pluralist, 32 Leo Strauss considers him an esoteric teacher of evil, 33 Antonio Gramsci argues that the theorist’s intended audience is the proletariat, 34 and Hannah Fenichel Pitkin argues his central themes concern autonomy and manliness. 35 To be sure, some of these interpretations are sounder than others, and some, like Gramsci’s, are admittedly self-serving distortions. Yet all these interpretations are fascinating takes on a civil servant dead for over five hundred years, and they all show that, far from being relevant only to his own time, there is something in the writings of Machiavelli that is still not only relevant but also alluring. He has touched on some basic themes common to politics and the human condition that transcend cultural and historical boundaries. This is why people other than historians continue to read his works, and why he elicits such strong emotions both from his supporters and from those who condemn him.

16

Introduction

A powerful example of the divisiveness Machiavelli’s writings elicits among scholars is the long-standing debate on the relationship between The Prince and the Discourses, and the implications of this for what type of rule Machiavelli favored or can be assumed to support. Harvey C. Mansfield argues that the two texts “constitute a pair” and that, while The Prince is not exactly a summary of the Discourses, both texts carry the same ideas, but each is tailored to suit the differences between their respective audiences: “The Prince is for the busy executive; the Discourses is for the potential prince with time on his hands . . . Machiavelli can explain certain matters more easily to a prince with experience of politics, who takes for granted the identity of kingship and tyranny, and other matters to those with opportunity for reflection, to whom that identity needs to be shown.” 36 Thomas O. Hueglin, in contrast, rightly noting that The Prince is a book “much more often quoted than read,” 37 goes on to characterize the relationship between it and the Discourses as “an elongated footnote to one particular problem raised in the Discourses (the problem of civic corruption beyond repair).” 38 The upshot of the debate is that the Discourses is generally regarded as containing a much broader political philosophy than The Prince, as expressing Machiavelli’s true political allegiance to republican rule, as well as his grudging and limited acceptance of the ruthlessness of princely activities. My position is that these two texts are complementary and necessary halves, each representing half of his cyclical conception of history. The theme of each text is the same: how to maintain a strong state. However, The Prince is not merely a footnote to the problem of corruption beyond repair. A major theme of the text is the necessity of dealing with corruption. It sees this corruption as inevitable, and when it becomes sufficiently widespread, as rendering republican rule utterly impotent. The Prince is not just an aside, but constitutes the guide to the second and necessary mode of government, a mode in which the republican model is not, due to circumstances, a viable option. The last few decades have seen a flourishing of literature that explores interactions and parallels between Chinese and Western philosophies but, in this vast array of books and articles, few references can be found to Niccolò Machiavelli. The neglect of Machiavelli in this comparative literature is curious, because so much Warring States period philosophy is political in nature and because the historical circumstances of Renaissance Italy and Warring States China are strikingly similar. Both Renaissance Italy and Warring States China were geographic regions in which multiple small states of relatively equal power were engaged in futile and increasingly larger and bloodier wars of expansion. This led to numerous, prolonged conflicts, which devastated civilian populations and made political stability an elusive goal. The references to Machiavelli that are present in the literature, however, are scant, often undeveloped or, too often, misunderstand the Renaissance thinker’s philosophy. Thus, Machiavelli is completely ignored in J. J. Clarke’s Oriental

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17

Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought 39 and in Ninian Smart’s East-West Encounters in Philosophy and Religion; 40 he appears only twice in Benjamin I. Schwartz’s The World of Thought in Ancient China (compared to an abundance of references to Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, and Marx), 41 and he receives a mere handful of references in Victoria Tin-bor Hui’s masterfully written War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. 42 Still, the exiled Florentine civil servant fares better in these texts than he does when he is reduced to a caricature, as he is in Dennis and Ching Ping Bloodworth’s The Chinese Machiavelli: 3,000 Years of Chinese Statescraft 43 and Ben-Ami Scharfstein’s Amoral Politics: The Persistent Truth of Machiavellism (although Scharfstein openly admits that what he means by Machiavellism does not coincide “exactly” with Machiavelli’s writings). 44 In fact, the only treatments of Machiavelli and Warring States period thought that go beyond off-the-cuff remarks are François Jullien’s A Treatise on Efficacy: Between Western and Chinese Thinking, 45 and a few journal articles. 46 Unfortunately, with the exception of Jullien, these texts suffer from a limited familiarity with Machiavelli’s writings and often rely uncritically on popular interpretations of the Florentine, which causes them to focus only on the Legalists Han Feizi and Shang Yang. R. P. Peerenboom is perhaps the only author in the field to have recognized this problem, which he does in observing one of the similarities between Han Feizi and Machiavelli is that the latter, “like Han Fei [Han Feizi], has not been treated kindly by history. And, as with Han Fei [Han Feizi], one must take care in assessing Machiavelli to distinguish between the received Machiavelli of textbooks and the actual Machiavelli who wrote not just the infamous Il Principi but Discorsi as well.” 47 Peerenboom is sensitive to how a controversial thinker can be maligned by his opponents both during his own lifetime and over the course of history, because Peerenboom is concerned with the dispelling of similar misreadings of the Huang-Lao movement. However, Peerenboom’s project does not entail following up on his comment about Machiavelli to any significant extent, and while he is aware that there is more to Machiavelli than The Prince, in illustrating his warning, he still displays a limited knowledge of the complete corpus. To truly understand Machiavelli, one must look not just at The Prince and The Discourse, as Peerenboom insists, but also at Machiavelli’s plays, Mandragola and Clizia, his personal correspondence, his poetry such as the Tercets on Fortune, Tercets on Ambition, On Occasion, and The Golden Ass, as well as The History of Florence, The Life of Castruccio Castracani, and at his military work, the Art of War. 48 It is high time that Machiavelli be rescued not only from the obscurity he has been sentenced to in the comparative philosophical literature involving China and the West, but also from the parade of misunderstandings and shallow readings that have been put forth as articulations of his philosophy.

18

Introduction

The fascinating thing about reading Machiavelli with an eye to Warring States political philosophers is that, despite coming up with a philosophy that resonates with the Daodejing and Han Feizi in significant ways, Machiavelli had no knowledge of Chinese philosophy. 49 Reports about Asia did exist in Machiavelli’s Florence, as merchants and missionaries such as Marco Polo and Frate Ricoldo da Montecroce, who had traveled East in search of wealth and souls to save throughout the late Middle Ages, had returned with accounts (of varying reliability) of the wonders of Asia. 50 It is possible that Machiavelli may have been familiar with these accounts or had at least a second-hand knowledge of them (though none of his biographies make any reference to this possibility), but these texts are barren of any discussion of Warring States period philosophy. Add to this the fact that the earliest known Western translation of the Daodejing did not appear in Europe until 1788, 51 and it becomes clear that there were simply no significant descriptions of Daoism, Legalism, or any political theory upon which he could have drawn, which makes Machiavelli’s “Chinese” style of thought truly remarkable and, within its context, the most vivid sign of his true originality. 52 THE STATE OF THE LITERATURE: THE DAODEJING The Daodejing has also been subject to a wide range of interpretations both within China and without. The matter is further complicated by the various versions of the Daodejing unearthed in archaeological digs in the late twentieth century. I have based my study on the received version of the Daodejing, derived from the Wang Bi text. In light of the alternate versions discovered at archaeological sites in Mawangdui in 1973 and Guodian in 1993, a brief explanation and justification of this choice is necessitated. These newly discovered versions of the Daodejing (or Laozi as the earlier versions are often called) predate the Wang Bi version; the silk manuscripts found at Mawangdui date to roughly 200 B.C.E. and the bamboo slips found at Guodian predate the silk manuscripts by at least another century (the tomb dates to 300 B.C.E., so the manuscripts obviously were created prior to the sealing of the tomb, but it is impossible to say how long before that they were created). These discoveries have set certain corners of the intellectual world afire with debates about the origins of the Daodejing, especially its date, as well as the nature of the early Daoist community and its relationships with other intellectuals of the day. As Hans-Georg Moeller argues, all versions of the Daodejing from the bamboo slips through the silk manuscripts and the Wang Bi version (the textus receptus as he calls it) are consistently Daoist, viz., there is nothing decidedly un-Daoist in any of them, “despite manifold changes of meaning, including the total reversal of specific words and sentences.” 53 However, the discrepancies between the different versions as well

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19

as the incompleteness of the earlier versions vis-à-vis the Wang Bi text have created much speculation as to what is authentically Daoist. Specifically, the Guodian bamboo slips have a much more Confucian-friendly tone to them, or at the very least, do not possess the anti-Confucian sentiments contained in the Wang Bi text, while the Mawangdui silk manuscripts have a more Legalist tone. The truth is that these debates, with the evidence that is currently available from Mawangdui and Guodian, are largely futile. As Edward L. Shaughnessy wisely observes, “much of the initial scholarship devoted to the manuscripts . . . tells us more about the historiography of the twentieth century than it does about the intellectual history of the fourth century B.C. or before.” 54 The reason for the inconclusive status of the evidence stems from the incomplete and corrupted nature of the archaeological finds—there is no smoking gun, no text labeled The Complete and Unabridged Laozi to act as the standard and settle current questions. Complicating the evidence is the cultural milieu of the day, which has the effect of making all of the recently discovered manuscripts at best fragmentary. James Behuniak Jr. opens his discussion of the Mawangdui and Guodian texts with a reference to Gerald Burns’ claim that ancient China was a manuscript culture, in which texts evolved from edition to edition (as opposed to a print culture in which texts were sealed to changes upon completion), before claiming that the “Daodejing, like any early Chinese text, was hand-copied by individuals for specific purposes and it could be (and was) occasionally modified to fit those purposes.” 55 That manuscripts were hand-copied and could be modified to suit the intellectual allegiances of the author or the audience explains why the Guodian bamboo slips are more Confucian-friendly than either the Mawangdui or Wang Bi texts. Robert G. Henricks, citing archaeological evidence found in the Guodian tomb, suggests that the occupant of the tomb was the tutor (most likely Confucian) of either Xiong Wan or Xiong Heng, who both went on to become rulers of Chu. Henricks argues that this identity “would be consistent with the type of texts put into the tomb . . . the bamboo slips put into this tomb constitute a philosophical library, the type that well might have belonged to a teacher.” 56 If Henricks and Burns are correct, the different tones of the Guodian bamboo slips compared to the Mawangdui silk manuscripts are the contributions of their authors and owners, and do not reflect any version of the text that possesses a greater authenticity. The only thing we do know with any certainty is that another version of the Daodejing or Laozi must have been in circulation as early as 250 B.C.E., for that is when Han Feizi commented upon the Laozi in his own work. No one knows what version of the work Han Feizi had access to; however, as Henricks points out, Han Feizi comments on lines from twenty-three chapters, but only five of these chapters are con-

20

Introduction

tained in the Guodian texts. 57 Consequently, the Guodian bamboo slips cannot be the only or even the most complete version of the Laozi that was in circulation; rather, the Guodian find is just one of many. In light of these insights from Moeller and Henricks, I focus on the Wang Bi version, the received Daodejing, because its lateness and completeness represent the early Daoist community’s verdict on the text. As different Daoist intellectuals advocated for their ideas, they undoubtedly made changes of tone, emphasis, and content, in response to criticisms from other scholars and to render their ideas more attractive in the changing political climate. Thus, the received Daodejing, far from a text that is somehow tainted or perverted, can be interpreted as the most refined version of the Laozi that is still recognizably the Laozi (as opposed to the Huainanzi which appropriates Daoist ideas, but whose tone and content make it clearly incompatible with the Daodejing). Examining the reception of the Wang Bi version of the Daodejing in the West, Julia M. Hardy categorizes the interpretations of the Daodejing into three general waves. The first occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and focused on comparing the Daodejing with Christian doctrines. The second wave started in the early twentieth century and lasted into the 1960s. It took on a more romantic and idealistic quality, with the Daodejing being interpreted as a critique of and solution to the ills that plague Western culture and Christianity. Xiaogan Liu notes that more recent developments of this wave have fostered a plethora of mass-market books with titles of The Dao of . . . purporting to explain the Dao of everything from physics to love, but rarely including any substantial understanding of Daoism. 58 The third and current wave constitutes an attempt to understand the Daodejing in its original context and to reconstruct the most authentic reading possible. 59 Perhaps because of the difficulty of reconstructing the author and initial audience of the Daodejing, Isabelle Robinet, in her survey of this last wave of scholarship, finds considerable disagreement. Benjamin Schwartz discerns a mystical attitude in the text, Chad Hansen considers the Daodejing to be a treatise on the abuses of language, and Michael LaFargue argues it is a personal and political survival guide. And while Robinet finds compatibility, despite differences in emphasis, among the varying interpretations of Chinese scholars from the West, Liu claims that in contemporary Chinese academic circles, scholars have become misguided in their assessments of the Daodejing because of Western philosophical influences; he cites controversies regarding the definition of the Dao that involve terms such as cosmology, matter, principle, and substance, none of which, he asserts, are relevant to the Dao, and all of which are misleading. 60 LaFargue and Robinet both acknowledge that, as I argue is the case with Machiavelli scholarship, there is a schism between scholars who try to locate the meaning of a text within its original historical context and those who see it in a more ahistorical manner. LaFargue favors the historical approach,

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21

warning that one who seeks a meaning that transcends history, that is, as it were a “meaning for us,” in effect “looks in a mirror—the text is a stimulus for arriving at insights he or she already was on the verge of having.” 61 Robinet is much more sensitive to the interaction between reader and text, arguing that “[a] book is a dialogue, a game of relations. The reading modifies the book, which in turn modifies the reading. Groups of reader and readings emerge from these diverse interpretations.” 62 Far from merely being sceptical about the possibility of discovering the original meaning, Robinet concludes that “[t]he Laozi gives the impression of having, both by its form and by its aim, opened the door to multiple interpretations, and this is its success: it is stimulating.” 63 The same can be said of Machiavelli’s corpus. The present discussion obviously falls under the ahistorical approach. While I have much admiration for the fine-grained analysis of the historical approach as applied to the philosophy of both the Renaissance and Warring States periods, the concerns of this study preclude my taking an historical approach. In the first place, a comparative analysis of any two philosophers assumes that there is something in each philosopher’s writings that transcends not only the closed system of their own thought, but also of their respective socio-historical contexts, even when they are shaped by different cultures or eras. Secondly, aside from some comments regarding the historical setting of the writers in question, the very nature of any comparative analysis rules out overemphasizing historical forces. While context is always important, it is never the whole story. OVERVIEW Chapter 1 is devoted to a discussion of the political conditions in both Renaissance Italy and Warring States China, and seeks to establish the two eras as similar in that they were characterized by relentless warfare among a number of small but aggressive states. This warfare had brutal impact on civilian populations and failed to produce a definitive victory or a lasting peace, and conditions were only made worse by advances in military technologies and tactics. I argue that, broadly speaking and in spite of his distance in time and space from the Warring States period writers, Machiavelli faced problems strikingly similar to those confronting Laozi, and Han Feizi, and was engaged in a parallel project to find solutions to turbulent political situations that would foster the longevity of the state and permit people to live and enjoy their lives in relative peace. I draw upon biographical information regarding Machiavelli, Han Feizi, and conjectures about the life of the Daodejing’s legendary author Laozi, such as Machiavelli’s common heritage, Han Feizi’s noble birth, and Laozi’s departing the state of Zhao, to shed light

22

Introduction

on their respective responses to their situations as well as to their personal fates. Chapter 2 examines the parallel concepts of Fortune and the Dao in order to set the stage for how Machiavelli and the Daodejing conceptualize the human condition and envision the metaphoric stage upon which the ruler must enact his plans. (The Han Feizi, which comments on the Daodejing, is dealt with separately in chapter 4 because of the pragmatism that characterizes both it and much of Machiavelli’s thought.) Despite the fact that Fortune and the Dao are two very different concepts, there are numerous points of convergence between them that reveal a striking similarity in functional terms: each has murky origins and is not fully knowable, each operates in a cyclical or “returning” pattern, each is associated with the feminine principle and exemplified by water, each possesses unrivaled power and is indifferent to human interests and, finally, each is perceived as the fundamental principle of connectedness among all things. This last trait extends into a discussion of Machiavelli’s conception of history, which I argue is, broadly speaking, not inconsistent with the metaphysical worldview of the Daodejing. In chapter 3, I present an analysis of the responses that Machiavelli and Laozi each makes to the ruler who must face circumstances conceived of as ultimately governed by Fortune or the Dao, that is, beyond human control. Machiavelli and the Daodejing differ in the details of how their chief characteristics, virtù and de, are conceived, and in the advice that each thinker offers the ruler to cultivate these characteristics, yet both stress the magnitude of their respective concepts. They agree that the ruler sets the tone for his people, and therefore needs to live a simple life, be focused entirely on the good of the state, not be a burden to the people, and, above all, be flexible. Furthermore, they both contend that conventional virtues need not be part of good governance, and that human nature is such that, at times, the people need to be manipulated. What is crucial to both authors is that the ruler’s actions be appropriate to the situation. However, Machiavelli’s virtù requires a robust ego and a sense of theater, which the Daodejing’s de does not. The irreconcilable nature of the two concepts is illustrated in the exemplars of flexibility each thinker offers: Machiavelli’s centaur as opposed to the Daodejing’s dragon (the dragon reference is an interpolation of Confucius’ account of his purported encounter with Laozi). Both images are meant to convey the flexibility the successful ruler must emulate; however, the centaur represents the three separate modes the ruler must alternate between whereas the dragon, with its smooth flowing movements, symbolizes flexibility itself. This difference stems from a disparity between virtú and de and reveals a depth to the political philosophy of the Daodejing and a weakness in Machiavelli’s thought, namely, that the ego inherent in Machiavellian virtù prevents the prince from becoming truly empty, and therefore prevents

Introduction

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him from being truly flexible. This deficiency will always doom the prince, and Machiavelli acknowledges this, but is at a loss as to how to overcome this shortcoming. I deal with the relationship between Han Feizi and Machiavelli separately in the fourth chapter, because the ways in which they connect are the thoroughly pragmatic focus each takes on details and tactics (as opposed to theories and strategies). Machiavelli and the Han Feizi share epistemological concerns about the reliability of history, but draw different conclusions as to the usefulness of history as a pedagogical tool. They each conceive of human nature as selfinterested, but arrive at very different conclusions as to what this means for how a ruler should interact with his ministers. Finally, the most significant similarities between Machiavelli and Han Feizi are, first, their mutual suspicion of conventional virtues and their condemnation of those like Confucious and Savanarola, who advocate such virtues as appropriate in politics, and, second, their emphasis on law, although in the Han Feizi, “law” refers specifically to rule by law, while Machiavelli’s preference is for rule of law supplemented by the political artistry of the prince. While the Daodejing offers a vision of politics as an art, both the Han Feizi and Machiavelli present a conception of politics as a science, even if crude in nature. Further, Han Feizi’s use of Daoist concepts is strictly prudential in nature; consequently, Han Feizi never fully penetrates what is meant by Daoist concepts such as “emptiness” and “interconnectedness,” leaving his political theory still very much premised on the ego and his account of history stunted. Similarly, while Machiavelli comes surprisingly close to Daoist concepts at times, his understanding of them is always premised on the existence of the ego, and so his versions of them are shallow and inadequate in comparison to the Daodejing. Chapter 5 presents the culmination of my argument, an examination of the limitations of all three political theories. As I have said, the Daodejing is only useful during times of peace or minor corruption, and is subject to the logistical restrictions of a small state with minimal foreign aggressors. Legalism, on the other hand, is useful for restoring order during times of extreme corruption or for dealing with emergencies, but is otherwise so intrusive and oppressive, that no people will tolerate it for long periods of time. Machiavelli correctly conceptualizes history as encompassing both times of peace and corruption, and offers modes of governing for both as articulated in the Discourses and The Prince respectively but, insofar as his philosophy is premised on the ego, he is unable to offer advice to rulers about how they can be flexible enough to deal with either the day-to-day variations of Fortune or the recurring cycles of history. The link between Machiavelli and the Daodejing is further examined and it is shown that there is considerable room for both philosophies to benefit from each other. Specifically, the Daodejing

24

Introduction

frequently recommends harsh, even violent, means for dealing with corruption and crises, a characteristic that refutes stereotypical notions of the Daodejing as a pacifist and anarchist philosophy and that indicates the treatise to be much more compatible with Machiavelli’s philosophy and the violence the latter endorses than traditional readings would suggest. Furthermore, the self-cultivation practices contained in the Daodejing are demonstrated to be the key to the elusive flexibility that Machiavelli was unable to discover. A NOTE ON LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY The feminine plays a central role in the philosophies of Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi; however, the social contexts in which they wrote (ones in which female rulers existed, but were rare) conventionally assumed and described leaders as masculine. Moreover, with the exception of Machiavelli’s plays, which would have been performed for audiences that included women, the works of all three always address their works to men. While every bit of their political philosophies is applicable to female rulers and politicians, I make no attempt to revise the language of gender found in Machiavelli, the Daodejing, or the Han Feizi. For my part, I will generally follow contemporary conventions for avoiding sexist language, but in specific references to the prince, the sage-ruler, and Han Feizi’s ruler I will maintain the gender bias of their authors. As for rulers themselves, I will follow Moeller’s use of the term sageruler when referring to the Daodejing, for it encompasses both the quasimystical aspects of the sage and the political dimension he must play according to Laozi. In discussions of Han Feizi, I shall use the generic term “ruler,” although in some quotations from the W. K. Liao translation, the word “sage” is used instead. As for Machiavelli, I will use the “prince” in discussions of times of corruption and principalities, and “ruler” in those of republican regimes and times of order. Also for Machiavelli, there is a difference between Fortune with an uppercase “F,” sometimes referred to as Fortuna, and fortune with a lowercase “f.” Fortune or Fortuna is the Roman goddess who, for Machiavelli, personifies the capricious and inescapable force governing human life that we call good or bad luck, whereas (small “f”) fortune is simply a synonym for one’s situation (although many translations do not use the capital “F” to indicate this distinction). To avoid confusion, I will try to avoid using the latter, although for the sake of readability this is not always possible. While I will refer to the work of Laozi as the Daodejing, some authors label the work the Laozi. In the case of the Daodejing I will avoid this unless quoting other scholars. It is, however, common practice to refer to the text of

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25

Han Feizi by his name. When referring to his text, I will italicize the title as Han Feizi. I will also, for the most part, follow the Pinyin system of translations from Chinese in my own writing, although many of the older secondary and primary sources referred to in this work use the Wade-Giles system. When quoting authors who use the Wade-Giles system, I will adhere to that system. NOTES 1. Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 1.39, 105. 2. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1963), chapter 7, line 18. 3. Han Fei Tzu, “Han Fei Tzu,” in Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 96–7. Hereafter referred to as Basic Writings. 4. The Five Pecks of Rice, or Celestial Masters sect, did manage to establish a state in Sichuan that controlled a large area in the second century CE, but while this state was based on Daoist principles it clearly did not embody the small anarchic state advocated in the Daodejing. Far from showing the efficacy of Daoist political philosophy regarding large states, the existence of this Daoist state illustrates the complexities of the relationship between philosophical and religious strains of Daoism. 5. Isaiah Berlin offers an excellent list of the most popular interpretations of Machiavelli at the beginning of his “The Originality of Machiavelli.” See Isaiah Berlin, “The Originality of Machiavelli,” in Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 25–79. 6. John C. H. Wu, “Machiavelli and the Legalists of Ancient China,” Review of National Literatures 1 (1970): 70. 7. Robert T. Rowe, “Han Fei Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli,” Chinese Culture 23, no. 3 (1982 September): 51. 8. Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge [MA]: Belknap Press, 1985), 348. 9. Niccolò Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. and ed. Allan Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham [NC]: Duke University Press, 1965), 747. 10. Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.34, 94–96. 11. Aat VerVoorn, “Taoism, Legalism and the Quest for Order in Warring States China,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 8 (1981): 319. 12. Kidder Smith, “Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism,’ et cetera,” The Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (February 2003): 148. 13. Roger T. Ames, The Art of Rulership in Ancient China: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1994), 7–8. 14. Ames, The Art of Rulership, 8. 15. John P. Clark, “On Taoism and Politics,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 10 (1983): 65. 16. Clark, 67. 17. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 59–60. 18. Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 6. 19. Roger T. Ames, “Is Political Taoism Anarchism?” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 10 (1983): 35. 20. Frederic Bender, “Taoism and Western Anarchism,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 10 (1983): 25. 21. Zarrow, 8. 22. Clark, 84.

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23. Ames, “Is Political Taoism Anarchism?” 40. 24. Clark, 82. 25. Clark, 76. 26. See Schwartz, 330–43, and Burton Watson, “Introduction” in Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 7–11. Hereafter referred to as Basic Writings. 27. For example, R. P. Peerenboom rejects Hsiao-po Wang and Leo S. Chang’s claim in The Philosophical Foundations of Han Fei’s Political Theory (Honolulu [HI]: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986) that the Legalism of Han Fei and Huang-Lao are separated only by minor differences. Peerenboom agrees that compared to the Legalism of Shang Yang, the differences between Huang-Lao and Han Fei appear small; however, he argues correctly that there are significant and irreconcilable differences between Huang-Lao and Han Fei. R. P. Peerenboom, Law and Morality in Ancient China: The Silk Manuscripts of Huang-Lao (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1993), 98, fn73. 28. Anthony J. Parel, The Machiavellian Cosmos (New Haven [CT]: Yale University Press, 1992), 95. 29. Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 9–10. 30. Maurizio Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 31. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.39, 105. 32. Berlin, 75. 33. Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). 34. Antonio Gramsci, “The Modern Prince” in Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, trans. and ed. Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1973), 123–43. 35. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (Berkeley [CA]: University of California Press, 1987). 36. Harvey C. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue (Chicago [IL]: Chicago University Press, 1996), 125. 37. Thomas O. Hueglin, Classical Debates for the 21st Century: Rethinking Political Thought (Peterborough [ON]: Broadview Press, 2008), 73. 38. Hueglin, 74. 39. J. J. Clarke. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought (New York: Routledge, 1997). 40. Ninian Smart and B. Srinivasa Murthy, eds. East-West Encounters in Philosophy and Religion (Long Beach [CA]: Long Beach Publishers, 1996). 41. Schwartz, 347–48. 42. Victoria Tin-bor Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 43. Dennis and Ching Ping Bloodworth, The Chinese Machiavelli: 3,000 Years of Chinese Statecraft (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1976), xi–xii. 44. Ben-Ami Scharfstein, Amoral Politics: The Persistent Truth of Machiavellism (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1995), xi. 45. François Jullien, A Treatise on Efficacy: Between Western and Chinese Thinking, trans. Janet Lloyd (Honolulu [HI]: University of Hawai’i Press, 2004). 46. Rowe, “Han Fei Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli,” and Wu, “Machiavelli and the Legalists of Ancient China.” 47. Peerenboom, 318. 48. While a working knowledge of all Machiavelli’s corpus is necessary to a full understanding of his overall philosophy, not all of his works are necessary to the themes dealt with in this project. Hence, his novella Belfagor: The Devil who Married, his play Mandragola, and his poem “Tercents on Ingratitude or Envy” are noticeably absent from my analysis. 49. It should be noted that Machiavelli was open to drawing upon other cultures as data for his analysis of political phenomena, as evidenced by his considerations of the Turkish Empire compared to the French political system in The Prince, chapter 24, 20–23.

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50. Brenda Deen Schildgen, Dante and the Orient (Chicago [IL]: University of Illinois Press, 2002), 12. 51. Julia M. Hardy, “Influential Western Interpretations of the Tao-te-ching,” in Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, ed. Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1998), 165–88, 165. 52. As opposed to Berlin’s claim in “The Originality of Machiavelli,” that Machiavelli’s originality lies in his being a proto-value pluralist of liberal persuasion. 53. Hans-Georg Moeller, Daodejing: A Complete Translation and Commentary, trans. Hans-Georg Moeller (Chicago [IL]: Open Court, 2007), 197. 54. Edward L. Shaughnessy, “The Guodian Manuscripts and Their Place in TwentiethCentury Historiography on the Laozi,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 65, No. 2 (December 2005): 452. 55. James Behuniak, Jr. “‘Embracing the One’ in the Daodejing,” Philosophy East and West 59, no. 3 (July 2009): 364. 56. Robert G. Henricks, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: A Translation of the Startling New Documents Found at Guodian (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 5. 57. Henricks, 22. 58. Xiaogan Liu, “Daoism (I): Lao Zi and the Dao-De-Jing,” in History of Chinese Philosophy, ed. Bo Mou (New York: Routledge, 2009), 210. 59. Hardy, 165–88. 60. Liu, 220. 61. Michael LaFargue, The Tao of the Tao Te Ching: A Translation and Commentary (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1992), 189. 62. Isabelle Robinet, “The Diverse Interpretations of the Laozi,” in Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, ed. Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1999), 127–59, 153. 63. Robinet, “The Diverse Interpretations of the Laozi,” 153.

Chapter One

Living in the Shadow of Conflict Renaissance Italy and Warring States China

“[F]or peace it cannot be called in which princedoms are continually attacking one another with armies. Wars, however, they cannot be called in which men are not killed, cities are not sacked, princedoms are not destroyed, because those wars became so feeble that they were begun without fear, carried on without danger, and ended without damage.” —Machiavelli, The History of Florence 1 “The court is corrupt, The fields are overgrown with weeds, The granaries are empty; Yet there are those dressed in fineries, With swords at their sides, Filled with food and drink, And possessed of too much wealth.” —Laozi, Daodejing 2 “In ancient times husbands did not have to till the fields, for the seeds of grass and the fruit of the trees were enough for people to eat. Wives did not have to weave, for the skins of birds and beasts provided sufficient clothing. No one had to struggle to keep himself supplied. The people were few, there was an abundance of goods, and so no one quarreled. Therefore, no rich rewards were doled out, no harsh punishments were administered, and yet the people of themselves were orderly. But nowadays no one regards five sons as a large number, and these five sons in turn have five sons each, so that before the grandfather has died, he has twenty-five grandchildren. Hence the number of people increases, goods grow scarce, and men have to struggle and slave for a meager living. Therefore they fall to quarreling, and though rewards are doubled and punishments are piled on, they cannot be prevented from growing disorderly.” —Han Feizi, Han Feizi 3 29

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The historical context of an author is always an important factor in understanding his or her work. Despite the obvious differences that exist between Warring States China and Renaissance Italy, there are significant similarities between the political and military realities of each period supporting my claim that the philosophies of Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi were, broadly speaking, engaged in parallel projects: seeking methods to strengthen their respective states against internal corruption and foreign malevolence. The actual or purported personages of Laozi, Han Feizi, and Machiavelli are also telling, for each was in a position to observe politics from the front lines, as it were, giving them privileged perspectives upon which to formulate their ideas. Thus, both their situational similarities and their specific circumstances legitimize discussion of their respective projects in commensurable terms. Regardless of the many cultural, economic, and political differences between Warring States China and Renaissance Italy, Laozi, Han Feizi, and Machiavelli all lived in violent times and in political arenas that were in advanced states of decay. This had a profound impact upon how each conceived of politics, human nature, and the human condition in general, and upon what constituted a viable remedy to the ills of their respective states. THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE Not only was the beginning of sixteenth-century Italy a time of unrivaled artistic expression and accomplishment, producing the likes of Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, it was also an era of continual and bloody war. Split into five major powers, the cities of Milan, Venice, and Florence in the North, the Kingdom of Naples in the South, and the Papal States sandwiched in between, the Italian peninsula 4 fluctuated between periods of uneasy peace and unsuccessful turf wars. Closer to home, Machiavelli’s Florence swung back and forth between the rule of the Medici and republicanism, although the latter was often merely a patina on the Medici’s aristocratic legacy, in which bribery ensured that only those friendly to their family were selected for public office. This corrupted form of republicanism is a theme Machiavelli returns to over and over again in his writings. Wars between the rival cities were incessant, because they never resulted in a definitive victory for any one power. Instead, what typically happened was that the success of one power would incite the concern of the remaining cities to the extent that they would temporarily unite forces to put the ascending power back in its place. The result was a constantly reshuffled, unstable balance of power that left none of the cities with a clear superiority over the others. Machiavelli singles out the papacy for blame in creating this situation:

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[A]lthough the church has its place of residence in Italy and has held temporal power there, it has not been so powerful nor has it possessed enough skill to be able to occupy the remaining parts of Italy and make itself ruler of this country, and, on the other hand, it has not been so weak that, for fear of losing control over its temporal affairs, it has been unable to bring in someone powerful to defend it against anyone in Italy who had become too powerful. 5

The long-term effect of this was the weakening of all the Italian powers, accelerated by a growing reliance on mercenary troops and their celebritygenerals, the condottieri. The affluent mercantile centers of Florence and Venice were especially reckless in their use of mercenary troops, as their rich oligarchies would rather spend their money than spill their blood. The problem with this, as Machiavelli would observe in The Prince, is that mercenaries were often disloyal, poorly trained, poorly motivated, and had to be paid regardless of the circumstances (win, lose, or drawn-out siege). 6 But even a guaranteed wage is a meager incentive to risk one’s life, and no guarantee that the soldiers will do their jobs. Battles between mercenary armies were sometimes fought in which there were no fatalities on either side; taking captives hostage and holding them for ransom was much more profitable than killing them. Similarly, the knowledge that one could be captured and ransomed instead of killed was a powerful disincentive against risking death in battle. However, if mercenary armies were ineffective, the weapons of war were not. Innovations in technology and tactics were transforming Renaissance warfare into an increasingly terrifying phenomenon. Artillery was becoming common enough that fortifications needed to be redesigned to withstand its impact. Even Leonardo da Vinci got into the act; he served as military architect for Cesare Borgia, 7 adding his accomplishments in this field to his already formidable achievements in artistic expression, thus making him, perhaps, the truest embodiment of Renaissance Man. Siege warfare also increased in popularity and effectiveness. After all, what incentive was there for mercenaries to fight a battle in which they could get wounded when they could simply settle in and starve out an enemy over a long period of time, all the while being paid? Sieges provided better job security and less risk than battles. Describing the state of Italy prior to the French invasion of 1494, Machiavelli only thinly veils the contempt he feels for the situation; acknowledging suffering all around, he refuses to give the situation the dignity of calling it “war”: [F]or peace it cannot be called in which princedoms are continually attacking one another with armies. Wars, however, they cannot be called in which men are not killed, cities are not sacked, princedoms are not destroyed, because those wars became so feeble that they were begun without fear, carried on without danger, and ended without damage. 8

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However, despite the impotence of military prowess on the Italian peninsula during the Renaissance, there was little peace and much suffering. The civilian population bore the brunt of the effects of prolonged sieges, which often concluded in orgies of theft, sexual assault, and widespread, wanton arson. Obviously anyone outside of the city walls was at the mercy of the invading army, but even those within the protection offered by fortifications endured serious hardship, and when things became dire, the most helpless members of society, the elderly and the sick who were unable to contribute to the defense of the city, often found themselves cast out beyond the walls to face a hostile army devoid of compassion for them. Those lucky enough to be retained by the city were pressed into service to help repair city walls or supply troops and thus ceased to be non-combatants in the eyes of the enemy. As a result, citizens of a fallen city had little hope of sympathy or leniency from their conquerors. The inhabitants of the countryside suffered economically as well; invading soldiers availed themselves of livestock and supplies wherever they could find them, especially when their wages were late in arriving. Even if they were lucky enough to be unscathed by invading forces, however, civilians still paid enormous costs: war impacted every aspect of civil life. Normal market conditions were disrupted, the prices of commodities fluctuated wildly, and scarcity of these same commodities destroyed people’s health and well-being. Tradesmen could not ply their trades, merchants had little or no merchandise to sell, and consumers had little or no money to spend. At times conditions became so horrendous that flocks of people would flee, only to meet indifference and outright hostility wherever they went, because of the hardships their presence would impose on inhabitants of the regions to which the refugees fled. Already at the bottom of the social strata, peasants were especially vulnerable to the indirect impacts of siege warfare: famine and disease. Nor were the soldiers much better off. Siege warfare involved masses of men not renowned for good personal hygiene camping in crowded and highly unsanitary conditions for long periods of time. Add to this the presence of soldiers with infected wounds and an increasingly malnourished civilian population incapable of fighting off disease, and outbreaks of diseases like typhoid, influenza, and dysentery became inevitable. 9 Worse than even the devastation of the civilian population, the use of mercenaries also prepared the way for foreign military intervention. Adding insult to injury, the Italians were then subjected to repeated humiliation not only at the hands of other Italians and their mercenaries, but at the hands of foreign kings and their far better-trained and more disciplined armies, who were not afraid to fight. The first foreign invasion of the Italian peninsula occurred in 1494, when the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, acting out of self-serving political motives, encouraged Charles VIII of France to pursue

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his hereditary claim to the Kingdom of Naples. The campaign for Naples was shockingly brief, lasting only a few months. The remaining powers of the Italian peninsula, including Sforza himself, were stunned by Charles VIII’s easy victory, and became fearful that this incursion would develop into a fullscale French invasion. Concern over France’s success in the Italian territories also gripped other foreign powers, and shortly after Charles VIII had secured Naples, an anti-French coalition known as the League of Venice was formed among several of the remaining Italian powers, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, and Ferdinand II of Spain. In the face of such overwhelming opposition, the French retreated, but not before inflicting heavy and embarrassing losses on their enemies, while incurring few casualties themselves. Machiavelli’s hometown of Florence did not fare well during these goings-on. While they did not suffer any direct military action, the Florentines were collectively embarrassed when Piero de’ Medici surrendered to the French on shamefully generous terms. Their pride wounded, the Florentines rebelled against him and the rest of the Medici family, forced Piero into exile, and placed a price on his head. The event signaled the beginning of republican rule, with which both Florentines generally and Machiavelli personally had unstable and turbulent relationships. In the end, this republican experiment would cost Machiavelli dearly, but it also provided him with the opportunity to share his ideas with the world, and ultimately, to secure his place in history. Freedom from the French came at a high price for all parties on the Italian peninsula. Aside from the blow to morale that was the price of having to be saved from foreigners by the intervention of other foreigners, none of the non-Italian powers had any reason to be respectful of the property or persons of the people they encountered. And the French experience on the Italian peninsula revealed the military weakness and ineptitude of the Italian powers to all of Europe. Blood was in the water and the sharks circled; far from being an Italian victory, the quick success and easy retreat of the French from the Italian peninsula only signaled to would-be invaders that any city in the region was an easy target. Only five years passed before the next major foreign intervention. France, now under Louis XII, took Milan in 1499. The circumstances of the intervention quickly changed, however. Louis XII’s primary motivation was to secure his hold on Brittany by way of marriage, but in order to marry, he needed Pope Alexander VI to annul his current, inconvenient marriage. Alexander VI agreed, but only on condition that Louis XII leave Tuscany and provide Alexander’s illegitimate son, Cesare Borgia, with troops. This resulted in what Machiavelli called a mixed army: a well-trained, disciplined army, loyal to a foreign king, but operating on the Italian peninsula at the direction of an Italian power. 10 Borgia was also amply supplied with French funds and, much to the dismay of other Italian powers, Borgia’s new troops

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gained an easy victory over the rebelling Papal States. Once victory was accomplished, Borgia set his sights on other nearby targets. Cesare Borgia’s ambitions were cut short, however, by the unlikely coincidence of both his father’s, Pope Alexander VI, and his own falling gravely ill at the same time. Whether the illness was malaria or food-poisoning from a botched attempt at the assassination of a rival was never established, but whichever it was, it knocked both men out of commission, Alexander terminally so. He succumbed to the illness, and while Cesare survived, he suffered a lengthy convalescence. In the wake of Alexander VI’s death, the political climate changed dramatically. The French presence had served the Borgia family more than it had the Papacy, and when Julius II, who held a long-standing grudge against the Borgias, ascended to the throne of St. Peter (succeeding Pius II who reigned as Pope for only a month before dying), he saw the French army as a threat. Julius II formed the Holy League and expelled the French from Italian territory, effectively marginalizing Cesare. Subsequently, however, under the leadership of Piero Soderini, Florence refused to join the Holy League, and suffered Julius II’s immediate retribution: the reinstatement of the Medici to their former status. Such was the milieu in which Machiavelli was formulating his ideas, one of ongoing conflict and radical instability. The problems he saw Florence and the other city-states facing he recognized as perennial human problems, and they became the central concern of his philosophy: how to construct a strong and stable state capable of enjoying a prolonged internal peace in the face of internal factions and corruption, and a chaotic international political scene, all riddled by aggression, deceit, and greed. MACHIAVELLI THE MAN There is no need to relate Machiavelli’s biography in fine detail, as others, such as Maurizio Viroli, Corrado Vivanti, de Sebastian Grazia, Pasquale Villari, Roberto Ridolfi, J. R. Hale, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Mile J. Unger, and Paul Oppenheimer, have already more than adequately done so. 11 A review of the main events and circumstances of his life will suffice. Machiavelli was born a commoner, the son of an impoverished lawyer, but was blessed in receiving a solid humanist education. His political philosophy was born out of his career as a Florentine civil servant. Nominated for public service in the wake of the fleeing Medici, the young Machiavelli quickly became renowned for his remarkable powers of observation and for his intuitive powers in assessing political figures and political situations, as well as for being able to convey the information subtly and succinctly in written communiqués to his political superiors. The positions he held, secre-

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tary of the Second Chancery and to the Ten of Liberty and Peace, required him to keep abreast of and report to his superiors on political and military developments at frequent intervals in order that they could make informed decisions about matters at hand. (The frequency was required not only because of the constant shifts in and realignments of the political situation, but also because the various positions on the two bodies were typically handed on to new incumbents every few months. Civil servants such as Machiavelli, on the other hand, served in their posts for years.) His offices allowed him introductions to many of the most significant political actors of his day. The most notable of the acquaintances he made was Cesare Borgia, with whom he had several private audiences. As a member of numerous delegations to foreign courts, he also had the opportunity to observe various noble personages at first hand while visiting their courts, as he did Charles VIII’s, and to gain invaluable international experience. These not only let him see other political traditions and systems in operation, but also provided the proud young Florentine with the humbling knowledge of how laughable other European leaders thought his beloved Florence and the other powers of the Italian peninsula were. In spite of its less-than-stellar reputation, however, Machiavelli was thoroughly devoted to Florence, and continued to be so even when Florence rejected him. Shortly after the Medici were returned to power, an anti-Medici conspirator was caught; in his pocket was a list of names, and on it was Niccolò Machiavelli’s. Machiavelli was jailed and repeatedly tortured with the strappado, a device designed to rip the arms from their sockets: prisoners’ wrists were tied behind their back, and they were then hoisted by a pulley until they were high above the ground (the torture chambers had very high ceilings). Then the rope holding them was released, and they were let fall to a few feet above the floor. The combination of gravity, the prisoners’ physical positioning, and their own weight made this a brutal experience. Machiavelli was freed after no less than six rounds of the strappado, partially due to lack of evidence, but also because the Medici were celebrating the ascension of Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici to the throne of St. Peter as Leo X. With another Medici a pope, the Medici in Florence had nothing to fear from conspirators. Additionally, while the ringleaders of the failed plot were executed, bit players and those who were merely implicated in the conspiracy, as Machiavelli had been, were let go. Release from prison was a relief for Machiavelli, but his freedom did not hold the future he had hoped for. Derision of Machiavelli’s lowly heritage and suspicion of his association with Soderini’s republic haunted his career prospects for the rest of his days. He was banned from the Palazzo Vecchio, the center of Florentine government, and exiled to his family estate in Sant’Andrea in Percussina just outside Florence. Despite this, he continued with his two overriding passions: Florence and politics. He wrote The Prince during this exile, at least partially as a

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way of redeeming himself in the eyes of the Medici. When Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, to whom the book was dedicated, did not respond to it (there is no evidence he personally read or even received the manuscript), Machiavelli continued to write about politics and tried to help Florence by appealing to other audiences, 12 in the hopes that sooner or later, someone of ability would learn from his counsels and make Florence strong again. Machiavelli turns this into a moral obligation in the preface to the second book of the Discourses, where he states that “it is the duty of a good man to teach others the good you yourself were unable to accomplish due to the malignity of the times or to fortune, so that among the many people capable of such actions, some of those more favoured by heaven may accomplish it.” 13 Elsewhere, Machiavelli is more resigned about his writings, lamenting to Francesco Vettori in a letter dated 9 April 1513, that he has no choice but to write about politics, for politics is all he knows how to do: If you find that commenting upon matters bores you because you realize that they frequently turn out differently from the opinions and ideas we have, you are right—because the same thing has happened to me. All the same, if I could talk to you, I could not help but fill your head with castles in air, because Fortune has seen to it that since I do not know how to talk about either the silk or the wool trade, or profits or losses, I have to talk about politics. I need either to take a vow of silence or to discuss this. 14

During his exile, Machiavelli produced a rich corpus in which his philosophy was explained in numerous ways, and certain aspects of it were given special emphasis. He wrote a varied body of works: political treatises, guides to strategy, histories, a novella, and plays and poetry. Each was specifically written for a particular audience, and Machiavelli took pains to suit the work to its chosen recipients. An unfortunate effect of his particularity, however, is that his individual pieces are seldom considered in the context of the whole corpus, and are typically subjected to biased and unsystematic treatments. Indeed, at times, the author is made to appear to contradict himself simply because of the inadequacies of interpretive methods. The point is that, while Machiavelli’s works are not strictly systematic in the way that Aristotle’s, Kant’s, or Hegel’s are, the Florentine does nonetheless present a coherent philosophical vision. In an important sense, Machiavelli’s philosophy, like that of the Daodejing and the Han Feizi, is an evolution of a long-standing philosophical tradition. Despite Berlin’s famous claim about the originality of Machiavelli as grounded in his positing two moralities, Christian morality for private lives and pagan morality for public ones, 15 and Cassirer’s argument that Machiavelli founded modern political theory as a science, 16 Machiavelli is a creature of his age. European culture and learning have their roots in ancient Greece and were passed on with accretions and modifications through the Romans

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and eventually to Renaissance Italy. Machiavelli draws extensively from this rich heritage to create a coherent and powerful philosophical statement, and then gives it back in artfully-written texts of significant import which are his real contribution to political philosophy. The material that he reshapes is lifted in large measure from his predecessors, who usually go uncredited (the notion that ideas are private property and not public currency having not yet been invented). For example, his argument that human history is cyclical and repetitive is taken from Polybius, but Polybius is not mentioned, neither is Tacitus, despite Machiavelli’s reusing pieces of the Roman historian’s advice. 17 His humanist education, with its inherent admiration of Greek and Roman culture, is evident in his frequent resort to classical imagery and narrative, as in his use of the goddess Fortuna and Chiron the Centaur, his retelling of The Golden Ass, and his frequent borrowings from Aesop’s Fables. He also translates and updates two Roman plays, and uses Livy’s history as the theme of the Discourses. At other times, he expresses ideas already popular in Florentine intellectual circles, such as the condemnation of the effeminate strain of Christianity that had taken hold in his day, and the call for Christianity to be reinterpreted in its alleged original—and political—spirit. 18 Machiavelli thus represents a tradition, interpreted and modified to suit his requirements along the way, more so than he initiates a tradition. WARRING STATES PERIOD CHINA Just as Renaissance Italy produced both beauty and carnage, so too did the Warring States period (481–221 B.C.E.) of ancient China. In the face of a rapidly deteriorating social milieu, this period of China’s history also saw a flourishing of intellectual activity, commonly referred to as the Hundred Schools of Thought, as scholar after scholar popped up with suggestions on ways to cure China’s ills. Confucians, Daoists, Mohists, and Legalists all competed among themselves and against other schools to secure a presence in the imperial court and to block other schools from gaining the ear of the emperor. The problems of the Warring States period were rooted in the political legacy of earlier times. The Shang Dynasty (c. 1507–1045 B.C.E.) ruled a large kingdom and claimed its authority to be sanctioned by Di, a personal deity said to rule over both the natural and human worlds. This authority was purportedly communicated by means of divinations, but the claim was farcical, as divination practices were repeated over and over again, sometimes by the king himself and sometimes by his ministers, until the desired answer was obtained. When the Shang Dynasty fell to the Western Zhou Dynasty, the latter dynasty initiated reforms which decentralized political power by

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dividing much of it among various dukes, all blood relatives of the king. These dukes were given a significant degree of autonomy and were free to rule their lands as they saw fit, including the freedom to subdivide it further among their heirs and the lesser nobility. Nonetheless, the dukes and their inferiors were expected to remain loyal to the king and to follow him into battle in the event of war. Divine authority was still invoked to legitimate rule, but took on a new dimension when the “Mandate of Heaven” was introduced, replacing the arbitrariness of Di with law that, while still subject to significant abuse, was somewhat less likely to be bent to serve the given ruler’s will. Shang Dynasty reforms set the stage for the Warring States period. Over time, bloodlines were diluted, and the number of heirs and lesser nobility grew while the amount of land available to be ruled over remained the same. The result was an increase in both internal strife (assassinations, familial murders, rebellions) and wars between states. This trend continued throughout the Spring and Autumn period (c. 770–481 B.C.E.), 19 with a nearly continuous war of all against all, until it finally degenerated into the Warring States period, a situation not unlike the internal politics of the Italian peninsula of Machiavelli’s day. A group of seven major military states, Yan, Qi, Wei, Zhao, Han, Qin, and Chu, none strong enough to secure permanent victory over its neighbors, aggressively struggled for supremacy within a limited geographical area. 20 Aggressive jockeying for position occurred among the various states, and, as LaFargue comments, the widespread warfare and lack of centralized authority also undermined the traditional, hierarchical social structure. As a result, social mobility to a degree previously unknown in ancient China was now possible; people could no longer secure their social and political status merely through birthright, but had to rely on ambition and cunning too. 21 Competition for social standing was vicious and ubiquitous. As was the case in Renaissance Italy, technological and military innovations also changed the face of war and added a terrifying new dimension to military engagement in the Warring States period. The populace was forced to participate in war to a greater extent than they had in the Spring and Autumn period, when the various armies were deployed in clusters around war chariots driven and armed by nobles. The Warring States period, in contrast, saw large-scale infantry replace the chariot as the dominant force of battle, and this new order, requiring much greater numbers of personnel, gave rise to universal conscription. Armor was also reconceived and constructed of iron plating rather than leather, a significant advancement that made combatants more difficult to kill. The evils of war had greater impact on the civilian populace than earlier conflicts had, as warfare came to be conducted in a much less centralized manner. Whereas armies in the Spring and Autumn period tended to operate

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as a single entity, the less-centralized strategies permitted by their greater numbers allowed armies of the Warring States period to divide and to operate as a series of independent units. This meant that, instead of a military campaign consisting of a single battle in a single location as it had during the Spring and Autumn period, a campaign in the Warring States period could involve numerous engagements in many different arenas. Enhanced weapons technology, too, made warfare a bloodier activity than it had been. Not only were winged arrowheads replaced with a sturdier triangular design, but the Warring States period also saw the deployment of a powerful new weapon: the crossbow. The effectiveness of the crossbow made it a weapon of choice, and attempts to refine the technology throughout the Warring States period gave rise to linked crossbows that could fire several arrows in rapid sequence. Siege warfare also evolved in a malevolent way. In the Spring and Autumn period, the duration of sieges was typically no longer than the span of a single season, but during the Warring States period, they became longer and routinely exceeded a year in length. Existing and innovative technologies were both employed in sieges, the first instanced by attempts to tunnel beneath enemy fortifications in order to achieve entry, and the second in, for example, the invention of “cloud ladders” to scale walls. 22 All of these technologies, of course, compounded the devastating effects of sieges already outlined in my earlier discussion of warfare in Renaissance Italy. LAOZI THE LEGEND The details surrounding the legendary Laozi’s life are both more scarce and less reliable than those we have regarding Machiavelli’s. The fact that it is impossible to sort fact from fiction in the accounts that have come down to us does not mean that these accounts should be dismissed out of hand. Tenuous as their connection to historical reality may be, they still provide illuminating windows into how the early Daoists viewed themselves and, more importantly, into how they wanted others to view their movement. The most popular of the legends claims that Laozi was a keeper of the archives in the royal court in the state of Chu, that he bested Confucius in their only face-to-face meeting, and that he decided to leave his country when he saw it in a state of decline. When he reached the city gate, he was stopped by the Keeper of the Pass, who recognized Laozi as a sage and refused to let him leave unless he wrote down all his wisdom for those he would leave behind. Laozi did so, and left a treatise consisting of 5,000 characters, the Daodejing. He is said to have disappeared into the West, some say on an ox, and to have lived to an age of between 160 and 200 years.

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There is little textual evidence beyond Sima Qian’s report in The Records of the Grand Historian to support this legend, and most modern scholars maintain that not only did Laozi not exist, but that there is no single author of the Daodejing. There are exceptions, though, to this consensus. Guo Yi argues, on the basis of the style and content of the earliest known fragments of the Daodejing (the bamboo slips discovered at Guodian in 1993 which date back to the early Han period), that a single author can be discerned, and that there is little reason to not think it the Laozi who is reported to have met with Confucius. 23 Liu argues that the account found in The Records of the Grand Historian is much more reliable than is commonly thought. He maintains that roughly three quarters of the 454 characters that make up Sima Qian’s biographical account of Laozi are presented as a sincere report of factual information. The remaining 25 percent contains less reliable information, but was included, Liu surmises, as a way of ensuring that the account was “comprehensive and discerning.” 24 A. C. Graham rejects the authenticity of Sima Qian’s account of the meeting of a sage called Lao Dan and Confucius as being between the founders of the two schools, and instead argues that it is Daoist propaganda because, among other things, the meeting places Confucius in a subservient position to Lao Dan. This is a blatant commentary regarding the centerpiece of Confucian philosophy. There is also not a single mention of Lao Dan as the author of the Daodejing in any of the references to the meeting. 25 Graham goes a step further, and maintains not only that Laozi never existed as a historical person, but also that the Daodejing was posthumously attributed to Lao Dan, the Grand Historian of the state of Zhao, for political reasons. With the ascendancy of the Qin, many philosophical schools found themselves barred from the corridors of power or outrightly suppressed. However, Graham goes on to argue that Lao Dan had predicted the victory of the state of Qin over Zhao, and attributing the origins of the Daodejing to a historian who had the wisdom to foresee the victory of the Qin would be a politically astute move by Daoists hoping to garner official sanction of the Qin. 26 Add to this the fact the record of a meeting between Lao Dan and Confucius in the Analects, in which Confucius is clearly outmatched, and the attraction to the choice of Lao Dan as the author becomes obvious. Of course, the dates recorded by Sima Qian allow for the identification of Laozi with the sage Lao Dan only if Laozi had succeeded in living to an age of 200 years, but this too can be spun to favor Daoism, for such longevity is one of the benefits the Daodejing promises those who practice its teachings. Conjecture about the mysterious origins of the Daodejing has invited numerous proposals for how the text came into being. Moeller argues that the Daodejing “does not have an identifiable author” and likely was “a collection of separate ‘philosophical’ sayings that were transmitted orally before they were written down.” 27 His theory requires the existence of no author, only of

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a scholar to transcribe the oral record. Laozi was chosen posthumously as author, Moeller writes, simply to give the Daodejing credibility. Hansen, similarly, characterizes the text as “an edited accumulation of fragments and bits drawn from a wide variety of sources, including conventional wisdom, popular sayings, poems, perhaps even jokes”; he also agrees that the syncretic nature of the text, along with the existence of the Mawangdui silk scrolls, which he claims “differ significantly” from the traditional versions of the Daodejing, strongly suggests that “there was no single author, no Laozi.” 28 LaFargue also thinks the Daodejing began as an oral tradition of “proverblike aphorisms.” He stresses that such oral traditions should not to be construed as merely the recollections of students who have memorized the words of some master, and contends that, in the case of the Daodejing, the oral tradition was the product of a group of Daoist elite, or shih. 29 If the Daodejing is indeed an anthology pieced together from a number of Daoist authors who shared a basic philosophy but who also differed in focus and approach, this would explain why the text is fraught with repetition and why some passages seem out of character or place. Whether Laozi ever existed, whether he is the Lao Dan who appears in Sima Qian’s records, or whether the Daodejing is the product of one or many minds are important questions, but which, if any, of the suggestions is the right one makes no difference to the present discussion. I will follow convention by referring to the author of the Daodejing as Laozi and accept the legend as it stands, because the details of Laozi’s purported life, fabricated as they may be, are important: the legend reveals how Daoists wanted themselves and their central text to be perceived, and the information provided about Laozi is significant metaphorically, even if historically it cannot be substantiated. From this point of view, the purported Laozi, regardless of who he was or whether he existed, is put forth as an idealized portrait of a Daoist scholar. The legend asserts that, like Machiavelli, he was a civil servant but not a political actor himself and, like Machiavelli, would have been in a position to observe and analyze politics both through the lenses of historical sources and from the perspective available through his access to the royal court—in effect, the perfect marriage of theory and practice. Early on in the dedication of The Prince, Machiavelli describes the relative utility of status in observing political behavior: Neither do I wish that it be thought presumptuous if a man of low and inferior social condition dares to examine and lay down rules for the government of princes. For just as those who paint landscapes place themselves in a low position on the plain in order to consider the nature of the mountains and the heights, and place themselves high on top of mountains in order to study the plains, in like manner, to know the nature of the people well one must be a prince, and to know the nature of princes well one must be of the people. 30

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Such a statement, given its emphasis on the interconnectedness of perspectives and the value to be found in observers of low status as well as high, could easily have been a dedication at the beginning of the Daodejing. Laozi’s position in the royal court establishes the author as an expert in political matters and reinforces the centrality of politics to the treatise. His expertise is also recognized by others, a recognition signified both by the refusal of the Keeper of the Pass to let Laozi leave until the latter agrees to write out his wisdom and Confucius’ seeking out his counsel. The departure of Laozi from the city is also highly significant, suggesting as it does that he and his followers do not seek power for themselves, but only seek the good of the state and are content to be advisors. Rulers therefore have no reason to view them as a threat to their authority or usurpers of their thrones. Further, Laozi’s departure underscores that Daoists are not inclined to force an issue, their way is to take the feminine approach to problems; as such, their program will not be revolutionary. Last of all, the legendary age he is said to have reached is a testament to the powerful influence of the doctrines of the Daodejing—Laozi, the embodiment of the Daodejing, achieves a personal longevity that puts all his rivals to shame. HAN FEIZI THE MAN While scholars agree that Han Feizi existed as a historical person, the details regarding his life are scant in comparison to what is known of Machiavelli. He was of noble birth, unusual because the founders of and advocates for philosophical schools were typically from lower social strata. (Occasionally, I should point out, they were dispossessed members of the aristocracy, looking for employment and opportunity to climb their way back into position.) As Burton Watson comments, the fact of his nobility was a limitation for Han Feizi, affecting both his freedom of movement and the range of his thinking; while other philosophers were free to become itinerant seekers of greater knowledge if their leaders either disappointed them or showed insufficient interest in their skills and knowledge, Han Feizi’s heritage meant he was stuck, for better or worse, in the state of Han. 31 Han Feizi studied alongside Li Si under the Confucian Xunzi. According to Sima Qian, Han Feizi pursued a range of subjects, including penology, epistemology, law, and statecraft, and drew his principles from the works of the Yellow Emperor (a legendary king from ancient times who in all likelihood did not exist, but who has great social achievements as well as philosophical and political texts attributed to him) and Laozi. 32 His writings may have been prompted by the fact that he stuttered, an affliction that would have made speaking in court awkward. In contrast, Li Si, who was not bound to his home state of Chu by a noble birthright, found political advancement in

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the state of Qin by advocating ideas similar to those of Han Feizi. Both were posthumously categorized as belonging to the Legalist school, although Han Feizi outshone Li Si in this regard, with his work now considered the culmination and most robust account of Legalist thought ever produced. Qin became pivotal in Han Feizi’s fate. As events transpired, his ties to Han caused Han Feizi harm much more severe than simple isolation. The kingdom of Han was in dire straits. A small state of moderate wealth, situated on terrain poorly suited to agriculture and surrounded by aggressive neighbors, Han lived under constant conditions of hardship and the threat of foreign invasion. When Qin attacked Han in 234 B.C.E., the floundering Han government finally, and far too late, turned to Han Feizi for advice. He was subsequently sent on a diplomatic mission to Qin. When Han Feizi sought an audience with the ruler of Qin in order to present the Han proposal, his erstwhile fellow pupil Li Si, perhaps sincerely concerned for his patron king, perhaps motivated by self-interest and the fear that Han Feizi was a potential rival for his own position (because Han Feizi’s writings had made a favorable impression on the Qin ruler), warned his king that Han Feizi could not be trusted because his loyalty, secured by his birthright, would always remain with Han, never with Qin. Han Feizi was arrested, but before anything came of the investigation, Li Si sent him poison in prison with instructions to kill himself. Recognizing the futility of his mission, given that there was hope neither of a personal audience with the king or of his name being cleared, Han Feizi took the poison. One significant parallel between the lives of Han Feizi and Machiavelli is that both were bound to their native lands, Han Feizi, by his birthright, and Machiavelli, by a deep love for Florence that prevented him from seeking employment abroad. And in the end, love of their places of origin determined their political fates. Han Feizi could not convince the king of Qin that his noble heritage was no threat to Qin, and Machiavelli’s brilliant career sputtered out as he became an object of scorn in his beloved Florence, spurned by aristocratic government officials because of his lowly heritage. Turbulent times call upon great minds to find solutions to the problems facing their societies. Renaissance Italy and Warring States China were both overwhelmed by conflict and corruption, and it is not surprising that Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi rose to the occasions and offered bold solutions to the problems of their respective eras. But the three share more than similar historical circumstances; the particulars of the diagnoses and prescriptions made by each man for what ails their homelands are, in many respects, also strikingly similar, and the differences telling. Both similarities and differences open the door to a discussion of politics across cultures, which I will undertake in part with an analysis of the circumstances and concepts that underpin the worldview of each thinker. The operative term for Machiavel-

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li’s philosophical and political stance is, I have said, embodied in the figure of the Goddess of Fortune, while for his Warring States period counterparts it is the Dao. NOTES 1. Niccolò Machiavelli, The History of Florence, in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. and ed. Allan Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham [NC]: Duke University Press, 1965), 5.1, 1233. 2. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 53, line 121. 3. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 97. 4. I will sometimes use “Italy” to refer to the Italian peninsula of Machiavelli’s day and all that it contained although the peninsula was more accurately an incoherent cluster of city-states at this point in history. But at the end of The Prince, Machiavelli effectively anticipates the ultimate unification of Italy when he calls for a savior to liberate his homeland from the barbarians. He hopes for a Florentine who will first free Florence, and then seize control of and unite the other powers on the Italian peninsula in expelling the foreign armies of occupation. 5. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.12, 55. 6. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Peter Bondanella (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), chapter 12, 42–6. 7. Da Vinci’s service to Cesare Borgia is well documented by Roger D. Masters in his texts Fortune is a River: Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli’s Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History (New York: The Free Press, 1998) and Leonardo, Machiavelli, and the Science of Power (Notre Dame [IN]: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998). 8. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 5.1, 1233. 9. J. R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe 1450–1620 (Kingston [ON]: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), 179–208. 10. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 13, 47–50. 11. See Maurizio Viroli, Niccolò’s Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli, trans. Antony Shuggar (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2000), Sebastian de Grazia, Machiavelli in Hell (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), Pasquale Villari, The Life and Times of Niccolò Machiavelli (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1929), Roberto Ridolfi, The Life of Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. Cecil Grayson (Chicago [IL]: University of Chicago Press, 1963), J. R. Hale, Machiavelli and Renaissance Italy (Middlesex: Pelican Books, 1961), Giuseppe Prezzolini, Machiavelli (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1967), Corrado Vivanti, Niccolò Machiavelli: An Intellectual Biography, trans. Simon MacMichael (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), Paul Oppenheimer, Machiavelli: A Life Beyond Ideology (New York: Continuum, 2011), and Miles J. Unger, Machiavelli: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011). 12. The Discourses is dedicated to Zanobi Buondelemonti and Cosimo Rucellai, whom Machiavelli says deserve to be princes. The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca is dedicated to Zanobi Buondelmonti and Luigi Alamanni, whom he refers to as very dear friends. The Art of War is dedicated to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi, and The History of Florence, commissioned by Leo X in 1520, is dedicated and was presented to Clement VII in 1525. The Tercets are dedicated to historically unimportant figures—The Tercets on Fortune to Giovan Battista Soderini, the Tercets on Ingratitude or Envy to Giovanni Folchi, and the Tercets on Ambition to Luigi Guicciardini, brother of Francesco Guicciardini. And of course, his plays were performed to live audiences and so the political teachings he conveys in these works was spread far and wide. 13. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2. preface, 152. 14. Niccolò Machiavelli, Letter 208, April 9, 1513, in Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence. trans. James B. Atkinson and David Sices (DeKalb [IL]: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004), 225. 15. Berlin, 45.

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16. Ernst Cassirer, The Myth of the State (New Haven [CT]: Yale University Press, 1966), 140–60. 17. Kenneth C. Schellhase, Tacitus in Renaissance Political Thought (Chicago [IL]: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 66–126. 18. Maurizio Viroli, Machiavelli’s God, trans. Antony Shugaar (Princeton [NJ]: Princeton University Press, 2010). See pp. 43–61 for how widespread this position was. Machiavelli’s condemnation of the current practice of Christianity, as well as his call for reform, can be found in Discourses on Livy 2.2: “This way of living seems, therefore, to have made the world weak and to have given it over to be plundered by wicked men, who are easily able to dominate it, since in order to go to paradise, most men think more about enduring their pains than about avenging them . . . this arises more from the cowardice of men who have interpreted our religion according to an ideal of freedom from earthly toil and not according to one of exceptional ability” (159). 19. Some scholars dispute the traditional beginning and end of the Warring States periods and the Spring and Autumn periods. I have chosen to rely on the dates found in The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., ed. Michael Lowe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 587. 20. Leo S. Chang and Yu Feng, Introduction in The Four Political Treatises of the Yellow Emperor, ed. Leo S. Chang and Yu Feng (Honolulu [HI]: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998), 5–10. 21. LaFargue, 191. 22. Mark Edward Lewis, “Warring States: Political History,” in The Cambridge History of Ancient China, 620–32. 23. Hans-Georg Moeller, “Appendix: Different Versions of the Daodejing: A Comparison with Special Consideration of Chapter 19,” in Daodejing, trans. Hans-Georg Moeller, 193–94. 24. Liu, 212. 25. A. C. Graham, “The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan,” in Lao-tzu and the Tao-teching, ed. Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1998), 28–30. 26. Graham, “The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan,” 32. 27. Hans-Georg Moeller, Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory (Chicago [IL]: Open Court, 2005), 5. 28. Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 201. 29. LaFargue, 197. 30. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, dedicatory letter, 5–6. 31. Watson, “Introduction” in Basic Writings, 1. 32. Ssŭ-ma Ch’ien, “The Biography of Ssŭ-ma Ch’ien,” in The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzŭ: A Classic of Chinese Political Science, trans. W. K. Liao, 2 vols. (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1959), xxvii–xxix, xxvii. Hereafter referred to as Complete Works.

Chapter Two

Fortune and the Dao

“Highest good is like water. Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes close to the way.” —Laozi, Daodejing 1 “In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it. This is because there is nothing that can take its place.” —Laozi, Daodejing 2 “I compare her to one of those destructive rivers that, when they become enraged, flood the plains, ruin the trees and buildings, raising the earth from one spot and dropping it onto another. Everyone flees before it; everyone yields to its impetus, unable to oppose it in any way.” —Machiavelli, The Prince 3

Fortune and the Dao are concepts arising from two very different ways of conceptualizing the world. The Dao represents the fundamental and all-encompassing natural order of the universe, while Fortune is only one player in the cosmology that provides the basis of Machiavelli’s formulation of his ideas. That said, Machiavelli’s Fortune, in contrast to earlier versions of the concept, bears striking points of resemblance to the Dao of Laozi, almost as if Machiavelli were trying to express a similar idea, but was limited by the Western cultural vernacular which constituted his available rhetorical and discursive tools. Both Machiavelli and Laozi, for example, see the ruler as having a unique relationship with his metaphysical counterpart. For Machiavelli, the prince’s relationship with Fortune is largely an antagonistic one, a struggle to anticipate Fortune’s dictates and to prepare to withstand them, harness them, or bow to them, whichever strategy will best serve his self-interest. Laozi, however, conceives of the relationship that the sage-ruler seeks with the Dao as 47

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one of harmony. The Dao is the source and flow of events big and small, is ineffable and therefore ultimately beyond the grasp of the human intellect, let alone of description or explication. It can only be known through experience. One of the most significant differences between Fortune and the Dao is that Fortune has been traditionally personified as female as, for example, in the Greek goddess Tyche, the Roman goddess Fortuna, and the medieval figure of Dame Fortune. The Dao, on the other hand, is never given human characteristics. This difference between the two concepts is a question of culture. Laozi inherits an understanding of humanity as an element like any other of the natural order, interconnected by the Dao to everything else. Machiavelli, in contrast, is the child of a tradition that has historically viewed the natural order as debased, but which sees humanity as separate from and superior to nature. This point of view compels Machiavelli to dream of establishing a secular and temporal state erected on the foundations of history and culture, rather than arising from, and part of, the natural order. This cultural antipathy toward nature, while ultimately self-defeating, renders Machiavelli’s conception of history far more complete and nuanced than the glimmers of historical consciousness that can be discerned in the Daodejing, and this is what gives the advantage to the former’s philosophical proposals for the reform of a corrupt and malevolent political sphere. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons both Machiavelli’s and Laozi’s philosophy spawn so many, often conflicting, interpretations is precisely that their fundamental concepts, Fortune and the Dao, are not original to their writings, but were common currency used by their respective contemporaries as well as by thinkers who predated them. Because both Fortune and the Dao are conceived as being primordial and inexhaustible in nature, and thus ultimately unknowable, neither can be adequately captured by or expressed in language. This requires both Laozi and Machiavelli to resort to a range of linguistic strategies to express what is ultimately ineffable. The power of these forces is in the long run unrivaled, even if from time to time the opposite appears to be the case. Fortune and the Dao are also identified with the feminine principle, and the former personified as female, and are both viewed as indifferent to human affairs. Although Fortune is a less fundamental principle than the Dao, it is similarly omnipresent and inescapable; thus, like the Dao, it effectively interconnects everything, whether macrocosmic or microcosmic, individual or collective, natural or human, in the universe. FORTUNE IS NOT A CONCEPT ORIGINAL TO MACHIAVELLI Machiavelli’s treatment of Fortune is complex. It is a central issue in all his major works, as well as in several of his minor works, and is presented in a variety of guises. To achieve a thorough understanding of Machiavelli’s

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understanding of Fortune, it is necessary to look beyond the famous statements near the end of The Prince and to consider also his comments on it in writings as diverse as the Discourses, the History of Florence, the Art of War, the Tercets on Fortune, The Golden Ass, The Life of Castruccio Castacani, his play Clizia, and even to his personal correspondence. As one moves from text to text, the idea of Fortune takes on increasing depth and resonance, but it also grows increasingly ambiguous and at times contradictory. It is easy to attribute these apparent shortcomings to sloppiness or shallow thinking, but I believe that they illuminate Machiavelli’s efforts to depict Fortune’s scope and fluidity. In other words, the ambiguity and apparent contradictions of the operations of Fortune can perhaps only be expressed by language that is similarly opaque and polyvalent. In fact, this use of language subtly parallels some of the linguistic strategies used in the Daodejing, as we shall see. Machiavelli, as I previously noted, inherits the concept of Fortune from the Romans he thought so highly of, and they in turn inherited it from the Greeks. As the concept was adapted in turn by Roman, Christian, and Renaissance thinkers, it evolved significantly, and when Machiavelli appropriated the concept, he added to it and embellished it to make it better serve his own purposes. In Roman times, Fortune was seen as a provider of material goods, and her favor sought through appropriate sacrifices. The most significant revision of the concept before the Middle Ages was by Boethius, who reduced her to the status of a grim servant, a handmaiden of God, dispassionately turning her single wheel in furtherance of God’s plan. The concept continued to dominate medieval literature and was popular well into the Renaissance, as witnessed by the writings of men as diverse as Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and many of Machiavelli’s nearer contemporaries. 4 Machiavelli, however, populates Fortune’s palace with servants and gives her multiple wheels, elevates her to a status that rivals God’s, and depicts her demeanor as malicious and wicked. The complex history of Fortune, as well as of the ambiguity of Machiavelli’s own use of the concept, has meant that the ontological status of Fortune in his writings remains a matter of contention among scholars. Some, such as Parel and Sammy Basu, argue that Machiavelli favors the paganbased Renaissance astrological and cosmological model of the world and modifies it to the extent that it overshadows its Christian counterpart. 5 Ernst Cassirer, on the other hand, who views Machiavelli as separating politics from ethics, 6 takes Fortune as little more than a superstition from which Machiavelli is unable to free himself, even as he pens the West’s first scientific account of politics. What is clear, if one reads Machiavelli’s corpus thoroughly, is that the ruler’s relationship in terms of the cosmos is solely with Fortune. God may exist, but Machiavelli never counsels piety or prayer as either a political or

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military tactic. All his references to religion are strategic in nature; for Machiavelli, religion is nothing more than a tool to promote social cohesion, motivate the troops, and at times, to hoodwink the masses. 7 Machiavelli also never writes about the traditional practice of placating the goddess of Fortune. This suggests to me that he does not really believe in the force as a personalized entity, despite his references to Fortuna and the goddess. He may not, in fact, even believe in the existence of a singular power. However, there is no question that the forces the figure personifies do exist and that the successful ruler must learn to navigate them. What these forces should be taken to represent in modern terms is also a point of contention. Mansfield’s stance, for example, is that classical and medieval ideas of Fortune are both confused: because the motions of nature are neither reliable nor trustworthy, they appear to humans as fickle and capricious, as Fortune, good or bad. He equates nature to Fortune, and interprets Machiavelli’s conception of history to be a battle between human activity (virtù) and nature (Fortune): For [Machiavelli], historical change is either the motion of nature—not perhaps random but not intended by men—or the order and ordering . . . that men intend. Since nature’s motions do not make men feel safe or grateful, they appear to men as “fortune,” sometimes good and sometimes bad but never reliable. Because nature looks to us like fortune, it is in effect reducible to fortune. . . . And since human order made by human virtue is designed to overcome this sense of lack of support, and to create reliable principles and states, the context of history must be understood as a contest between virtue and fortune. 8

While such an interpretation gives emphasis to the clash between culture and nature, and would support the idea that longevity of the state is for Machiavelli the hallmark of greatness in politics (the longer a state survives, the more successful it has been against Fortune/nature), this interpretation is problematic in that it belittles the agency of other human beings in the operations of Fortune. Oded Balaban asserts the opposite: that Fortune is nothing more than the vagaries of human activity. Balaban argues that “fortuna does not merely consist in unexpected turns of events; but in those events which are the byproduct of action, and that as an unintended result of action it assumes a nature-like guise.” 9 However, this is nothing more than a self-referential argument. Obviously, if a person experiences something (say, being struck by a car, witnessing a murder, or eating a piece of blow fish that was not properly prepared) it can be traced back to a decision the victim made, to walk across the street, go unknowingly to the crime scene, or eat dinner, or to the agency of others such as the other driver, the murderer, or the incompetent chef. This perspective, however, quickly becomes implausible. People

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can, in principle, be blamed for exposing themselves to misfortune by living in hurricane or tornado or flood zones because they know these natural events occur routinely in these areas, even if their specific manifestations cannot be predicted (although this assumes that they all have the freedom and the means to move away, which is not always the case). But other instances which are considered to be equally the result of Fortune are not so easily attributed to an agent’s action, and amount to nothing more than absurdly blaming the victim. If a meteor crashes to earth and kills a woman walking to the corner store, surely it is silly to credit her misfortune to her decision to walk to the store at that particular moment. I maintain that, whatever Fortune is for Machiavelli, it is not nature and it is not human activity, although Fortune manifests through both. Fortune is a phenomenon that cannot be reduced to its parts, because it operates as an emergent quality, like consciousness. In this spirit, Thomas Flanagan argues that Machiavelli’s concept of Fortune is analogous to modern statistical theory, which can make accurate predictions on large scales (for example, the identification and projection of social and economic trends), but which cannot make accurate predictions for particular individuals (how one will act or fare within those trends). 10 Fortune, as it plays out on a large scale in historical movements, is not unlike Adam Smith’s invisible hand; an illusion of an agent at work where there is, in fact, no agent. However, because Fortune manifests through various specific entities, that is, human agency and the natural objects and processes that intersect with a given individual, it is not surprising that people tend to identify Fortune with these agents and forces and thus to attribute to the seemingly-coordinated efforts of these beings purpose, intelligence, and will. Functionally, for Machiavelli Fortune is anything beyond one’s immediate control: every person is at least partially the product of Fortune; we cannot choose our parents and our genetic predispositions any more than we can choose when and where we are born; our basic nature can thus properly be attributed to Fortune, good or bad. Machiavelli’s awareness of this reality is clearly stated in the Tercets on Fortune, where he writes that “you cannot change your character nor give up the disposition that Heaven endows you with . . . to attain this is denied by the occult forces that rule us.” 11 Similarly, he laments in The Prince the human tendency to be lulled into a false sense of security regarding the effectiveness of a given mode of action based on previous successes. 12 One’s personality, the effects of one’s actions or the actions of others, and the motions of nature or external reality in general are all attributable to Fortune for Machiavelli, because one cannot control any of them completely. This is the human condition as Machiavelli sees it, and it forms the fundamental reality of the political realm that the Prince must understand and from which he must operate: persons are thrust into a world beyond their control,

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and whatever they do not take charge of through their prudence, courage, perseverance, cunning, and vision is what they will be at the mercy of for the rest of their lives. Machiavelli understands Fortune, although ultimately beyond our control, as able to be manipulated up to a point, and turned to our advantage. This is nowhere better illustrated than in his play, Clizia. In this play, Nicomaco embarks on the sexual conquest of Clizia, a young woman whom he and his wife, Sofronia, adopted years earlier. The plan involves marrying Clizia off to one of his servants who will then quietly turn her over to his master. The consequences of this scheme extend beyond Clizia’s virtue and reputation, and will also affect the family’s reputation, their wealth, and their social standing. Nicomaco’s determination to commit infidelity and lechery is compounded by his complete indifference to the happiness of his own son, who is in love with Clizia. Nicomaco is as ready to sacrifice that with as little scruple as he is his own marriage and status. Sofronia, being both wise and prudent, sees through the pretense of his plans and attempts to obstruct them by arranging another marriage for Clizia. When Nicomaco encounters her resistance and realizes that he cannot deceive her, he proposes that they “should leave it up to Fortune,” 13 and insists that they draw lots to settle who Clizia will marry. Sofronia agrees and promises to honor the outcome, but when she loses the bet, Sofronia’s response is truly Machiavellian. Instead of accepting that her loss of the bet, an act of Fortune, means that she has also lost the battle to save Clizia and her family, Sofronia is determined to “have a bit of fun” 14 with her husband. This she does by conceiving of a devilishly clever plan to humiliate Nicomaco into acting once more in the best interests of his family (not to mention acting his age). Since Fortune has not allowed her to shut down her husband’s scheme, Sofronia watches his plan unfold, but replaces Clizia in her wedding bed with a young male servant. Later that night, Nicomaco unsuccessfully tries to force himself on what, in the dark, he thinks is Clizia, and when that fails he turns to flattery and seduction techniques. Exhausted from his repeated failures, Nicomaco starts to fall asleep, only to find himself attacked by what he still thinks is Clizia. He complains after the fact that he was “jabbed in the rump,” and received “five or six of the damnedest pokes right here under the tailbone!” 15 When the lights come on, and Nicomaco sees not Clizia, but his wife’s servant standing with an erection next to the bed, he is disgraced to find that he has been the victim of an attempted (or perhaps successful) act of sodomy. Whereas Nicomaco not only views winning the bet as the will of Fortune, but also as assurance that he will have his way with Clizia, Sofronia will only acknowledge Fortune’s will in the whole affair if all of her (Sofronia’s) plans to outwit her husband fail. As long as she can still scheme, she can still affect how events play out; she may not be able to thwart Fortune altogether, but she can take the stroke of bad Fortune she has had (losing the bet), and turn it

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to her advantage, precisely the course of action Machiavelli would advise a ruler to take. As a result of her unwillingness to submit prematurely, Sofronia manages to protect Clizia from Nicomaco’s unseemly sexual advances, eventually secures Clizia for her son, brings her husband to his senses, and ensures her family’s honor and status are also preserved. THE DAO IS NOT A CONCEPT ORIGINAL TO THE DAODEJING Dao, often translated as the Way, was a common word in Chinese intellectual circles; hence, adherents of other traditions such as Confucianists, Mohists, and Legalists also made use of the term. Dao, however, had a different meaning for each group. Confucians saw Dao as the proper mode of human conduct with an emphasis on cultivation of character, modeled on the ways of antiquity; it was obviously capable of being expressed in conventional language, as implied and necessitated by the Confucian educational regimen. Mohists also conceived of the Dao in terms of proper human conduct, but they emphasized conduct over character, and rejected antiquity and convention as guides. For the Legalism of Han Feizi, who took the Daodejing as the basis of his interpretation of Dao, the word’s meaning encompassed the source of all things as well as the continual flux of the universe. The disagreement of what Dao meant among the various Chinese schools of thought, as porous as their borders are, is echoed in the dissension among modern scholars over what Dao means to the Daodejing itself. Thus Schwartz calls the Dao an ineffable “mystic reality,” 16 Hansen rejects any claims to ineffability and dismisses the standard interpretative view of the Dao as a “metaphysical monistic absolute,” 17 and Graham refers to it as the “source of all things.” 18 Liu follows Philip J. Ivanhoe in denying the Dao metaphysical transcendence, while seeing it as “the ground, sustenance, and sustaining power of all beings.” 19 As with Machiavelli’s concept of Fortune, the matter can be resolved by looking at the concept functionally. What is clear is that in the Daodejing the Dao is primordial in nature, is ineffable (in full or in part), is inexhaustible and indifferent to human affairs, is linked repeatedly to nature and to the feminine principle, is connected to all things as source, sustaining principle, and ultimate end of the myriad creatures, and operates through non-contention. In each case, trying to nail Fortune or the Dao down completely misses the point: it is not just that there is an ineffable element involved that makes these attempts futile, but also that such a task was never attempted in the Daodejing (or by Machiavelli in the case of Fortune) for the simple reason that it is unnecessary to have such complete knowledge in order for the ruler to act. Functionally, Laozi and Machiavelli have given their rulers enough to guide their actions; anything further is speculative metaphysics, which the

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Daodejing would classify as cleverness, a sign of social decline, 20 and which Machiavelli would see as a symptom of the laziness that brings about social decay, as philosophy in general was to him. 21 THE DAO IS UNKNOWABLE Fortune and the Dao are mysterious forces, and the relationship that the prince or sage-ruler can have with them can thus seem paradoxical. The Daodejing repeatedly states that the Dao is unknowable. This is expressed through its being without name. The Dao is called “[t]he nameless uncarved block” 22 and it is said that the Dao “conceals itself in being nameless.” 23 In light of such statements, Hansen argues that the Daodejing is not a text of mystical metaphysics, but one of “linguistic skepticism” based on the assumption that “language is a social mechanism for regulating people’s behavior.” 24 Hansen rejects any reading of the text that conceives of the Dao as ineffable, arguing that the “dao in Daoism [is] . . . a guiding way . . .” and that “any dao that language can express cannot be a constantly reliable guide to behavior.” 25 In the absence of language, people would still make distinctions, but these distinctions would be natural ones, not conventional (culturally influenced) ones. Much of Hansen’s reading of the Daodejing remains consistent with the traditional readings, which he rejects. As a case in point, the statements that any Dao that language can express cannot be a constantly reliable guide to behavior and that a metaphysically transcendent, mystical object called Dao exists, but cannot be adequately grasped by language can both be true simultaneously. Neither rules out the truth of the other. Furthermore, Hansen’s reading is implausible, for if it were true, surely some of the ancient Chinese would have clued into this fact (including the early Daoists), but Hansen would have us believe that Confucians, Legalists, and even Daoists themselves misunderstood the Daodejing from the very beginning, without offering an explanation of how this could happen. At least LaFargue, who also argues that even Daoists started misunderstanding Daoism early on, although along different lines, provides an explanation for how such a misreading could occur and become the orthodox view. In LaFargue’s case, it is the interpretation of the Daodejing as a text of spiritual cultivation that needs to be explained, and he accounts for this shift in understanding from philosophy to religion by pointing out that the imagery used to describe practices of self-cultivation in the Daodejing was misconstrued by later neophytes, who lacked the personal transforming experiences of earlier Daoists and were instead looking for “authoritative foundational doctrines,” which they interpreted the Daodejing as offering, to guide them. 26

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DAO: THE USE OF LANGUAGE AND PRIMORDIALITY The reason that the Dao is unknowable is that it is primordial. This quality is posited in chapter 25 of the Daodejing, where it is linked to the Dao’s other unique characteristics of being solitary, unchanging, inexhaustible, and inclusive of nothingness: There is a thing confusedly formed, Born before heaven and earth. Silent and void It stands alone and does not change, Goes round and does not weary. It is capable of being the mother of the world. 27

If the Dao were something positive, a being or physical process, it would not be solitary, but would be more or less ontologically equal with other beings, and unable to claim authority over them. The Dao must predate existence, as it “stands alone” and is thus eligible of being “mother of the world.” Its origin is unknown because it predates heaven and earth. In chapter 1, the Daodejing maintains that “[t]he nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth” 28 and again in chapter 4 the Dao is said to be “Deep, it is like the ancestor of the myriad creatures” and that “Darkly visible, it only seems as if it were there. / I know not whose son it is. / It images the forefather of God.” 29 Furthermore, anyone who claims to be able to know the Dao is either misguided or duplicitous, as “One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know.” 30 In the end, this is because the Dao simply cannot be captured by language, for the Dao is constantly, for lack of a better phrase, in motion, whereas language is not. Language evolves, but it does so too slowly to keep pace with the flux that is reality. Thus, the opening lines of the Daodejing proclaim: “The way that can be spoken of / Is not the constant way; / The name that can be named / Is not the constant name.” 31 Laozi goes so far as to concede linguistic defeat, acknowledging that language is incapable of capturing the Dao. He admits that using the label, Dao, is a feeble and inadequate convention but a necessity if the Dao is to be discussed: “I know not its name / So I style it ‘the way.’” 32 This is a dangerous gambit for Laozi to play, for the Daodejing cites naming as the beginning of losing touch with the Dao. As chapter 32 states: “Only when it is cut are there names. / As soon as there are names / One ought to know that it is time to stop.” 33 Yet the Daodejing does tell the sage that one can know the Dao, and the entire purpose of the book rests on the assumption that this knowledge can be communicated, or at the very least the reader can be pointed in the appropriate direction of acquiring this knowledge, by means of the written word.

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The Daodejing employs two linguistic strategies in order to accomplish transmitting knowledge of the Dao: the use of negative language, and contradictory terms to express what would otherwise be inexpressible. The first is found in the common description of the Dao as void. This description is, in part, a linguistic tactic, an attempt to capture the all-encompassing nature of the Dao, because the moment it is likened to something specific, the Dao is diminished. Thus in chapter 6, Laozi remarks, “The whole world says that my way is vast and resembles nothing. It is because it is vast that it resembles nothing. If it resembled anything, it would, long before now, have become small.” 34 But there is a deeper metaphysical claim in play here. The Dao is a harmony of being and non-being, and because the everyday, human understanding of the world is of beingness, the nothingness of the Dao is highlighted and praised to right the balance. Chapter 40 reminds the reader that, ultimately, all beings have their root in non-being: “The myriad creatures in the world are born from Something, and Something [is born] from Nothing.” 35 The end of chapter 25 reaffirms this attempt to correct the bias of the common understanding of the world when it refers to the Dao’s role as “being the mother of the world.” 36 In traditional pairs of binary opposites, the masculine is associated with being, and the feminine is linked to non-being. Graham offers a list of such dyads relevant to the Daodejing; they include male/female, something/nothing, doing something/doing nothing, knowledge/ignorance, full/empty, above/below, before/behind, moving/still, big/ small, strong/weak, hard/soft, and straight/bent. 37 On the surface, it appears as if the Daodejing advocates the conventionally subordinate half of the dyad (female as opposed to male, nothing as opposed to something, etcetera), but as Edward Slingerland notes, a closer reading reveals that these subordinate qualities “actually encompass their opposites,” 38 which explains phrases such as “[t]he way is empty, yet use will not drain it” 39 and “[t]he way never acts yet nothing is left undone.” 40 Thus, Slingerland sees the thrust of the Daodejing as offering guidance that consistently favors the subordinate half of any dyad, not to the exclusion of the dominant half, but as a way to grasp both. This is reflected in chapter 28 of the Daodejing, where the sage-ruler is encouraged to “[k]now the male / But keep to the female.” 41 Of course, the reverse strategy could be employed too, for it is not just a matter that empty encompasses full, but that full encompasses empty as well. If that is so, however, why does the Daodejing not offer such advice? LaFargue argues that such conventional advice was commonplace in Warring States China (and still is today), and that the Daodejing made its mark by offering compensatory wisdom that deliberately flew in the face of the social norms which privileged the dominant halves of these dyads. LaFargue is committed to the view that the Daodejing is the product of a Daoist community and not any one single author; furthermore, he maintains that the

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text began as an oral tradition. This tradition consisted of numerous individual sayings, which LaFargue calls “polemic aphorisms,” and which are “always directed against some opposing human tendency, which they mean to correct or compensate for.” 42 In short, there is no need to advocate the virtues of strength, maleness, light, fullness and so on in a culture where these elements are already celebrated and highly valued. However, to embrace their opposites, to fight strength with weakness, to engage in battle through constant retreat, is highly unconventional and does require persuasion. LaFargue maintains that the counsel the Daodejing offers should always be seen as contextual, and never viewed as absolute in nature. The guidance it offers is not that of physical laws, but of compensatory wisdom stored in aphorisms, and “the meaning of any given aphorism is exhausted in making a point against its particular target.” 43 Thus, when Slingerland cites the paradox that gaining strength through weakness is self-defeating (that once one becomes strong, one becomes prey to weakness), Slingerland must resort to distinctions between ironic and serious uses of the terms “strength” and “weakness” to explain away the contradiction. 44 However, LaFargue’s interpretation, that no one piece of advice the Daodejing offers is applicable beyond the range of the context it was designed for, is an effective rebuttal to that objection. In fact, as will be seen, the Daodejing does offer advice for operating from a position of strength as well as weakness. FORTUNE IS UNKNOWABLE Machiavelli also claims that Fortune and her designs are unknowable. In his unfinished poem The Golden Ass, he claims that Fortune, in the guise of Circe, had an “ancient nest” 45 which she inhabited before being forced to relocate to her present domain, while in the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli declares her origins to be unknown, declaring that “[w]hose daughter she is or from what family she sprang we know not.” 46 Regarding her intentions, Machiavelli maintains in Discourses 2.29 that we do not know “her goals as she moves along paths both crossed and unknown,” 47 and also that if individuals should stand in her way, she blinds their intellect or otherwise neutralizes them so they cannot obstruct her. Elsewhere, he underscores the prince’s inability to know Fortune’s plans by labeling her “fickle.” 48 In the end, Machiavelli laments, this means that the prince is unable to anticipate her mood consistently, and will eventually suffer for his inability to do so. Machiavelli offers linguistic strategies parallel to those employed in the Daodejing in order to articulate the phenomenon of Fortune. Akin to the use of negative terms for the Dao, he depicts her as being an antagonist to the prevailing Christian moral order of his day. Fortune’s femininity allows Machiavelli to ascribe to her the standard catalogue, according to a chauvinist

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culture, of women’s failings: fickleness, capriciousness, lust, malice, bad temper, vengefulness, and an incapacity for loyalty; she is also equated with nature, and characterized as utterly indifferent to Christian moral norms. Although more complicated, Machiavelli’s multiple depictions of Fortune bear some resemblance to the Daoist linguistic strategy of contradictory terms. By definition, Fortune is beyond human control, and Machiavelli powerfully expresses the full range of her power, her ability to affect human endeavors, and her unobtainable nature by employing a variety of images. He compares her to a raging river, a lady, and a goddess. A raging river is destructive but might be prepared for, and a lady can be wooed or compelled to bend to the prince’s will, but a goddess’s actions cannot be anticipated nor her will bent, nor can her wrath be withstood. The various images in which Fortune manifests herself suggest the variety of situations a ruler is likely to face, and what his options are under these conditions. One never knows if Fortune will be a raging river, a lady, or a goddess when she appears; the prince must therefore prepare for all contingencies, and if his preparations are insufficient or poorly chosen, throw etiquette and morality out the window. If those measures do not bring success, he has no choice but to adapt to what Fortune throws at him, and, like Sofronia, turn it to his advantage. Above all, Fortune is fluid and constantly in motion. As the narrator states in The Golden Ass: “Such a course she who governs us permits and requires, so that nothing beneath the sun ever will or can be firm.” 49 The range of images Machiavelli uses implies Fortune is a process rather than an entity and, in this respect, Machiavelli’s understanding of Fortune is strikingly similar to the concept of the Dao in the Daodejing. As Moeller says of the Daoist image of the wheel, “By depicting the Dao as a wheel, the Daoists show not what something is based upon, but rather how something goes.” 50 The same could be said of Machiavelli’s multiple depictions of Fortune and is reinforced by the fact that, in the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli uses the long-standing traditional image of Fortune’s wheel. Machiavelli represents the overwhelming complexity of Fortune by the brilliant conceit of filling her palace with multiple wheels, each turning at varying speeds and in different directions: “And those wheels are ever turning, day and night, because Heaven commands (and she is not to be resisted) that Laziness and Necessity whirl them around.” 51 As with the Daodejing, the message is clear: because the flow of events, both on the microcosmic and macrocosmic levels, is in constant flux, political counsel must be flexible enough to prepare for any contingency. Moreover, any political advice that hopes to be efficacious must be contextual; there can be no absolute rules of conduct in politics.

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FORTUNE AND THE DAO ARE INEXHAUSTIBLE An important aspect of the power possessed by both the Dao and Fortune is their never-ending nature; both are inexhaustible. Just as the wheels in Fortune’s palace turn incessantly, the Daodejing claims that the Dao “[g]oes round and does not weary.” 52 Further, the Daodejing’s remarks that the “way never acts yet nothing is left undone,” 53 and is “empty, yet use will not drain it,” 54 both fit with Fortune’s omnipresence in human and natural affairs. Chapter 45 states: Great perfection seems chipped, Yet use will not wear it out; Great fullness seems empty, Yet use will not drain it; Great straightness seems bent; Great skill seems awkward; Great eloquence seems tongue-tied. Restlessness overcomes cold; stillness overcomes heat. 55

The Golden Ass develops Fortune’s power further. In this poem, as I have noted, she appears as the goddess Circe, and Machiavelli makes more explicit her connection with nature. Circe’s damsel explains to the narrator that: Circe had to abandon her ancient nest, before Jove seized dominion, since she found no trustworthy refuge and no people who would receive her— so great was the rumor of her infamy— in this dark forest, shady and dense, fleeing all human society and law, she fixed her dwelling and her seat. So among these solitary rocks she lives as an enemy to men. 56

This is a rich passage that reveals, among other things, the tension between the masculine and feminine principles that is at play in much of Machiavelli’s writings. Circe, Machiavelli writes, has been forced out by Jove, the primary Roman deity, whose domain includes laws and social order. This is significant, because Machiavelli clearly locates laws and social order as the domain of men, as when he claims that “there are two modes of fighting: one in accordance with the laws, the other with force. The first is proper to man, the second to beasts.” 57 While Machiavelli acknowledges that it is sometimes necessary to fight like an animal because laws can be ineffective, he unmistakably views fighting like an animal as always a second-best solution. A truly successful and great prince will construct and enforce laws such that fighting like an animal will not be necessary. Circe’s power, however, is not to be dismissed simply because she has been displaced. In the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli remarks “we do know of a certain that even by Jove her [Fortune’s] power is feared.” 58 This state-

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ment is extremely significant in illustrating one of the key differences between Machiavelli and Laozi: their understanding of the place of humanity within the natural order. For Machiavelli, humanity, that is, the male principle and all that is associated with it, including civilization, culture, and laws, is in a constant state of opposition to nature, which is closely tied to the feminine principle. Laozi sees a similar dichotomy in his own cultural setting, but rejects the contest. He advises the sage-ruler to embrace the feminine and to assume the role of the female. He does this because his understanding of humanity’s place within nature is significantly different than Machiavelli’s. Humans, for Laozi, are embedded in nature; they are not separate from it in any way (Laozi has no Christian notion of us being merely on our way to an otherworldly salvation as Augustine and Aquinas do). Far from viewing civilization, culture, and laws as an accomplishment, Laozi condemns them as deviations from the natural order. Accordingly, the ideal state he describes in chapter 80 of the Daodejing is small, agrarian, and without law. THE CHARACTER OF FORTUNE AND THE DAO: POWERFUL, FEMININE, INDIFFERENT, AND LOWLY Fortune and the Dao derive their unrivaled power from the fact that they are the source of all things and are veiled; if they are the source of things, then all things are dependent on them, and if they cannot be known, then none of the things they have given rise to can have power over them. Other important aspects of their power include their lowly stature and their indifference toward the fates of created beings, individual and collective. While, from a human perspective, it may appear as if Fortune and the Dao sometimes favor or oppose human endeavors, this is an illusion. Neither Fortune nor the Dao can be wooed, placated, or enlisted to aid human agents in their plans. At best, they can be harnessed and used, but only if the agent’s plans can be adapted to these forces. Laozi’s radical advice for so adapting is to draw upon or become a vessel of the Dao, by emptying oneself of all premeditation. In short, by ridding himself of his ego, the sage-ruler is able to align himself with the Dao. Machiavelli, however, is unable to show the prince how to get beyond his ego and let go of his own agenda, and does not understand the importance of doing so. The closest Machiavelli can come to recommending emptiness or being a vessel of Fortune is to adapt to Fortune’s plans, but this strategy still engages the prince’s ego, and still results in contention. The limitations of Machiavelli’s idea of accommodating Fortune are illustrated in the counsel he offers the ruler when dealing with Fortune in her various manifestations as a river, a lady, and a goddess.

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FORTUNE IS A RIVER Machiavelli’s comparison of Fortune to a raging river is found in chapter 25 of The Prince: “I compare her to one of those destructive rivers that, when they become enraged, flood the plains, ruin the trees and buildings, raising the earth from one spot and dropping it onto another. Everyone flees before it; everyone yields to its impetus, unable to oppose it in any way.” 59 The comparison of Fortune to water echoes the Daodejing, but the quality which each document stresses is vastly different: the Dao as water is most powerful when it yields and does not contend. In sharp contrast, Machiavelli finds the efficacy of water in its wrath. An enraged river is destructive. The fact that Fortune is likened to a river is also significant in another direction: although, like Laozi’s yielding water, the image links Fortune to nature, and therefore to a host of cultural associations, most of them negative. That Machiavelli chooses to use an image from the natural world to characterize Fortune should surprise no one, since Fortune is a woman and the culture Machiavelli inherited equated the natural with the feminine. That the natural image he chooses is raging and destructive should also be no surprise, since those were qualities traditionally attributed to women and nature alike. As an inhabitant of a mountainous region and a student of military history, Machiavelli would have been very familiar with tumultuous rivers. In fact, in The History of Florence, he recounts the incident of 1439 in which the Florentine Filippo di Ser Brunellesco attempted to use a river to conquer a city, Lucca, by diverting a nearby river. Lucca was ideally situated in relation to the river Serchio for this; however, the Lucchese were not stupid. Once they realized what the Florentines were trying to do, they built up the land in the direction the Florentines were trying to redirect the river, capitalized on the poor security measures of the Florentine army, and strategically breached the dikes the Florentine military had built to divert the river. The result was that, when the waters came, they were stopped by the higher ground and spilled out through the breaks in the dikes. Lucca was safe and the Florentine army was flooded. 60 This incident undoubtedly influenced Machiavelli’s likening of Fortuna’s destructive powers to a raging river in chapter 25 of The Prince. Machiavelli also had his turn at employing water as a weapon when, in 1503–1504, with the technical assistance of Leonardo da Vinci, he attempted to break Florence’s string of failed military assaults on Pisa by rerouting the river Arno. Instead of using water as a weapon of attack as Brunellesco had done, Machiavelli tried to capitalize on water’s life-sustaining power and sought to withhold this from the Pisans. Had he been successful, the Pisans would not only have seen a vital trade route severed, but been deprived of a fundamental necessity of life, while Florence would have gained a secure

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passage directly to the sea. The project failed due to logistical and security problems: the administrators in charge refused to follow the plans created by da Vinci, and introduced changes which saved money and labor, but doomed the project. 61 Water can cause incredible damage in the form of tidal waves, floods (as Machiavelli well knew), and rainstorms, but it can also cause enormous changes in imperceptible ways over long periods. Given enough time, water can wear down rock; however, a rock can never wear down water, only bury it or divert it. The key to water’s supremacy is that it yields to the rock. Water’s effectiveness through yielding to obstacles was not lost on Machiavelli, even if not fully realized by him; he was more impressed by the awesomeness of water’s violence, as instanced in the attempted flood of Lucca and Fortune’s identification with a raging river. He does, however, show some awareness of the more subtle aspect of water that the Daoists prize, its paradoxically yielding relentlessness, even if he fails to fully appreciate its significance. His understanding of the duality of water’s power appears in his depictions of Fortune’s course of action when individuals do occasionally outwit or adapt to her challenges. When this happens, she has two courses of action: she can crush them with a stroke, or she can patiently outwait them. In the latter instance, she operates like water in the Daodejing, slowly wearing down her opponent and weaving her plans along arcs of time that no mortal can follow. This point is made repeatedly regarding Fortune’s patience and the death of human agents. In the Discourses, Machiavelli claims not only that Fortune controls the destiny of human beings in terms of their successes or failures, but also that “[i]f there is anyone who might be able to depose her, she either kills him or deprives him of all the means to achieve some good.” 62 In the History of Florence Machiavelli cites a specific example of this manifestation of Fortune’s power, when he attributes the timing of the exiled Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s death to Fortune: “while celebrating the wedding of a daughter, as he sat at the table he suddenly died. In this Fortune was favorable to him, that in the least unhappy day of his exile she had him die.” 63 Fortune’s peculiar modus operandi here is also illustrated in The Prince, where Machiavelli details how Cesare Borgia’s career and political success were cut short by Fortune’s influence, when both he and his father, Alexander VI, fell gravely ill at the same time. While Cesare recovered, his father died, and, in his weakened state, Cesare made the tactical mistake of allowing Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere’s ascension to the throne of St. Peter as Julius II. Machiavelli stresses that Cesare had made preparations for the loss of his father’s political and financial support, but that he was completely unprepared for and there was nothing he could do about the coincidence of his own illness with his father’s death: “Possessing great courage and high goals, he could not have conducted himself in any other manner, and his

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plans were frustrated solely by the brevity of Alexander’s life and by his own illness,” 64 but later he finds fault with Cesare’s unwise political support that made Cardinal Rovere pope. Once the Cardinal became Julius II, Cesare was stripped of all military and political power and was exiled to Spain. The motif of Fortune killing those for whom she no longer has need or who in some way oppose her ever-changing plans also appears at the end of The Life of Castruccio Castraccani of Lucca, where Machiavelli describes the death of the fabled Castruccio after his brilliant military defeat of the Florentines: But Fortune, hostile to his glory, took life away from him instead of giving it to him—it interrupted those plans that Castruccio had intended to carry out for a long time, plans that only death could have prevented him from carrying out. All during that day of battle Castruccio struggled hard; then, when it ended, all tired and drenched with sweat, he stopped at the gate of Fucecchio to review his troops, to thank and receive them personally, as well as to be ready to deal with any enemy force that might pose a threat. He thought it was the duty of a good general to be the first to mount his horse and the last to dismount. Thus, while standing exposed to a wind—an almost always unhealthy one that usually rises up from the Arno at noon—he caught an icy chill; he paid no attention to it, for he was used to such discomforts, but it was the cause of his death. The following night he was struck by a very strong fever. 65

It is important to note that, despite the supernatural imagery of a ruthless and merciless goddess gleefully striking down her mortal pawns, Machiavelli depicts the means she employs strictly in naturalistic terms. Cesare and his father Alexander VI are weakened and neutralized by illness or a combination of human error and poison, and the mythical account of Castruccio penned by Machiavelli has him catching a fatal draft. Only Rinaldo degli Albizzi’s death remains mysterious, and even here, the strongest description Machiavelli is willing to use is that Albizzi’s death was, even if in a more mundane way, sudden. Timothy J. Lukes argues that this patient use of time is, in effect, Fortune’s “trump card” 66 for no matter how much virtù the prince may possess, in the end humans are mortal and, if Fortune cannot win against an individual prince, whether it be in one battle or a series of engagements, she can always outwait him. It is the dark, Daoist strategy of occupying the lower position. Sooner or later the prince will die, handing Fortune a victory she will have done nothing to gain; in the end, the prince will come to her. Machiavelli was painfully aware of the mortality of all bodies, human and political, which is why the measure he uses for the greatness of a prince is the longevity of his work, the state. The only partial bulwark against Fortune’s trump card is to remain flexible. In the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli offers advice on how to survive

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Fortune in the short term: jumping from wheel to wheel in her palace, abandoning wheels that are descending for those that are ascending, in essence, adapting to her plans and incorporating them into one’s own strategies. 67 To cling to any specific plan in the face of her changing temperament is a recipe for disaster. Machiavelli, who knows that all princes die, takes a wider perspective on the matter when he suggests the possibility of thwarting death, at least for a few decades or centuries, by organizing the social structures of the state to mimic a leader’s virtù: “kingdoms which depend only upon the exceptional ability of a single man are not long enduring, because such talent disappears with the life of the man. . . . The salvation of a republic or a kingdom is not, therefore, merely to have a prince who governs prudently while he lives, but rather one who organizes the government in such a way that after his death it can be maintained.” 68 Lukes’ insistence that Fortune always wins given a long enough time span is accurate, and, as I will demonstrate, Machiavelli’s understanding of history is premised on the assumption that social decay is inevitable. Despite the inevitable loss to Fortune, the longer one can postpone this defeat through prudent organization of the state, the greater the measure of glory, which, in Machiavelli’s estimation, is the ultimate goal of every legitimate ruler. THE DAO AND WATER Among the many symbols used to describe the Dao (which include a newborn babe, reeds, and the wheel), water is the most prevalent. The Daodejing relies heavily on water imagery for several reasons: it is pliant, always finds its own level, typically at the lowest point of whatever context it is in, and it is both tireless and unrelenting. These are all traits that the sage-ruler must emulate if he is to be successful. But there are also lived experiences and cultural differences at play in the use of water as a symbol. As Sarah Allan notes, the Chinese conception of water is heavily influenced by the culture and geography of China: “The water which most interested Chinese philosophers was that found in the great rivers and the small streams, and in the irrigation ditches which surrounded fields of grain. It was the rain and the pools which form from fallen rain, the ordinary rather than the infinite, that which sustains life and is experienced by all.” 69 The importance of water to the Daodejing’s advice for the sage-ruler cannot be overstated. Chapter 8 declares: “Highest good is like water. Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes close to the way.” 70 This is because water is the essence of non-contention—it always seeks the lowest spot in any terrain and conforms to its surroundings. Put it in a jug, and the water assumes the shape of the jug’s interior; put it in a glass

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filled with ice, and it fills the glass while yielding to the ice; spill it on the ground and it finds the lowest spot it can. In this sense water is inexhaustible (and relentless) and perfectly fluid. Being fluid, and hence yielding, it also does not contend with anything. Thus the sage-ruler should occupy the low position, the one no one else in society wants, and should pursue a strategy of benefiting and non-contention when leading others. This point is elaborated upon with further water imagery in chapter 61, where Laozi says, “A large state is the lower reaches of a river— / The place where all the streams of the world unite.” 71 An additional explanation of how the river draws water to it, this time with the implications for the sage-ruler spelled out, can be found in chapter 66: The reason the River and the Sea are able to be king of the hundred valleys is that they excel in taking the lower position. Therefore, they are able to be king of the hundred valleys. Therefore, desiring to rule over the people, One must in one’s words humble oneself before them; And, desiring to lead the people, One must, in one’s person, follow behind them. Therefore the sage takes his place over the people yet is no burden; takes his place ahead of the people yet causes no obstruction. That is why the empire supports him joyfully and never tires of doing so. 72

The reason that taking the low position is advantageous is made clear in the reference at the beginning of the chapter to the River and Sea as king of the one hundred valleys, and in the statement at the end that the empire supports the sage joyfully without tiring. Water is capable of conquering all, even if this involves a long-term strategy, and water accomplishes its victory through strategies of non-contention and occupying the lower position. In doing so, water is merely emulating the Dao. Both the Dao and Fortune operate according to these strategies, and any attempt to defy this reality cannot succeed. The reversal of binaries appears again here, with what is above, the mountaintops and the valley walls, constantly losing while what is on the bottom, the River and the Sea, constantly gain. And all of this occurs without the least effort on the part of the River or the Sea. In occupying the low position, for example, the River at the bottom of the valley, and the Sea even lower than the River, all the water from the mountaintops flows of its own accord into the valley, then into the River and then into the Sea. This process is natural to the water; it is not forced, and it is continual so long as there is water to flow. Analogously, if the sage-ruler takes the lowest position, which he is encouraged to do in chapter 28 (“be a ravine to the empire”) 73 the empire will flow to him of its own accord so long as it exists, and he will not have to chase it or employ aggressive means to

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take hold of it. This is why the Daodejing says that “the empire supports him joyfully and never tires of doing so.” 74 This point is driven home in another, more morbid manner, in chapter 76 where Laozi contrasts the results of stubbornness and aggressive meddling with those of non-contention: A man is supple and weak when living, but hard and stiff when dead. Grass and trees are pliant and fragile when living, but dried and shrivelled when dead. Thus the hard and the strong are the comrades of death; the supple and the weak are the comrades of life. Therefore a weapon that is strong will not vanquish; A tree that is strong will suffer the axe. The strong and big takes the lower position, The supple and weak takes the higher position. 75

The warning is clear: those who refuse to yield will fail. In the context of the Warring States period, the reference to the “hard and the strong being the comrades of death” would not be subtle. However, just in case one were to misinterpret this passage and construe the Daodejing as a text preaching pacifism, Laozi insists that it must be remembered that water has great destructive potential, and that this destructiveness is possible only because of water’s tirelessness, fluidity, and natural movement toward the lowest position. As chapter 78 claims: In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it. This is because there is nothing that can take its place. That the weak overcomes the strong, And the submissive overcomes the hard, Everyone in the world knows yet no one can put this knowledge into practice. 76

FORTUNE AND THE DAO ARE INDIFFERENT TO HUMAN INTERESTS Both Fortune and the Dao are portrayed as indifferent to the interests of humans. No doubt a shot at the slothful yet corrupt strain of Christianity prevalent in his day, Machiavelli takes great pleasure in describing Fortune’s disinclinations to be concerned with morality. In the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli depicts her as raising the wicked and crushing the good; the many interconnected wheels in her palace are powered, he says, by Necessity and Laziness, and turn independently of the moral worth of the deeds of any of the people being carried along on their rims. 77 For Machiavelli, the only possible response is that of virtù, here heavy with the connotation of fore-

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sight, the ability to anticipate the movements of Fortune’s various wheels, enabling one to leap from a wheel whose motion has become unfavorable to a wheel with better prospects. Likewise, in chapter 79 the Daodejing maintains that the Dao is indifferent to human plans, stating that: “It is the way of heaven to show no favoritism.” 78 The Daodejing also offers advice as to how to deal with the indifferent nature of the Dao, but instead of foresight, Laozi stresses wu-wei, or a state of flexibility of mind so profound that it dances with the circumstances the sage-ruler encounters, responding seamlessly to the movements of the situation, and not how the sage-ruler, had he been ruling from the perspective of the ego, may have wanted. The importance of non-contention is made evident in chapters 73 and 22, where it is said that the way of heaven “[e]xcels in overcoming though it does not contend” 79 and of the sage-ruler that it is “because he does not contend that no one in the empire is in a position to contend with him.” 80 Chapter 22 should not be interpreted as reducing wu-wei to a blanket endorsement of non-contention, for as I will show in due course, the fluidity of wu-wei requires non-contention with the flow of events, but can require contention with specific beings. If one does not practice non-contention in relation to the flow of events, the Dao would appear not as indifferent, but as hostile to one’s plans. Similarly, the wheels in Fortune’s palace turn in an unpredictable manner, but one that is indifferent to the people who cling to them. These people can abandon their present wheel for another, an instance of non-contention, but should they hold tight to their present wheel, Fortune will appear to contend with them after their position on any given wheel reaches the wheel’s apex (or it changes direction) and begins to descend. Non-contention is effective because an opponent has nothing to seize. As long as one remains fluid, the enemy has nothing to lock on to or target; they do not even have a posture from which they can surmise one’s intentions. And should the enemy attack rashly, wildly, or randomly, being fluid allows one to adapt to the situation presented by one’s enemy. The advantage—and challenge—of a policy of non-contention is that one must wait for the enemy to make the first move, for in doing so, the enemy is forced to take on a specific and determinate posture (physical stance, deployment of troops, declaration of alliances, and so on) which immediately places it at a disadvantage. Essentially, a policy of non-contention forces an enemy to show its cards and betray its strategy before an army holding to non-contention has to do so. Every definite posture and strategy has an inherent weakness, and in making the first move, the enemy reveals this weakness. Its opponent, who operates according to non-contention, can then respond with a counterattack that capitalizes on the specific weaknesses of the revealed strategy. The challenge lies in the task of waiting, for while one is waiting, one must remain as fluid as possible and not take any type of definite posture. The

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advantage of fluidity and non-contention lies in their potential, which holds the promise of many more options, than does any specific, limited, actuality. This is seen clearly in engagements between entities that have already deployed their forces and ones that have not; when the latter attacks the former’s weak spot, it costs time and energy for the former to redeploy, especially once hostilities have commenced, and this further weakens its position. France’s reliance on the Maginot Line at the start of World War II is a classic example. This line of fortifications was very difficult to take by means of conventional land warfare, and indeed the Nazis had limited success in direct attacks. However, the weakness of the Maginot Line was that it was fixed, vulnerable to aircraft, and wasteful of military resources which could have been used to modernize the French army and air force, both of which could then have been deployed in a variety of ways. The Nazis capitalized on these glaring weaknesses, circumvented the Maginot Line via aircraft, and invaded France with paratroopers. FORTUNE IS A LADY Later in chapter 25 of The Prince, after he has likened Fortune to water, Machiavelli offers a second image to describe her: “Fortune is a woman, and . . . is always the friend of young men, for they are less cautious, more ferocious, and command her with more audacity.” 81 There is a difference in emphasis here. Whereas Fortune was compared to water, a natural phenomenon, earlier in chapter 25, Machiavelli here elevates her to the human realm and likens her to a lady. 82 The change of image signifies a new angle on Fortune’s indifference to her subjects, and has implications for how the prince is counseled to act toward Fortune. Machiavelli claims that Fortune is inclined to favor young men, because they are aggressive. In this personification, Fortune appears to play favorites, whereas the metaphor of the river suggests that Fortune’s power is unleashed indiscriminately, although it is felt most where a lack of virtù means preparations are weak or absent. The common impression that Machiavelli characterizes of Fortune as a woman has led to him being charged with misogyny, especially when he advises aggressive behavior when confronting this aspect of Fortune. 83 Two things need to be noted about such claims. The first is that they rest on a popular error in translation; the second is that they obscure and miss the point Machiavelli is trying to make. John Freccero notes that in the passage in which Machiavelli is traditionally translated as claiming Fortune is a woman, the actual word Machiavelli uses is donna (lady), not feminina (woman), and the difference in the context of Italian Renaissance culture is significant. Any adult female was a woman and was not worthy of special treatment, but an adult woman of high social station was a lady and there was a code of norms

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and rules governing how a courtly lady should be approached and who could court her. 84 Freccero argues that Machiavelli’s message is that a man of ability but lacking station can become a prince by taking another’s lady. Given that the passage in question immediately precedes the final chapter of the prince, which is entitled “An Exhortation to Grasp Italy and Set Her Free From the Barbarians,” this message is given added urgency and seems intended to imply that Italy cannot wait for an aristocratic suitor to come and save her; it is enough that a man of merit, regardless of his lineage, come to her aid. This sentiment, and Machiavelli’s general lack of faith in the Florentine aristocracy as effective leaders, stems from his personal experience. In the spring of 1507 the would-be Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, was rumored to be planning an intervention in Italy to expel the French and win a papal endorsement. Florence, Machiavelli’s beloved city, lay caught between the Emperor and the French, which caused serious internal tensions: Florentine aristocrats sought an alliance with Maximilian while Soderini, the gonfalonier for life, wanted to honor the existing alliance with France. With such a polarizing issue on the table, a reliable assessment of the situation was called for. It was decided that a diplomatic envoy would be sent to Maximilian’s court with the purpose of ascertaining the truth of the rumors and to determine his military strength. Machiavelli made preparations to embark on this journey, the most daunting and exacting diplomatic mission he had ever been on, but one he had proven himself exceptionally well suited to undertake by his past service. It would have provided him with an exceptional opportunity to display his considerable powers of observation and diplomacy. However, the Florentine aristocrats would not hear of Machiavelli being allowed to conduct such an important mission. Their rejection of Machiavelli was fueled partly by their growing hatred of Soderini, with whom Machiavelli had a close acquaintance, and partly because Machiavelli, regardless of his demonstrated ability and loyalty, was a commoner. They successfully lobbied for a member of an aristocratic family, Francesco Vettori, to undertake the mission instead. 85 Vettori took the mission, but was found by Soderini to be unreliable: despite his noble heritage, he clearly lacked Machiavelli’s skills of observation and communication and had not proven himself immune to partisan influences. In the end, Machiavelli was sent to bail out the young aristocrat. In the wake of such an experience, it is not surprising that Machiavelli would place a thinly veiled barb slighting the aristocracy and praising individuals of merit in his political works.

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THE EMPHASIS ON ACTING YOUNG IN MACHIAVELLI AND THE DAODEJING Translation errors aside, there is sufficient sexual innuendo and commentary on gender roles in Machiavelli’s writings, especially in his plays, to fuel allegations of misogyny. However, the image of Fortune as a lady, while certainly misogynist, has a deeper meaning in the context of Machiavelli’s political philosophy, and expresses a solution to the problem of corruption and factionalism within Florentine politics. Machiavelli writes: [I]t is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman [lady], and if you want to keep her under it is necessary to beat her and force her down. It is clear that she more often allows herself to be won over by impetuous men than by those who proceed coldly. And so, like a woman [lady], Fortune is always a friend of young men, for they are less cautious, more ferocious, and command her with more audacity. 86

On the surface, this passage is misogynous. However, within the context of his overall political philosophy, specifically, his cyclical understanding of history, this passage can be read as praising youth. Youth is prized by Machiavelli because youth acts out of necessity. The reason Fortune favors the young is that they are “less cautious, more ferocious, and command her with more audacity.” As applied to states, this suggests that they, too, are favored by Fortune in their early years. Like young men, forced by necessity, new regimes must be more inclined to take risks and be bolder than established states. The latter, even if not yet showing the inevitable signs of decline, are more inclined to be cautious, for there is no necessity pushing them to take chances and they have much more to lose. Of course, it is not so much a case of Fortune bestowing her blessings upon those whose backs are against the wall, as it is a case that those who have to fight for their survival will always do so more vigorously than those whose survival is not at stake. All things being equal, the difference in passion and commitment between two such adversaries adds an almost supernatural strength to the performance of the former. As Machiavelli says of a people driven from their homeland by necessity: “Such people as these are, therefore, extremely formidable, since they are driven by extreme necessity, and if they do not encounter good armies, they will never be stopped.” 87 And this leads Machiavelli to counsel that, in battle, a prudent general arranges affairs such that his troops have to fight out of necessity; he describes such a commander as “open[ing] to the enemy a path that they could have closed to him, while to their own troops they closed a path they could have left open.” 88 Machiavelli also favors youth because the young are by nature more flexible than their elders. His admiration for youthfulness even leads him to encouraging rulers to act younger than their age, and supplies another con-

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nection to Laozi, who does likewise. Both advise a return to the ways of youth, although Laozi goes much farther than his Italian counterpart. Laozi repeatedly offers the image of the newborn as the model which the sage-ruler is to adopt, asking “[i]n concentrating your breath can you become as supple as a babe?” 89 proclaiming that “[o]ne who possesses virtue in abundance is comparable to a new born babe,” 90 and challenging the sage-ruler to be “inactive and reveal no signs, / Like a baby that has not yet learned to smile.” 91 Just as Machiavelli’s passage resonates with the theme of return that permeates his philosophy, so too does the Daodejing: if the sage-ruler can take the lower position, he will never be without constant virtue and “will again return to being a babe.” 92 This last reference clearly shows that the state of being like a newborn is one that can, and indeed must, be returned to in order for the sage to remain potent and effective. Thus, the idea of returning to a state or origin is advised in both, in the preference Fortune shows for young men when she is depicted as a lady and in the image of the newborn babe. Laozi, however, radicalizes the idea in a manner that Machiavelli cannot—the newborn is not merely younger than “young men” but is more primordial. Young men are defined by desire and ambition and are forced to act out of necessity, whereas the newborn has only the most natural and immediate of desires. Both writers seek a return, but whereas Machiavelli wants a return to conditions of necessity, Laozi wants a return to conditions of simplicity. FORTUNE IS A GODDESS The link between the natural and the feminine, which Machiavelli first establishes by likening Fortune to a raging river and then by referring to her as a lady, culminates in his elevating her status to that of a goddess, be it as Fortuna herself or as Circe. Omnipotent, indifferent to humans, cruel and fickle, yet nurturing, she decides not just the rules of the game, but who the players will be and what their abilities are. Her power is both ubiquitous and uncontested. Thus Machiavelli says of her that she is “omnipotent, because whoever comes into this life either late or early feels her power.” 93 The partisanship Fortune exhibits as a lady in The Prince grows with her power in the Tercets on Fortune, as do her malice and unpredictability. He describes these qualities vividly: She often keeps the good beneath her feet; the wicked she raises up, and if ever she promises anything, never does she keep her promise. She turns states and kingdoms upside down as she pleases; she deprives the just of the good that she freely gives to the unjust. This unstable goddess and fickle deity often sets the undeserving on a throne to which the deserving never attains.

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Fortune, as the enraged river, was impartial. When the banks overflow, the only countermeasure available is prudence. In fact, this is Machiavelli’s counsel to rulers. He encourages them to take advantage of times of peace, when the river is relatively tranquil, to protect themselves “with dikes and dams when the weather is calm, so that when they rise up again either the waters will be channeled off or their force will be neither so damaging nor so out of control.” 95 The implication regarding Fortune is clear: Fortune “shows her power where there is no well-ordered virtue to resist her, and therefore turns her impetus toward where she knows no dikes and dams have been constructed to hold her in.” 96 The fault lies in human misjudgment and lack of preparedness, nothing more. After all, people decide to settle in flood plains knowing of the threat of floods, and either make adequate preparations or do not. As a lady, Fortune responds to young men, and so her indifference appears to be compromised, although the difference actually lies in the human drive to fight for one’s own survival. However, against a goddess, preventative measures are ineffective, and a certain tinge of wickedness appears to be at play. Fortuna, the goddess, is here depicted as delighting in rewarding the wicked, even if only temporarily, and operates without mercy or justice. Machiavelli uses animal imagery to describe Fortune’s malice in the Tercets on Fortune: Have you ever seen anywhere how a raging eagle moves, driven by hunger and fasting? And how he carries a tortoise on high, that the force of its fall may break it, and he can feed on the dead flesh? So Fortune not that a man may remain on high carries him up, but that as he plunges down she may delight. 97

In the end, as Rinaldo degli Albizzi, Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia, and the fabled Castruccio Castracani all learned, no human can stand up to or escape Fortune’s power or malevolence indefinitely. CIRCE AND THE DAO: NATURE AS NURTURE In The Golden Ass Fortune again appears as a goddess, but this time specifically in the guise of Circe. The story of The Golden Ass tells the tale of a man, possibly an allegory for Machiavelli himself, 98 who finds himself far from civilization in an unknown and untamed land. He has no idea how he reached this place, but he finds himself deprived of his liberty, his vigor vanquished, and the fearful darkness of night ominously descending. His fear

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turns to terror as a horn blasts through the darkness, and a moving light approaches, accompanied by the sound of myriad things rustling in the foliage around him. A young woman, whom the narrator describes as graceful and possessing “the utmost beauty, but breezy and brash,” 99 appears, holding a light in one hand, in the other a horn, both of which she uses to lead the animals he hears scurrying around him in the night. Circe’s origins and attitude build upon the mythology Machiavelli employs in the Tercets on Fortune. There, the origins of the goddess were mysterious and unclear: “Whose daughter she is or from what family she sprang we know not,” 100 Machiavelli laments. This passage establishes a significant link with the Dao, for as already shown, in the Daodejing the Dao’s origins are also murky and unknown. The maiden explains that this mysterious and dark place is Circe’s realm, that after fleeing Jove, Circe “found no trustworthy refuge and no people who would receive her—so great was the rumor of her infamy—in this dark forest, shady and dense, fleeing all human society and law, she fixed her dwelling and her seat.” 101 In this place, Circe “lives as an enemy to men, fed by the sighs of these herds. And because never does one who has come here get away, therefore never has news of her been heard, and still it is unheard.” 102 The woman calms the narrator and reassures him of his (temporary) safety. She reveals that she is one of Circe’s damsels, and promises to protect him for a while, although she cannot prevent his ultimate fate, which she discloses to him: the animals he has seen her leading were once men such as the narrator, but Circe has transformed them into these animals simply by looking on their faces. Several points need to be highlighted regarding this depiction of Fortune and its relation to the Dao. First, Circe is singular, an absolute ruler over all in her domain: there is room for only one deity in this realm. This is reminiscent of the image of the wheel from chapter 11 of the Daodejing. In Moeller’s analysis of the wheel, he argues that the Dao, as exemplified by the rotation of the wheel, can refer to the relationship between the various spokes, an opposition that is relative, or it can refer to the relationship between the spokes and the hub, an opposition that is absolute. 103 In the relative sense, the people, represented by the spokes, must maintain their roles and not interfere with the roles of others; the wheel cannot work unless the spokes are arranged precisely, linking hub to rim. Despite this, the opposition between spokes is merely to avoid confusion and entanglement; order can only be had if people perform their tasks (for example, farming) in a timely fashion and without interference from others. Just as, in the absolute sense, there is an irreconcilable opposition between spokes and hub (the spokes are interchangeable, but spokes and hub can never change place), so, while the people can perform a multitude of tasks, they can never be the sage-ruler. Further, although no one knows the whereabouts of Jove, and even though he displaced her once, it is clear that his power does not penetrate

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Circe’s forest. In fact, in the Tercets on Fortune Machiavelli goes so far as to claim that “we do know of a certain that even by Jove her power is feared.” 104 The contrast with Jove brings up yet another point of congruity between Fortune and the Dao, namely the pre-eminence of the feminine. Certainly, Machiavelli’s account of Circe’s dominion includes the masculine personified by Jove (she has dominion over the men-beasts, and Jove fears her, although he has temporarily driven her back), but the male principle is subjugated here in the same way that the Daodejing downplays the traditionally-preferred (male) half of the binaries to create a balance between the two halves of the masculine/feminine dyad by emphasizing the traditionally subservient half. The third affinity between the Circe and the Dao lies in the nature and scope of their respective power. Like water, Circe has been displaced, but has not disappeared and will still persist and continue her work through a strategy of non-contention; simply put, she lies in wait over time, and her exile promises to be temporary. Circe lies in wait for men to come to her of their own accord, at which time she transforms them into animals. But instead of using the Circe myth to castigate human descent into animality, Machiavelli employs it instead to grudgingly acknowledge that the artificial world of culture and laws that humans create is a brief, futile, and delusional respite from her reign. Like the waters flowing to the river cited in chapter 66 of the Daodejing, all eventually come to her of their own accord, and this is the secret of both her power and her endurance. As the damsel tells the narrator: “never does one who has come here get away, therefore never has news of her been heard, and still it is unheard.” 105 In short, Circe’s realm, the natural, reclaims all: men, civilizations, culture. As in the reversal of the Dao, all returns to the feminine. The nurturing aspect of her power is another link between Circe the goddess and the way in which the Dao relates to the myriad creatures. Circe and her handmaidens care for the animals, but ask nothing in return from them. This resonates with the Daodejing’s characterization of water in chapter 8. Whereas Circe lies in wait outside of the civilized world for men like the poem’s narrator to come to her, the Dao occupies the lower position that typically others avoid, as the image of water in chapter 8 implicitly suggests: “Because water excels in benefitting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes closest to the way.” 106 The nurturing aspect of her power also parallels so closely the description of the Dao offered in chapter 51 that the latter could have easily appeared in The Golden Ass and been used by Machiavelli to describe Circe: The way gives them life; Virtue rears them; Things give them shape;

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Circumstances bring them to maturity. Therefore the myriad creatures all revere the way and honor virtue. Yet the way is revered and virtue honored not because this is decreed by any authority but because it is natural for them to be treated so. Thus the way gives them life and rears them; Brings them up and nurses them; Brings them to fruition and maturity; Feeds and shelters them. It gives them life yet claims no possession; It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude; It is the steward yet exercises no authority. Such is called the mysterious virtue. 107

While Circe protects all within the natural realm, humans pose a special problem for her. As seen, they have already exiled her and she, like the Dao, must lie in wait for them. She does this by occupying the position no one wants, “as rough a place as ever I saw” 108 in the narrator’s words, just as the Daodejing maintains that “[t]he reason the River and the Sea are able to be king of the hundred valleys is that they excel in taking the lower position. Hence they are able to be king of the hundred valleys.” 109 When men do eventually come to her, she protects them not only from external dangers, but from themselves as well, by turning them into animals. That this fate is beneficial to them is made evident by the conversation the narrator is permitted with the swine in the eighth chapter of the poem. The narrator offers to have Circe’s damsel turn the swine back into human form for their discussion, undoubtedly meant as a kindness to the filth-covered beast. To the narrator’s shock, the pig refuses, citing a long list of physical and moral human failings that, in his animal form, he is happy to be free from. Weak senses and vulnerability to the elements, plagued by ambition, avarice, and lust, the hog’s assessment of the human condition is grim: “No animal can be found that has a frailer life, and has for living a stronger desire, more disordered fear or greater madness.” 110 Laozi also views culture as a breeding ground for desires, and something from which the people need to be protected. Thus, chapter 64 of the Daodejing, states: In their enterprises the people Always ruin them when on the verge of success . . . Therefore the sage desires not to desire And does not value goods which are hard to come by; Learns to be without learning And makes good the mistakes of the multitude In order to help the myriad creatures to be natural and to refrain from daring to act. 111

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And chapter 65 tells the sage-ruler that “[o]f old those who excelled in the pursuit of the way did not use it to enlighten the people but to hoodwink them. The reason the people are difficult to govern is that they are too clever.” 112 Both these passages discuss how the sage-ruler is supposed to treat the people, not the Dao’s relation to the myriad creatures; however, given that the sage-ruler is at all times to emulate the Dao, these passages can safely be extended by analogy to the Dao’s relationship with the myriad creatures. The sage-ruler protects the people from themselves, just as the Dao protects that special subset of the myriad creatures, the people, from themselves. Similarly, Circe not only accepts and protects men from themselves, but she does so even-handedly, refusing to acknowledge the cultural distinctions of good and bad. This is revealed in the narrator’s shock at discovering the true natures of those he knew from the civilization he came from: “How many whom I had once considered Fabiuses and Catos turned out to be sheep and rams when I learned of their natures there!” 113 All the things that make a difference in the world of men and culture, like rank, glory, and accomplishment, are irrelevant and meaningless in Circe’s domain. She accepts all, she claims all, echoing chapter 62 of the Daodejing, in which it is maintained, “The way is the refuge for the myriad creatures. / It is that by which the good man protects, / And that by which the bad is protected.” 114 INTERCONNECTEDNESS IN THE DAODEJING On its most basic level, according to the Daodejing, all things are interconnected through nothingness. Thus, chapter 40 of the Daodejing states, “The myriad creatures in the world are born from Something, and Something from Nothing,” 115 and chapter 42 maintains, “The way begets one; one begets two; two begets three; three begets the myriad creatures. / The myriad creatures carry on their backs the yin and embrace in their arms the yang and are the blending of the generative forces of the two.” 116 Chapter 2 elaborates on this interconnectedness of all things, maintaining that the Daodejing is not merely making a claim about the historical lineage of all beings, that is they have their origins in nothingness, but, as well, a claim that their continued existence is intimately tied to that same nothingness. Thus Something and Nothing produce each other; The difficult and the easy complement each other; The long and the short offset each other; The high and the low incline toward each other; Note and sound harmonize with each other; Before and after follow each other.

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Therefore the sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practices the teaching that uses no words. 117

A more practical spin is placed on the idea in chapter 11, where it is made clear that the utility of an object resides in the proper harnessing of the nothingness within: Thirty spokes Share one hub. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have the use of the cart. Knead the clay in order to make a vessel. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have the use of the vessel. Cut out the doors and windows in order to make a room. Adapt the nothing therein to the purpose in hand, and you will have the use of the room. Thus what we gain is Something, yet it is by virtue of Nothing that this can be put to use. 118

This metaphysics manifests itself in human affairs too, as is seen by the combination of the image of the wheel and the emphasis on the importance of the nothingness to the wheel’s ability to function. Since the wheel is a metaphor for the sage-ruler’s relationship to the people, this passage shows how central the notion of interconnectedness is to the functioning of a wellrun state. Chapter 39 spells out the theme of interconnectedness as it specifically applies to the sage-ruler: “Hence the superior must have the inferior as root; the high must have the low as base. / Thus lords and princes refer to themselves as ‘solitary,’ ‘desolate,’ and hapless.’ This is taking the inferior as root.” 119 That all things are interconnected with their opposites is accepted as a basic metaphysical fact for the Daodejing, and a proper understanding of this allows for a more successful management of all events by the sage-ruler. Chapter 63 of the Daodejing even anticipates Machiavelli’s advice to the ruler to anticipate problems and deal with them proactively before they become large and entrenched: Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult; make something big by starting with it when small. Difficult things in the world must needs have their beginnings in the easy; big things must needs have their beginnings in the small. 120

However, Laozi places far greater emphasis on preventing problems from arising within the state, in effect radicalizing the advice to the point of resolving problems before they occur, while they are still “nothing.” Thus, in chapter 64, he counsels:

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Chapter 2 It is easy to maintain a situation while it is still secure; It is easy to deal with a situation before symptoms develop; It is easy to break a thing when it is yet brittle; It is easy to dissolve a thing when it is yet minute. Deal with a thing while it is still nothing; Keep a thing in order before disorder sets in. 121

The interconnectedness of all things is what will enable the sage-ruler to know much without moving and to do much without exertion. Problems will be foreseen in their infancy by the sage-ruler, and thus dealt in the embryonic stage, before the people are aware that they exist. INTERCONNECTEDNESS IN MACHIAVELLI Interconnectedness is just as much a hallmark of Machiavelli’s understanding of the world as it is of Laozi’s, even if this interconnectedness is expressed in different terms. The ubiquity of Fortune’s power is seen throughout Machiavelli’s examples of princes and political bodies, and embodies a simple truth: one’s success invariably comes at the expense of another’s success. This truth is accompanied by a disturbing, but equally true corollary: one’s failure enhances the position of others relative to oneself. In the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli describes paintings that adorn the walls of Fortune’s palace and stand as a testament to those kingdoms whose rise she facilitated and which reflect her glory the most: In the first space, painted in vigorous colors, we see that long ago under Egypt’s king the world stood subjugated and conquered… Next we see the Assyrians climbing up to the lofty scepter, when Fortune did not permit the king of Egypt to wield authority longer. Thereafter we see her happy to turn to the Medes; from the Medes to the Persians; and the heir of the Greeks she crowned with the diadem she took away from the Persians. Here we see Thebes and Memphis subdued, Babylon, Troy, and Carthage too, Jerusalem, Athens, Sparta, and Rome. Here is represented how splendid they were, noble, rich, and powerful, and how at the end Fortune made them their enemies’ booty. 122

Not only do states rise and fall, but one state’s rise must come at the expense of a dominant power or prevent the ascendancy of another, and likewise, when a state falters and declines, it becomes the prey of other states and provides them with the means or opportunity for success. On one level all fortune, in the sense of success and failure, is interconnected and relative. 123 Such interconnectedness extends beyond the success and failure of persons and nations, which are always intertwined with the prospects of others,

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both dependent on and relative to them, and actually penetrates the bodies of persons and states. Not only are a person’s or nation’s fortunes intertwined with the fortunes of others, both dependent on and relative to them, but this interconnectedness exists internally, as is evidenced in Discourses 1.27 where Machiavelli observes that people rarely know how to be completely good or bad. Ultimately, the two qualities are interconnected, and people embody this. Furthermore, Mansfield comments that, when considering the origins of cities, Machiavelli initially draws a distinction between foreigners and indigenous persons, but the examples Machiavelli uses quickly reveals his true position to be that the founder of a city must be both foreign and native: “Whether the first legislator was native or foreign does not matter because he must be both. As a native who builds anew and reorders the city completely for the sake of self-defence, he makes himself a foreigner to the old ways of the city. As a foreigner he makes himself the first native of a new regime.” 124 This interconnectedness is not only internalized, but runs so deeply that it can be traced back to origins that predate the existence of the individual in question. As Mansfield notes, “Every man either had a humble beginning in his own lifetime or inherited it from his ancestors. . . . Every man who reflects on his beginning can see that his present place (if he has one) was not given to him without effort.” 125 This humble beginning can be traced back past individuals, to ancestors, the origins of cities, and possibly even radicalized to include the very fact of existence. Mansfield could just as easily be commenting on chapter 39 of the Daodejing, which opens with the words: “Hence the superior must have the inferior as root; the high must have the low as base.” 126 MACHIAVELLI’S CYCLICAL CONCEPTION OF HISTORY As seen in the rise and fall of states, the interconnectedness of all bodies is evident in the realms of politics and history. Machiavelli lays out the simplest version of his cyclical vision of history at the beginning of the fifth book of The History of Florence: In their normal variations, countries generally go from order to disorder and then from disorder move back to order, because—since Nature does not allow worldly things to remain fixed—when they come to their utmost perfection and no further possibility for rising, they must go down. Likewise, when they have gone down and through their defects have reached the lowest depths, they necessarily rise, since they cannot go lower. So always from good they go down to bad, and from bad rise up to good. Because ability brings forth quiet; quiet, laziness; laziness, disorder; disorder, ruin; and likewise from ruin comes order; from order, ability; from the last, glory and good fortune. 127

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While The History of Florence offers the broadest description of the historical cycle, it does not tell the whole story. This passage must be read in conjunction with other passages from the Discourses and against the backdrop of The Golden Ass and the Tercets on Fortune. Early in book 1 of the Discourses, Machiavelli borrows from the Greek historian Polybius and specifies that in constitutional terms this cycle consists of six forms of government, three of which are good, namely principalities, aristocracies, and popular government, each of which can become corrupted and turn into a perverted form. Thus the principality can become a tyranny, triggering conspiracies by the powerful members of the state. If successful, these powers will form an aristocracy and rule well. If the aristocracy becomes corrupt, however, it will degenerate into rule by a few and directed solely toward their narrow interests, at which point the people will rise up against such oppression. Popular governments can also become corrupt and slip into mass abuse of liberties. When this happens, corruption is not just located in the prince or a few nobles, but throughout the people at large, and a prince is needed to restore good government. Machiavelli ends his discussion of the constitutional cycle on a mixed note, lamenting that few states have the wherewithal to go through this cycle for very long and that “in the course of its troubles, a republic ever lacking in counsel and strength becomes subject to a nearby state that is better organized,” but otherwise is hopeful that if this fate can be escaped, “a republic would be apt to circle about endlessly through these types of government.” 128 Machiavelli fleshes out his claim that most states will not continue in this cycle, but will become the victims of other predatory, and better organized, states in The Golden Ass, where the narrator reflects: Ability makes countries tranquil, and from Tranquility, Laziness next emerges, and Laziness burns the towns and villages. Then after a country has for a time been subject to lawlessness, Ability often returns to live there once again. Such a course she who governs us permits and requires, so that nothing beneath the sun ever will or can be firm. And it is and always has been and always will be, that evil follows after good, good after evil. 129

In the Tercets on Fortune, the many wheels in Fortune’s palace are what drive history, and these wheels are “ever turning, day and night, because Heaven commands (and she is not to be resisted) that Laziness and Necessity whirl them around.” 130 Further, Machiavelli reaffirms the link between Fortune and nature when he invokes the image of a river to illustrate the scope of Fortune’s power:

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As a rapid torrent, swollen to the utmost, destroys whatever its current anywhere reaches, and adds to one place and lowers another, shifts its banks, shifts its bed and bottom, and makes the earth tremble where it passes, So Fortune in her furious onrush many times, now here and now there, shifts and reshifts the world’s affairs. 131

In this passage, Machiavelli also hints at the cyclical nature of Fortune, for in flooding the plains and moving earth form place to place, Fortune in effect is returning the earth to its beginnings—a constant theme in Machiavelli’s thought and the core of his cyclical conception of history. Renewal, for Machiavelli, means returning the state to the conditions of its origin and youth, where the good of the state took precedence over all other interests out of necessity. Human affairs are not completely at the mercy of Fortune, however. Humans can adapt to Fortune’s plans, and if individuals can do so adequately, they can survive and succeed. Machiavelli expresses this in the imagery of the prince jumping from wheel to wheel in Fortune’s palace. 132 So long as one remains sufficiently flexible of mind, success is in principle possible indefinitely, even transcending the mortal life of the prince. For the greatest act of prudence a prince can perform is, in anticipation of his own death, to engineer the transformation of his state from a princedom into a republic. In carefully designing social institutions to imitate his skills of rulership, the prince can transcend his death and achieve an earthly immortality through the life of the state. THE DAODEJING AND HISTORY The Daodejing does not conceive of history the way Machiavelli does. In fact, the idea of history is glaringly absent from the Daodejing, and with good reason: history in large part is the glorification of human civilization, something antithetical to Daoist rule. On a more subtle level, however, there is a sense of history in the Daodejing, and a close look at several passages in the Daodejing reveal an implicit metaphysics of interconnectedness that resonate strongly with Machiavelli’s cyclical account of history in its broad strokes. For instance, chapter 58 of the Daodejing states: It is on disaster that good fortune perches; It is beneath good fortune that disaster crouches. Who knows the limit? Does not the straightforward exist? The straightforward changes again into the crafty, and the good changes into the monstrous. 133

This passage clearly falls short of Machiavelli’s full cyclical conception of history, but it does mirror his thumbnail sketch of history, that societies

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oscillate between states of order and disorder, and reflects the premise that not only does one half of the cycle have its roots in the other half, but that the one tends to beget the other. Two further passages go beyond the metaphysics of interconnectedness and suggest a historical consciousness present in the Daodejing. The first passage occurs in chapter 14, where Laozi counsels the sage-ruler: Hold fast to the way of antiquity In order to keep in control the realm of today. The ability to know the beginning of antiquity Is called the thread running through the way. 134

The second passage is the description of the ideal state, as detailed in chapter 80. It is plausible that this sort of state existed at some point in early history, and the Daodejing encourages the sage-ruler to return his society to this simple condition. Reduce the size and population of the state. Ensure that even though the people have tools of war for a troop or a battalion they will not use them; and also that they will be reluctant to move to distant places because they look on death as no light matter. Even when they have ships and carts, they will have no use for them; and even when they have armor and weapons, they will have no occasion to make a show of them. Bring it about that the people will return to the use of the knotted rope, Will find relish in their food And beauty in their clothes, Will be content in their abode And happy in the way they live. Though adjoining states are within sight of one another, and the sound of dogs barking and cocks crowing in one state can be heard in another, yet the people of one state will grow old and die without having any dealings with those of another. 135

These two passages indicate that movements in history are akin to Machiavelli’s cyclical vision of history. They posit an age in remote antiquity when things were different: specifically, when the people followed or emulated the Dao, and the result was a peaceful social existence. Obviously, things have changed since this time. The Dao, while still accessible to those who are able and willing to observe its ways, has otherwise been lost. As a consequence, social unrest has become widespread. This is not a one-way historical movement, however, as is seen by the fact that Laozi offers advice on how to return the state to this condition of simplicity and naturalness.

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MACHIAVELLI AND LAOZI ON RETURNING TO THE BEGINNING Just as Machiavelli seeks ways to prolong a state’s reign atop Fortune’s wheel by returning the state to its beginnings, so too Laozi posits that the longevity of the state is to be found in a return to its beginnings. That such a return is part of the sage-ruler’s mandate is clear from Laozi’s insistence that the sage-ruler emulate the Dao, which is described in chapter 40 of the Daodejing as that of returning or retreating: “Turning back is how the way moves; / Weakness is the means the way employs.” 136 Although both Machiavelli and Laozi see returning to the beginnings as a return to conditions that existed in the past, for Laozi, this is not a return to times of necessity, but to times of simplicity. This can be seen in the imagery used in the Daodejing on this matter. The sage-ruler is encouraged to “embrace the uncarved block,” 137 and to “win the empire by not being meddlesome.” 138 The Daodejing uses the imagery of the infant to drive home the notion that this return is possible precisely because the sage-ruler once existed in this state, as all persons have. Thus, chapter 20 has the sage-ruler proclaim “I alone am inactive and reveal no signs, / Like a baby that has not yet learned to smile,” 139 and in chapter 10 the would-be sage-ruler is challenged: “In concentrating your breath can you become as supple / As a babe?” 140 If he can do all this, the sage-ruler “will again return to being a babe,” 141 and “the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block.” 142 Two further discrepancies between Machiavelli and Laozi exist regarding returning to the beginning. The first is the issue of whether or not these movements between order and corruption are continuous and the second is the relative plausibility of each philosopher’s counsel. Laozi never gives a satisfactory explanation of how corruption takes hold in a society, except to blame it on desire. The problem with this is, that if the Dao were truly emulated, how could desire ever get out of control? In contrast, Machiavelli never posits an optimistic account of human nature as inherently good nor does he think there ever existed a golden age in which people always behaved well. His view of human nature is that human beings have always been self-interested, short-sighted beings, and that this not only has led to chaos in the past, but once order is restored, it is only a matter of time until people forget the lessons of the past and become corrupt again, unless the state invents ways to remind them of the consequences that a loss of order can bring. However, the ideal Daoist state need not be part of a mythical era. There are two key elements to the Daodejing’s description of the ideal state that render its existence in a more contemporary setting possible, even plausible, under certain conditions. The first is its way of life, the second is the size of the population. The mode of life is simple, but not primitive. Technological

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inventions, ships and carts, armor and weapons, do exist, but the people simply have little use for them. Ships and carts are only necessary if traveling long distances, which is not part of the Daoist political program. Armor and weapons are tools of war, and the ideal Daoist state would only ever need them if attacked by a foreign power. The small population is also crucial to the success of the Daoist state. Large populations mean greater specialization of labor, a more diverse economy, and increased wealth, all of which result in the conditions for corruption. Specialization of labor creates leisure time, and increased wealth encourages desires that extend beyond the immediate needs of life. These are followed inevitably by luxuries, inequality, and the social turmoil that the accompanying desires will cause. Thus, the origins which Laozi seeks a return to are possible, but they must include both simplicity of lifestyle as well as simplicity of economy. SOCIAL DECAY IN MACHIAVELLI: GENERALS BEFORE PHILOSOPHERS In the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli explicitly locates the cause of social decay in Laziness, one of the two figures who turn the wheels of Fortune in her palace. He views laziness as stemming from the quiet brought about by ability, and believes that it leads directly to ruin. In short, once a people no longer has to fight for survival, they become soft, start thinking of personal gain instead of the good of the state, and are open to decadence. Thus, in The History of Florence Machiavelli states that “letters come after arms, and that in countries and cities generals are born earlier than philosophers,” and laments that “the virtue of military courage cannot be corrupted with a more honorable laziness than that of letters; nor with a greater and more dangerous deception can this laziness enter into well-regulated cities.” 143 Machiavelli suggests two ways to structure the state so that laziness and corruption do not take hold. The first is to properly harness the self-interest of the citizens, and the second is to value self-sufficiency over shows of generosity. In the Discourses, he cites how well behaved the Roman Senate was after the exile of the Tarquin kings as evidence of his maxim that “men never do good except out of necessity, but where choices are abundant and unlimited freedom is the norm, everything immediately becomes confused and disorderly.” 144 The Senate was democratic in spirit so long as the Tarquins, who remained a threat to the interests of the Senators, were still alive; once the Tarquins were all dead, the Senate became oppressive of the people. That the Senate needed the support of the people to ward off the external threat posed by the Tarquins was the only reason they respected the people. Effectively it was only their fear of having to deal with the return of the Tarquins that restrained their self-interest and ambitions. Once this fear was

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gone, chaos ensued. Machiavelli concludes that the “desires of free peoples are rarely harmful to liberty, because they arise either from oppression or from the suspicion that they will be oppressed.” 145 The social discord caused by the loss of the Tarquins as an enemy did not end until the Tribunes were set up to mediate between the interests of the Roman nobility and the plebeians. Thus, Roman political structures were able to imitate what fear of the Tarquins had previously done for Rome: circumscribe the ambitions of each class in such a way as to make the existing inequalities a source of strength for the state as opposed to a fault line that would trigger civil strife. Far from seeing inequality and the presence of laws as a sign of social decline as Laozi does, Machiavelli sees them as a remedy to social ills. Machiavelli also contravenes the medical science of his day in holding this view, in effect rejecting the idea that health arises from a balance of the humors in favor of the view that health is rooted in a carefully controlled conflict between them. Citing the three centuries of stability and strength between the end of Tarquin rule and the assassination of the Graachi (Tiberius and Gaius, who attempted a radical redistribution of wealth from the patricians to the plebeians), Machiavelli proclaims: It is not possible, therefore, to judge these disturbances to be harmful or such a republic to be divided, since over such a long period of time its strife sent no more than eight or ten citizens into exile, killed very few of them, and condemned not many more to pay fines. Nor can one in any way reasonably call a republic disorganized where so many examples of exceptional ability occur, for good examples arise from good training, good training from good laws, and good laws from those disturbances that many people thoughtlessly condemn, and anyone who carefully examines the goal of these laws will find that they did not lead to exile or to violence against the common good, but instead brought forth laws and institutions for the benefit of civic liberty. 146

Later in the Discourses, Machiavelli acknowledges that class conflict can be avoided, but only in a small state. This, in effect, concedes Laozi’s point, for the state advocated in the Daodejing is small. However, Machiavelli rejects this option. He lays out the tension between internal danger and external danger as follows: for a people to be easily governed they need to be small and unarmed, but if they are such, they will never be able to produce an empire, because they will not be able to hold captured territories and will always be the prey of neighbors who are larger, better-armed, or both. A large, well-armed population, in contrast, can expand and produce an empire, but will always be difficult to govern. 147 Machiavelli concludes from this that class conflict in a healthy state is not only inevitable, but is the cause of greatness, and insists that “it is necessary to tolerate those enmities that arose between the people and the senate, taking them as a disadvantage necessary to attain Roman greatness.” 148

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The second method of preventing social decay Machiavelli offers is for the ruler to avoid being a burden on the people. The easiest way for this is for the ruler to engage in a policy of self-sufficiency as opposed to trying to win favor through grand acts of generosity. In chapter 16 of The Prince, when dealing with the question of whether it is better to be generous or miserly, Machiavelli’s answer is clear: generosity is a self-defeating virtue that will transform the ruler into a voracious parasite on the people, taxing them to afford benefits that can only be conferred on a few, who will resent the ruler the moment he can no longer finance his generosity. The counsel Machiavelli offers the ruler effectively redefines what it means to be generous: [A] prince, being unable to use this virtue of generosity in a manner that will not harm himself if he is known for it, should, if he is wise, not concern himself about the reputation of being miserly. With time he will come to be considered more generous, once it is evident that, as a result of his parsimony, his income is sufficient, he can defend himself from anyone who wages war against him, and he can undertake enterprises without overburdening his people. In this way he appears as generous to all those from whom he takes nothing, who are countless, and as miserly to all those to whom he gives nothing, who are few. 149

As long as the people are not oppressed, be it by the ruler or by the upper classes, the interests of all parties can be channeled into making the state strong and stable. Laozi will also locate the source of social decline in the oppression of the people and social and economic inequality, but his response to these phenomena will be markedly different than Machiavelli’s. SOCIAL DECAY IN THE DAODEJING: ETHICS AS A PRECURSOR TO WAR While war is the ultimate sign of social corruption for Laozi, signs of decline can be spotted much earlier—laws, ethics (especially displays of filial piety and patriotism), and social and material inequality are all symptoms of a society in serious decline from the perspective of the Daodejing. Laozi identifies the cause of social decay as society’s loss of touch with the Dao, but the results are similar to those that Machiavelli cites: ambitions and the privileging of self-interest arise and eclipse activities that make the state healthy. Thus in chapter 18, Laozi states: When the great way falls into disuse There are benevolence and rectitude; When cleverness emerges There is great hypocrisy; When the six relations are at variance

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There are filial children; When the state is benighted There are loyal ministers. 150

The key to this passage is the lack of harmony that occurs when the Dao is no longer being embodied. The population goes from a state of simplicity to being “clever,” and great shows of virtue and patriotism begin. All these signs are overcompensations, a dangerous phenomenon because they mask deficiencies and corruption, hence the reference to “great hypocrisy.” There is also a clear shot at the rival Confucians at play here, in the reference to filial children as a symptom of a society in decline. The theme is revisited in chapter 38, this time the target being the type of virtue preached by Confucians: Hence when the way was lost there was virtue; when virtue was lost there was benevolence; when benevolence was lost there was rectitude; when rectitude was lost there were the rites. The rites are the wearing thin of loyalty and good faith And the beginning of disorder; Foreknowledge is the flowery embellishment of the way And the beginning of folly. 151

The correct way to rule is to avoid such overcompensation; the sage-ruler must be simple, and engage in wu-wei, which will tend to favor principles of non-contention. Central to governing through policies of non-contention is the absence or minimization of laws, for laws not only require a legal system and bureaucracy, but already signify corruption. Not only will laws provide no remedy, they will accelerate the decay. People, who act appropriately of their own accord, do not need to be told how to act, nor do they require the threat of punishment to motivate them. Laozi gives an emphatic warning in chapter 57 that extensive and intrusive government are both signs of corruption as well as corrupting influences: Govern the state by being straightforward; wage war by being crafty; but win the empire by not being meddlesome. How do I know that it is like that? By means of this. The more taboos there are in the empire The poorer the people; The more sharpened tools the people have The more benighted the state; The more skills the people have The further novelties multiply; The better known the laws and edicts The more thieves and robbers there are. 152

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The consequence of such social decay is not only a lack of inner harmony for the individual, but also includes ramifications for the society as a whole and beyond. Further, these negative effects will not simply be moral, there will also be physical effects that will impact the welfare of the people and the state. Thus, in chapter 53 the Daodejing laments: The court is corrupt, The fields are overgrown with weeds, The granaries are empty; Yet there are those dressed in fineries, With swords at their sides, Filled with food and drink, And possessed of too much wealth. This is known as taking the lead in robbery. Far indeed is this from the way. 153

The resulting inequality, both social and economic, are both symptomatic of social decline, but also feed into a cycle of conflict and exaggerated desire that further obscure the Dao from the people’s mindset. The implications of a society that has fallen out of touch with the Dao are spelled out in chapter 75: The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes That the people are hungry. The people are difficult to govern: It is because those in authority are too fond of action That the people are difficult to govern. The people treat death lightly: It is because the people set too much store by life That they treat death lightly. It is just because one has no use for life that one is wiser than the man who values life. 154

The welfare of the people will suffer and they will be taxed excessively. As a result, social discord will spiral out of control and the people will be more difficult to govern and more likely to engage in domestic fighting and thievery. A serious consequence of this is that the people will “treat death lightly,” which is a recipe for violence both internal and external to the state. Of importance here is that the Daodejing locates the source of these problems in the leadership; these troubles proliferate because “those in authority are too fond of action.” The solution that the Daodejing offers is harsh but, while no more gentle or pleasant than the restorative measures Machiavelli proposes, is significantly different from Machiavelli’s prescription to restore a society. The Daodejing calls for a closed society, thus in chapter 20 the ruler is told:

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“Exterminate learning and there will no longer be worries,” 155 and chapter 19 elaborates on this point, claiming that social ills are magnified by shows of intelligence and virtue. Such displays are part of a vicious circle; they are at once both the symptoms of having lost being in touch with the Dao and a cause of a mindset that reinforces this disconnect from the Dao: Exterminate the sage, discard the wise, And the people will benefit a hundredfold; Exterminate benevolence, discard rectitude, And the people will again be filial; Exterminate ingenuity, discard profit, And there will be no more thieves and bandits. 156

This is because these social virtues appear only if problems already exist, for they are compensatory in nature and are thus symptomatic of a society in decay. Benevolence and rectitude can only exist if a certain amount of malevolence is already present; and ingenuity and profit separate people from one another and place them in stratified social rankings. Anything that sets one person or group apart from others in a way that could lead to factionalism or covetousness is to be shunned; thus social honors are to be avoided too as well as displays of wealth: “Not to honor men of worth will keep the people from contention; not to value good which are hard to come by will keep them from theft; not to display what is desirable will keep them from being unsettled of mind.” 157 This does not merely apply to grand gestures and obvious social distinctions, but also applies even to basic speech; hence chapter 62 of the Daodejing warns: Beautiful words when offered will win high rank in return; Beautiful deeds can raise a man above others. 158

While Machiavelli’s response is to play interests off one another to strike a balance between unequal social forces so as to strengthen the state, the Daodejing sees this as playing with fire and seeks to avoid any and all of the signs of social decline. They are, after all, symptoms of a state’s ill-health, and so Laozi would quite rightly laugh at the idea that playing symptoms off one another can actually make the organism of the state healthy. It is important to remember that good and bad government for Laozi translated into how effective the government was at maintaining a stable and harmonious social structure, and the test of this is longevity. Expansionist policies cannot be maintained indefinitely, and societies racked by inner turmoil fueled by greed and domination will tear themselves apart sooner or later. Only a simple society will endure.

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While a civil war is an obvious sign of a society that has failed, the Daodejing also considers wars of aggression as evidence of a failed internal politics. Such failure will be preceded by inequalities, shows of patriotism and filial piety, and cleverness among the people—all symptoms of a failed Daoist state. The only war that can be condoned by Laozi is a defensive one. When war comes, the response of Laozi sounds disturbingly close to the received interpretation of Machiavelli in that it is strategy devoid of ethical consideration—as quick a victory as possible using the least amount of effort necessary. Machiavelli’s conception of Fortune and Laozi’s conception of the Dao are in many respects functionally equivalent. The numerous affinities that exist between how the two concepts are described, the characteristics that are attributed to them, and their impact on politics and the human condition are nothing short of astounding, given the different historical contexts in which Machiavelli and Laozi were writing. The major differences between them are only three in number. The first difference is the radical extent to which Laozi takes advice such as acting young (being like a babe as opposed to Fortune’s favoring young men). The second resides in the theorists’ different takes on the interconnectedness of all things. The third, probably the most striking, is the stark difference between each man’s ideas about the condition the corrupt state must return to (simplicity as opposed to necessity), and about how to affect this return. These divergences mark the point where Laozi and Machiavelli branch off in different directions, and can all be traced back to the contrasts between their historical eras and cultural milieu. Machiavelli writes from a tradition that is in the process of return—the Renaissance—and is interpreting and adding to a tradition that stretched back through two empires, the Romans and the Greeks, and several centuries. Culture, the realm of ego both past and present, is of the utmost importance and is engaged in a constant struggle with other human competitors and the natural world. As a result, Machiavelli conceptualizes everything, problem and solution, on the plane of the ego. In contrast, Laozi is writing in a context which saw humanity and culture properly managed as part of a natural order, not something separate from or above nature. Further, Laozi believes that the ego is the ultimate source of social decay, and premises his solution on the possibility that the sage-ruler can attain and operate from a perspective which transcends the ego. This is something that never occurs to Machiavelli. It is as if Machiavelli is dimly aware of the Daoist view of the world—the primacy of process and the fluidity of nature—but is trapped within a tradition that privileges Being over becoming, culture over nature, and men over women far more than did the Warring States period. As a result, Machiavelli can articulate some of these themes through conceptual tools which are poorly suited

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to the task, and the expression of these ideas resonates with, but cannot adequately capture, those of his Daoist counterpart. NOTES 1. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 8, line 20. 2. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 78, line 187. 3. Machiavelli, The Prince, 84. 4. Thomas Flanagan, “The Concept of Fortuna in Machiavelli,” in The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavelli’s Philosophy, ed. Anthony Parel (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 127–56, 130–2. 5. Parel claims that “Machiavelli is a neopagan whose aim is to paganize rather than to secularize Christianity” (The Machiavellian Cosmos, 62), and Sammy Basu, “In a Crazy Time the Crazy Come out Well: Machiavelli and the Cosmology of his Day,” History of Political Thought 11, no. 2 (Summer 1990): 213–239, likewise argues that “[r]ather than attempt to square an astrological cosmos, populated by spirits, intelligences and the capricious Fortuna, with Christianity and God, Machiavelli extended the logic of the former at the expense of the latter. In the name of ‘realism,’ he replaced the Christian account of proper action with an account more congruent with the nature of the world, that of Pagan Rome” (238). 6. Cassirer, 140–60. 7. The status of Christianity in Machiavelli is still the subject of debate. Parel argues that “[w]hile he [Machiavelli] might use, as the context requires, a doctrine of Christian theology to prove his own point, the point in question has nothing to do with Christian theology as such. . . . Under no circumstances does his use of Christian themes and metaphors imply that he endorses the political teachings of Christianity” (The Machiavellian Cosmos, 59). In contrast, Viroli, in his Machiavelli’s God, argues vigorously that Machiavelli was thoroughly Christian in spirit, but that he ascribed to a version of Christianity that was very much in vogue in Florence in his day: “He is a God that loves justice, that orders us to love our homeland, and who wants men to be strong so that they can defend that homeland. This God was, for Niccolò, the true Christian God, in contrast with the God who wishes men to be humble, willing to accept not only the suffering that is the inevitable accompaniment of the human condition, but also the other suffering, eminently avoidable, that the weak endure through the cruelty and ambition of evil men” (1). 8. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., “Introduction,” in Florentine Histories by Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. (Princeton [NJ]: Princeton University Press, 1988), vii–xv, viii–ix. 9. Oded Balaban, “The Human Origins of Fortune in Machiavelli’s Thought,” History of Political Thought 11 no. 1 (1990): 21–36, 28. 10. Flanagan, “The Concept of Fortuna in Machiavelli,” 152–53. 11. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 12. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 85–6. 13. Niccolò Machiavelli, Clizia, The Comedies of Machiavelli: The Woman from Andros, The Mandrake, Clizia, trans. David Sices and James B. Atkinson (Indianapolis [IN]: Hackett Publishing, 2007), 3.7, 343. 14. Machiavelli, Clizia, 4.5, 361. 15. Machiavelli, Clizia, 5.2, 383. 16. Schwartz, 194. 17. Hansen, 13. 18. A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (LaSalle [IL]: Open Court, 1991), 219. 19. Liu, 222. 20. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapters 18, 27, and 65. 21. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 5.1, 1232. 22. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 37, line 81.

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23. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 41, line 92. 24. Hansen, 223. 25. Hansen, 229. 26. LaFargue, 207–8. 27. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 25, line 56. 28. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 1, line 2. 29. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 4, line 13. 30. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 56, line 128. 31. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 1, line 1. 32. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 25, line 56. 33. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 32, line 72. 34. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 67, line 163. 35. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 40, line 89. 36. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 25, line 56. 37. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China, 223. 38. Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action: Wu-wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 87. 39. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 4, line 11. 40. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 37, line 81. 41. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 28, line 63. 42. LaFargue, 201. 43. LaFargue, 202. 44. Slingerland, 112. 45. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. and ed. Allan Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham [NC]: Duke University Press, 1965), 754. 46. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 746. 47. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.29, 236. 48. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 746. 49. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 763. 50. Hans-Georg Moeller, Daoism Explained, 28. 51. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 52. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 25, line 56. 53. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 37, line 81. 54. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 4, line 11. 55. Lao Tzu. Tao te Ching, chapter 45, lines 101–2. 56. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 755. 57. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 18, 60. 58. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 746. 59. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 84. 60. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 4.23, 1214. 61. For a full account of the affair see Masters’ Fortune Is a River: Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli’s Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History, 93–133. 62. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.29, 235. 63. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 5.34, 1281. 64. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 7, 29. 65. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Life of Castruccio Castraccani of Lucca, in The Portable Machiavelli, trans. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa (New York: Penguin, 1979), 539. 66. Timothy J. Lukes, “Fortune Comes of Age (in Machiavelli’s Literary Works),” Sixteenth Century Journal, 11 no. 4 (Winter 1980): 33–50, 47. 67. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 68. Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.11, 52–3. 69. Sarah Allan, The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1997), 31. 70. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 8, line 20. 71. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 61, line 140.

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72. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 66, lines 159–61. 73. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 28, line 63. 74. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 66, line 161. 75. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 76, lines 182–3. 76. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 78, lines 186–7. 77. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 745–747. 78. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 79, line 192. 79. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 73, line 179. 80. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 22, line 50c. 81. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 87. 82. All the standard translations—Price, Mansfield, and Gilbert—use the term “woman” in the famous passage from chapter 25. Freccero, to be discussed in the next paragraph, is correct though, the original Italian text uses “donna,” or “lady.” See Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe, ed. L. Arthur Burd (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 365. I will use “lady” in my own writing, but will retain the use of “woman” and add “[lady]” when quoting translations of Machiavelli that use “woman” instead of “lady.” 83. See Pitkin, Fortune is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Niccolò Machiavelli. 84. John Freccero, “Medusa and the Madonna of Forlì: Political Sexuality in Machiavelli,” in Machiavelli and the Discourse of Literature, ed. Albert Russell Ascoli and Victoria Kahn (Ithaca [NY]: Cornell University Press, 1993), 161–78, 163. 85. Viroli, Niccolò’s Smile, 97–99. It is worth noting that Machiavelli and Vettori, despite the awkward circumstances under which they were forced to work together, became very good friends and carried on correspondence for many years. 86. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 86–7. 87. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.8, 174. 88. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.12, 289. 89. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 10, line 24. 90. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 55, line 125. 91. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 20, line 47. 92. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 28, line 63. 93. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 745. 94. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 745–6. 95. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 84. 96. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 84–5. 97. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 749. 98. The first chapter contains the story of a Florentine boy who could not stop his strange behavior of running through the streets, and includes some biographical information about the narrator that make it plausible to assume that the narrator of the poem is the Florentine, Machiavelli himself. The title The Golden Ass, which is assumedly the fate of the narrator (the poem remains unfinished, so we will never know for certain), also fits well with Machiavelli’s characteristic wit and sense of humor. 99. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 754. A much more expensive and descriptive account of her physical beauty can be found in chapter 4, on pp. 759–760. 100. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 746. 101. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 755. 102. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 755. 103. Moeller, Daoism Explained, 32. 104. Machiavelli. Tercets on Fortune, 746. 105. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 755. 106. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 8, line 20. 107. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 51, lines 114–6. 108. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 753. 109. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 66, lines 159. 110. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 772. 111. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 64, lines 155–6.

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112. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 65, line 157. 113. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 769. 114. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 62, line 143. 115. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 40, line 89. 116. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 42, lines 93–4. 117. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 2, lines 5–6. 118. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 11, lines 27–7a. 119. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 39, lines 86–6a. 120. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 63, line 149–9a. 121. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 64, lines 152–2a. 122. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 748. 123. The interconnectedness of success and failure applies to all things, because ultimately all people are in competition for a finite amount of resources and thus their fortunes are all interconnected. Thus if someone whom you do not know gets a raise, your fortune has been relatively diminished, because they now have an increased ability to directly compete with you for resources (e.g., purchasing a particular good). Even if they live in a distant country and cannot be viewed as being in direct competition with you due to geographical distances or vast discrepancies in wealth, an even modest increase to their purchasing power can have an effect on supply and demand, and ultimately prices, which then affects your ability to acquire those objects. This does not touch on the problem of egos either, for Machiavelli comments that the success of others “is always vexatious” to us. Niccolò Machiavelli, Tercets on Ambition in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. and ed. Allan Gilbert, 3 vols. (Durham [NC]: Duke University Press, 1965), 737. 124. Harvey Mansfield Jr., “Necessity in the Beginnings of Cities,” in The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavelli’s Philosophy, ed. Anthony Parel (Toronto [ON]: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 101–125, 111. 125. Mansfield, Jr., “Necessity in the Beginnings of Cities,” 121. 126. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 39, line 86. 127. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 5.1, 1232. 128. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.2, 26. 129. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 763. 130. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 131. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 748. 132. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 133. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 58, lines 135–5a. 134. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 14, line 34. 135. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 80, lines 193–3c. 136. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 40, line 88. 137. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 19, line 43a. 138. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 57, line 131. 139. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 20, line 47. 140. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 10, line 24. 141. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 28, line 63. 142. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 57, line 133. 143. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 5.1, 1232. 144. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.3, 28. 145. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.4, 30. 146. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.4, 30. 147. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.6, 35–6. 148. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.6, 38. 149. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 16, 55. 150. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 18, line 42. 151. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 38, lines 83–84. 152. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 57, lines 131–2. 153. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 53, lines 121–1a. 154. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 75, lines 181–1a.

Fortune and the Dao 155. 156. 157. 158.

Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 20, line 44. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 19, line 43. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 3, line 8. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 62, line 144.

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The Centaur and the Dragon

“Therefore, you must know that there are two modes of fighting: one in accordance with laws, the other with force. The first is proper to man, the second to beasts. But because the first, in many cases, is not sufficient, it becomes necessary to have recourse to the second: therefore, a prince must know how to make good use of the natures of both the beast and the man. This rule was taught to princes symbolically by the writers of antiquity: they recounted how Achilles and many others of those ancient princes were given to Chiron the centaur to be raised and cared for under his discipline.” —Machiavelli, The Prince 1 “Confucius told his disciples, ‘I know a bird can fly, a fish can swim, and an animal can run. For that which runs a net can be made; for that which swims a line can be made; for that which flies a corded arrow can be made. But the dragon’s ascent into heaven on the wind and clouds is something which is beyond my knowledge. Today I have seen Lao Tzu who is perhaps like a dragon.’” —Confucius as quoted by Ssu-ma Ch’ien, Records of the Historian 2

If Fortune and the Dao constitute the stage for politics, virtù and de are the counsel that Machiavelli and Laozi offer political actors as to how to play their role. Despite a number of similarities between the concepts of Fortune and the Dao, Machiavelli and Laozi have very different conceptions of humanity’s place in relation to nature, as well as incongruent visions of what constitutes a strong and healthy state that will endure. These divergences have a profound effect on the solutions each thinker offers regarding the problems the ruler faces. Their prescriptions for the way of life the sage-ruler and the prince must follow are similar in some respects although, as with many of the affinities between their philosophies, Laozi radicalizes his advice beyond anything Machiavelli could imagine, conceptualizing both the problem and the solu97

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tion from a plane beyond the ego, something Machiavelli is unable to appreciate. Flexibility, as embodied in the images of the centaur and the dragon, is seen by both as the only route that can guarantee success. However, another divergence immediately appears and separates Machiavelli from Laozi, for Machiavelli’s understanding of human nature precludes individuals from remaining flexible for any significant length of time—a failing which Laozi avoids through his reliance on what R. P. Peerenboom calls apophatic meditation (the emptying of one’s mind of all thoughts, feelings, and mental images). 3 A third divergence is also present: how to rule over a corrupt people. Machiavelli’s response is that the only way to reset the historical cycle once corruption has become widespread is to have a single individual concentrate and assume all power within the state, and then clean house by whatever means are necessary. Laozi is less clear, with vague statements about straw dogs and the uncarved block that are at odds with strategies of non-contention, but have to be admitted if the fluidity of the Dao is taken seriously—for even water turns into ice under specific conditions. This tension in the Daodejing, and Laozi’s unwillingness to explore it as fully as he does other themes, renders his solution to political corruption less likely to be effective. Thus, each thinker runs into a limitation which proves fatal to his overall project. Laozi radicalizes flexibility, in effect allowing for the sageruler to adapt to changing circumstances indefinitely, but it remains unclear how a people who are polluted by excessive desires and have lost sight of the Dao or, worse, have become hostile to the simplicity which the Dao represents, could be brought back into the fold by the sage-ruler without his having recourse to harsh measures. In contrast, Machiavelli gives explicit instructions on how to rid a state of corruption, but is unable to ensure the flexibility of the prince over time. It is not just the prince who is doomed by this failing in Machiavelli’s philosophy, for if the prince is to transfer his virtù to the state by carefully crafting social institutions and transforming his kingdom into a republic that will outlive him, the problem of flexibility, albeit in a slightly different form, is also inherited by the republic. VIRTÙ IS NOT A CONCEPT ORIGINAL TO MACHIAVELLI Just as Fortune is a concept inherited from the Romans and popular in the Renaissance, so too is the term virtù. Russell Price, in addition to showing that virtù has always been polyvalent, also notes that not only Machiavelli’s contemporaries, but also French and English humanists used the term in a variety of ways. In fact, whereas Mansfield labels Machiavelli’s use of the term to be, at least at first blush, “both shocking and inconsistent,” 4 Price argues that there was nothing special about Machiavelli’s employing the term to encompass everything from moral, political and military excellence, to the

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natural powers of an individual, and to talent in general. 5 In fact, his use of the term was consistent with how virtù was used throughout the Renaissance. David Wootton similarly observes that virtù spans a wide range of contradictory traits: strength and power, morality and immorality, and so on, and sees virtú as complete mastery of the various arts and occupations in which it can manifests itself: Machiavelli’s virtuous man is much nearer to being a virtuoso. . . . Just as a virtuoso violinist can play music that defeats others, so in Machiavelli’s world a virtuous general will win battles others would lose, a virtuous politician secure power where others would lose it. Virtue is thus role-specific: Virtuous soldiers are strong and brave, virtuous generals intelligent and determined. . . . The virtuous man will know when to seize his chances and will recognize opportunities where others see only difficulties, and recognize necessity where others believe they have freedom of choice. 6

The wide range of applications of the word leads J. H. Whitfield to deny that there is any such thing as a doctrine of virtù in Machiavelli; 7 Neal Wood, on the other hand, argues that, despite the various usages of the word in Machiavelli’s writings “there is a unity in the plurality of usage,” 8 which effectively creates a special sense of the term. Wood then proceeds to draw a general distinction between the virtù of the prince and that of the citizen: “Princely virtù is an inborn and natural characteristic, shaped, however, by education; while civic virtù is the result of the right kind of education, organization, and discipline.” 9 John Plamenatz picks up this distinction (although he locates it in Meinecke’s Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d’Etat and Its Place in Modern History), and explores the relationship between these two forms of virtù. On the one hand, there is the virtù appropriate to the citizenry. This strain of virtù gets its most thorough treatment in the Discourses, and comes close to what is currently understood as civic virtue; it is the set of dispositions, attitudes, and behaviors that must be held by the citizenry if the state is to run smoothly and remain strong. These attitudes include many aspects of conventional morality such as keeping oaths and respect for the law, but also include a love of one’s political unit (city, nation, etcetera) to the point of willingly making sacrifices for it, as well as industriousness, intelligence, resourcefulness, and behavior ruled by moderation. Every individual need not possess all of these qualities, or even any of them, but their absence in any one citizen is the beginning of corruption in the body politic and, if a sufficient number of citizens do not manifest these qualities, the state can neither run smoothly nor remain strong. 10 The list of qualities that constitute princely virtù (or heroic virtù, as it is referred to by Plamenatz) resembles that of civic virtù, but with a difference. The prince must be industrious, intelligent, resourceful, and moderate in

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desires, but he also must possess some qualities to a much higher degree than his citizens, such as love of the state. Some others, such as keeping oaths and upholding the law, are, by contrast, only apparent rather than actual, a matter of what we now call public relations, while still others, such as the prince’s vision, strength of will, and what can only be called his calculated exhibitionism are noticeably absent in civic virtù. A prince, in Machiavelli’s view, must be someone who can command the respect of others and instill fear in them. To do this, he must not only be seen, but must be seen doing great things, and seen as well as having the resolve to carry his plans through to fruition. Exhibitionism is thus a part of politics for Machiavelli, but any political actor, tyrant or prince, can be a show-off; what makes a leader truly great is what he or she is seen to be doing—they must have a grand vision. This is seen quite clearly in Machiavelli’s ranking of rulers, for those politicians who lead their states to ruin or merely mind the store can never be great, while those who rejuvenate a crumbling state or found a new one are deserving of the highest praise. 11 Heroic or princely virtù is thus of a different kind, and enjoys privileged status over civic virtù in certain situations; by both circumstance and necessity, it can only be exercised by a select few. That heroic virtù is the prerogative of the prince or those who seek to be prince is reflected in the fact that Machiavelli’s most detailed account of heroic virtù is found in The Prince, a book for the singular ruler, whereas civic virtù receives its fullest treatment in the Discourses, a book for all citizens. A proper understanding of the exclusivity of heroic virtù can only be made against the backdrop of Machiavelli’s cyclical conception of history and the rise and fall of states. The only time that a prince is necessary, and not merely a self-serving tyrant, is when a new state is being formed or when a state has become corrupt and needs to be rejuvenated. In short, heroic virtù only gets to shine truly in the absence of civic virtù. That said, there is a period of time after a prince has established or rejuvenated a state when, if he is truly worthy of glory on the stage of history, he creates social institutions that he can then infuse with his virtù so that it may guide the state after he dies. For Machiavelli, this means the creation of a republic. There is also the question of what sort of virtù can be injected into social institutions. Heroic virtù is parasitic, jealous, and duplicitous. Within a healthy state, heroic virtù can only exist if the prince alone practices it; if everyone acted with heroic virtù, the state would implode in something reminiscent of Hobbes’ depiction of the state of nature, a war of all against all. The only way the prince can safeguard heroic virtù as his and his alone, is to crush any contenders for his position within the state. The easiest way to do this is to deny the existence of heroic virtù altogether, and condemn it when it rears its head. Specifically, when the exercise of the prince’s heroic virtù requires actions that contravene either law or morality or otherwise threaten

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to undermine the civic virtù of the citizenry, the blood of a healthy state, the prince must avoid association with the deed. Instead, he must delegate the action to another, who can then be condemned and punished for the act. Above all, the rule of law must appear to be sacrosanct and inviolable. The second issue is the question regarding to what degree this heroic virtù can actually be embedded into a state’s social institutions. The reality is that virtù of any kind, and certainly of the heroic kind, cannot truly work its way into the social institutions of the state. What can be done, however, is that these institutions can be structured so as to encourage civic virtù within the citizenry and to guide foreign policy. In transforming his state into a republic, the prince thus must seek to design social institutions in such a manner that they encourage the subset of qualities of heroic virtù that form civic virtù in the populace, just as he would if he were present. It is not so much the prince’s virtù, but the prince’s ability to inculcate civic virtù in the people— which is still obviously part of his heroic virtù—that needs to be passed on. DE IS NOT A CONCEPT ORIGINAL TO THE DAODEJING The concept of de, like that of Dao, was common currency among the intellectuals of Warring States China. The most notable use of the term by another school is that of Confucianism. In both Confucianism and Daoism, de is the Dao within, the Dao made manifest in the person. However, the type of force that de manifests in the one who possesses it is of a different nature for the Confucian than it is for the Daoist. According to Confucius, the individual who exhibits de is highly visible and emanates a kind of centripetal force, a presence that draws others to him; he inspires them, and his presence changes them for the better. 12 The de of the Daodejing is similar in that the people come to the sage-ruler, but instead of exerting a force that draws people toward him, the Daoist sage-ruler positions himself so that the people find their way to him of their own accord. Unlike the Confucian, who must shine for his subjects like “the Pole Star which commands the homage of the multitude of stars without leaving its place,” 13 the Daoist sage-ruler is at best a shadowy presence. From this key difference, the projects of Laozi and Confucius head in two very different directions. For Confucius, education in the personal cultivation of benevolence and moral righteousness is the solution to social discord, whereas Laozi finds such education not only hollow, but fears that it will exacerbate the problem of desires by multiplying them. His solution is to reject such education, repudiate social conventions in general, and return to a state of simplicity and spontaneity in which desires are natural both in kind and in intensity. In such a state, there is no need for ethics, which Laozi views as a bandage solution indicative of an underlying problem.

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At first glance Machiavelli’s conception of virtù resonates with the Confucian conception of de more than it does with Laozi’s to the extent that, for both Confucius and Machiavelli, the leader’s efficacy stems from his being front and center in the people’s vision, and in that the effect of Confucian de is restricted to the human realm only. In contrast Laozi’s sage-ruler can possess de only if he remains hidden from view, and his de extends beyond the human realm and into the natural world. Chapter 37 states that “if I [the sage-ruler] cease to desire and remain still, / The empire will be at peace of its own accord.” And chapter 55 of the Daodejing maintains that: One who possesses virtue in abundance is comparable to a newborn babe: Poisonous insects will not sting it; Ferocious animals will not pounce on it; Predatory birds will not swoop down on it. 14

That said, the similarity between Confucian de and Machiavellian virtù is essentially limited to the scope of impact the ideal ruler’s character has on others; there is a clear difference between the righteous moral self-cultivation preached by Confucius and the blend of political pragmatism and exhibitionism that is Machiavellian virtù. Machiavellian virtù stands in fascinating relationship to the de of the Daodejing. On the one hand, especially in its heroic form, virtù with its shock and awe overtones could not be further from the unassuming strategy of non-contention that characterizes one who possesses de. On the other hand, one aspect of Machiavellian heroic or princely virtù does resonate with the passages in the Daodejing where the sage-ruler is told to “be a ravine to the empire,” 15 because “[t]he reason the River and the Sea are able to be king of the hundred valleys is that they excel in taking the lower position.” 16 When Machiavelli considers the question in The Prince of whether it is better to be feared or loved, his answer is that it is best to be both, but that, since this is rarely possible, the prudent prince will opt for fear because it gives him control; to rely on the ever-changing affections of others is to be decidedly at the mercy of Fortune. Machiavelli quickly adds a caveat however; be feared, but be feared in such a way that avoids arousing the people’s hatred. How is this accomplished? The ruler must refrain from touching either the property of his subjects or their women, and avoid taking the life of any citizen unless there is a clear and compelling justification. The reasons for these limitations are two. Particularly in the case of women, there can never be a justification for sexual predation, and in Machiavelli’s day (and not much has changed since) women were always invested with the honor of a man, be it husband, father, brother, or son, who would come seeking revenge should she be mistreated. And in all three cases, once a prince gets away with

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taking a woman, property, or a life, he will always find justifications for doing so again. But Machiavelli does not equate arousing fear with terrorizing the population. He would be the first to admit that the people should be in awe of the prince’s strength and abilities, and so be hesitant to move against him, but even more important is that the people believe they need the prince. Machiavelli’s specific counsel is that “a wise prince must think of a method by which his citizens will need the state and himself at all times and in every circumstance. Then they will always be loyal to him.” 17 The fear that Machiavelli speaks of is not so much the fear of punishment, although that has its place, but the fear of loss—loss of wealth, loss of liberty, loss of life. If the people believe that the prince (or his republican counterparts) secure these goods for them, or better yet, believe that he is the only one who currently can do this, then they will fear their prince in the sense that moving against him or disobeying him threatens those things which they value most. Fear of punishment alone is not enough, for there will always be those who think they can get away with their malfeasance, or can conspire to overthrow the government, and then interpret the laws in order to exonerate themselves after the fact. In creating fear of losing what the citizens want, Machiavelli’s prince is a ravine to the empire. THE PROBLEM DESIRE POSES FOR THE SAGE-RULER If de is the embodiment of the Dao within an individual, then the sage-ruler, as the one who possesses de to an unparalleled degree, must comport himself as the Dao does. This means the sage-ruler must be impartial, with no thought of self and without traditional self-interests; the sage-ruler must operate through wu-wei (which typically entails strategies of non-contention), occupying the lowest positions, and always be fluid so as to be able to adapt spontaneously to the demands of any particular situation. Machiavelli’s warning against going after the property and women of citizens highlights an affinity between his philosophy and that of the Daodejing, namely, the problem that desires pose for the ruler. This difficulty exists for both the sage-ruler and the prince in two interrelated ways. The first is that too many desires are simply bad business for a ruler; the second is that certain types of desire in and of themselves are counterproductive to ruling. Both Machiavelli and Laozi agree that such desires make one an object of unwanted attention, although they disagree on the range of desires that result in this. The negative impacts of the two kinds of desire are intertwined in that, often, the sorts of desires that attract unwanted attention are ultimately insatiable in nature, and thus self-destructive for a ruler to possess.

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Thus, in chapter 29 the Daodejing states, “the sage avoids excess, extravagance, and arrogance” 18 and in chapter 46 the sage-ruler is warned: There is no crime greater than having too many desires; There is no disaster greater than not being content; There is no misfortune greater than being covetous. Hence in being content, one will always have enough. 19

In cultivating contentment as a disposition, the ruler is likely always able to satisfy whatever modest desires he has. It is only when he is not content, when his desires outstrip his ability to satisfy them, that problems begin. That rapacity is a characteristic deeply entrenched in human nature is something Machiavelli observes in The Prince: “The desire to gain possessions is truly a very natural and normal thing, and when those men gain possessions who are able to do so, they will always be praised and not criticized. But when they are not able to do so, and yet wish to do so at any cost, therein lie the error and the blame.” 20 Important to note is that, for Machiavelli, such acquisitiveness is not just natural, but is socially acceptable and laudable so long as the prince has the ability to fulfill his desires. It is only when his desires exceed his power to fulfill them that this virtue becomes a vice, and the reason for this is clear: whereas moderation allows one to be self-sufficient, over-indulgence in anything leads to dependency on others, and for a leader this means either becoming a burden to one’s subjects by coercing them into financing his expensive habits, or making himself vulnerable to foreign powers either by borrowing from them or draining his own state dry of the resources it needs in order to survive. The prince thus risks arousing the hatred of his people or the contempt of foreign powers for his weakness and effeminacy, if not both. The underlying rationale for moderation of both thinkers is similar, although Laozi takes it to a much higher level that Machiavelli does. Excessive desires of any variety, and specific desires such as coveting women, draw unwanted attention to a ruler. For Machiavelli, this leads to one of the scenarios that a prince must avoid at all costs: becoming hated by his subjects. Once hatred has taken root in the hearts of the citizenry, there is no recourse, and assassination attempts and rebellions become inevitable. Laozi agrees that being hated is a terminal problem for the sage-ruler, but his concern is much more radical than Machiavelli’s. For a ruler, being hated is like being told by a doctor that one has advanced brain cancer; nothing can be done at this point but to treat the symptoms and wait to die. Laozi sees no point in warning the sage-ruler of such an obvious danger; instead, he counsels him to avoid not just excessive desires, but all unnecessary desires to the point that no one even notices that the sage-ruler is present. Any attention is bad attention.

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Thus, in chapter 20, Laozi describes the sage-ruler’s presence among the people as follows: “I alone am inactive and reveal no signs, / Like a baby that has not yet learned to smile . . . / I alone seem to be in want. / My mind is that of a fool—how blank! . . . / I alone am foolish and uncouth. / I alone am different from others.” 21 The uncarved block is an important guide to the sage-ruler, for the uncarved block is simplicity in and of itself; it is unassuming and unpretentious, and yet has value in being pure potential. Once the uncarved block has been cut—once it becomes a statue, a baseball bat, or a bow—it both loses its potential and elicits covetous desires in others. An uncarved block can become a bow or it can become a baseball bat, but a bow cannot become a baseball bat; and while blocks of wood tend not to incite envy in people, bows, baseball bats, and statues do. This is why the sage-ruler is repeatedly encouraged to “[e]xhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncarved block,” 22 and is described as being “[t]hick like the uncarved block.” 23 The manner in which he lives is so simple and devoid of material wealth and diversions that no one will covet his post or his way of life. Moreover, the effects of embracing the uncarved block involve not only the sage-ruler and his relationship with the people, but also extend to the people and transform them as well. Accordingly, chapter 57 has the sage-ruler say, “I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block.” 24 THE NATURE OF DESIRE IN THE DAODEJING AND IN MACHIAVELLI’S PHILOSOPHY There is an interpretive issue regarding desires in the Daodejing that may cause some confusion. Excessive desires are often depicted as being unnatural. Chapter 42 proclaims that “[t]he violent will not come to a natural end,” 25 and chapter 29 maintains that “[w]hoever takes the empire and wishes to do anything to it I see will have no respite. The empire is a sacred vessel and nothing should be done to it. Whoever does anything to it will ruin it; whoever lays hold of it will lose it.” 26 Chapter 30 goes even further, declaring that “[a] creature in its prime doing harm to the old / Is known as going against the way. / That which goes against the way will come to an early / end.” 27 Passages such as these set up a dichotomy between natural and unnatural desires that, on the surface, seems obvious: nature may be amoral and vicious, but only humans are prone to vices such as greed and bloodlust. Squirrels, for instance, may follow their instincts and fight over scarce resources, or hide their hoards of nuts, but they do not bear grudges and they do not form squirrel stock exchanges for the purposes of trading acorn futures. Humans, however, do bear grudges and do commodify anything that promises to deliver ever-increasing profits.

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Two objections can be made to the distinction between the natural and the unnatural, but neither undermines the point the Daodejing is making. The first objection is simply that squirrels do not have squirrel stock exchanges, because they lack the mental capacities to do so. If squirrels had the same mental abilities that humans do, the objection goes, they surely would have squirrel stock exchanges. The problem with this objection is that, if squirrels had human intelligence, they would no longer be squirrels; human intelligence includes a robust sense of self, the ego, source of unnatural desires which, if ever acquired by squirrels would move them to an entirely different order of being, one capable of being unnatural. Elliott Sober makes a second, broader objection against any distinction between the natural and unnatural. Sober is writing in a different context, but one relevant to the Daodejing; he is criticizing environmentalists who try to use the distinction between the natural and the unnatural in order to preserve what is natural (that is, pristine nature) against what is unnatural (that is, human encroachment). Sober argues that: [S]eeing us as part of nature rules out the environmentalist’s use of the distinction between artificial-domesticated and natural-wild. . . . If we are part of nature, then everything we do is part of nature, and is natural in that primary sense. When we domesticate organisms and bring them into a state of dependence on us, this is simply an example of one species exerting a selection pressure on another. If one calls this “unnatural,” one might just as well say the same of parasitism or symbiosis (compare human domestication of animals and plants to “slave-making” in the social insects). 28

Sober’s claim is that if we are part of nature—and the worldview of the Daodejing claims we are—then anything and everything we do is, in effect, natural. At first glance, Sober seems to echo the Daodejing’s view, that all is part of the Dao, interconnected and interdependent. Upon closer examination, however, his major premise seems more like a parody of Daoism; it becomes an argument that he pushes to the point of absurdity, and one that pulls “nature” so out of shape that it becomes meaningless. The problem is that Sober conceives of “unnatural” as equating with “supernatural,” because he sees lurking behind his opponents the Judeo-Christian worldview. According to this tradition, humanity is set above all other earthly creatures in the Great Chain of Being by virtue of an immaterial soul that endows humans with free will, but does so through violating the causal order of nature. 29 Thus Sober employs a view of nature that exists in relation to something “artificial” or “unnatural” in the sense that it is not part of the natural order; human activity is not the same as animal activity. The Daodejing, in contrast, operates on the assumption that we are part of nature. When the Daodejing refers to a desire as unnatural, it is not claiming that the desire somehow violates causality or is otherworldly, but that such desires are not observable

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in the rest of nature. Humanity occupies a special place, not because an immaterial aspect of the human species somehow escapes causation, but because humanity’s mental capacities have severed it from the flow of the Dao. As Schwartz puts it, human consciousness is an “unprecedented” kind of consciousness “that seems to exist nowhere else in nature.” It is analytic in character and “has the fatal capacity to isolate the various forms, constituents, and forces of nature from their places in the whole in which they abode, to become fixated on them, and to make them the object of newly invented desires and aspirations.” The result is that human consciousness “becomes isolated from the flow of the tao [Dao] and finds its meaning in asserting its separate existence against the whole. An entire new world of conscious goals is posited—goals of new sensual gratifications, pleasures, wealth, honor, power—even the goal of individual moral perfection.” 30 That moral perfection, isolated and exclusive of all else, is unnatural offers another level of explanation of why the Daodejing rejects the Confucian project of cultivating righteousness and benevolence. The worldview espoused by the Daodejing is a holistic one; the natural encompasses all things, and each has a vital place in the interconnectedness of that whole. This is also why the stereotypes of Daoism as pacifist and quietist in nature are so misleading. As Schwartz argues, in a passage which is also a swipe at both the Confucian and centuries-old Western insistence on exalting one half of the traditional dyads (good/evil, beautiful/ugly, and so on) while minimizing or outright eradicating the other half, “the hard, the assertive, the strong, and the ugly exist in Nature itself, but in Nature they are not isolated from their opposites or from the whole. . . . In nature, all opposites are mutually dependent and yet in the sphere of ethics and aesthetics, we would absolutize one of the poles and attempt to eliminate the other.” 31 From the Daoist perspective this is a futile activity, because one can never eliminate the opposite. In fact, attempts to eliminate the opposite frequently result in strengthening it: bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, banned substances become traded on black markets and create much greater problems than if they were legal, and sometimes oppression is the best way to give life to flagging social movement. Thus Schwartz proclaims, quite rightly, that “[t]he true evil here is the conscious intent to pursue the “good” in isolation as an end in itself.” 32 The Daodejing might seem to agree with Sober’s point that all is ultimately natural in chapter 12 when Laozi maintains: The five colors make man’s eyes blind; The five notes make his ears deaf; The five tastes injure his palate; Riding and hunting

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Chapter 3 Make his mind go wild with excitement; Goods hard to come by Serve to hinder his progress. Hence the sage is For the belly Not the eye. Therefore he discards the one and takes the other. 33

For the Daoist, however, the natural has an unfortunate tendency to become unnatural; what is healthy becomes unhealthy, and sensual indulgence separates us from the Dao. Certain desires, like hunger, thirst, and sleep are natural and essential to existence, but serving needs on which our existence depends can become desires that we indulge in to extravagant excess, so that they become unnatural in the fundamental sense of separating us from the Dao. Both the belly and the eye are parts of one’s physical being and serve to maintain existence of that being, but the pairing of them in this passage points to the significant difference between needs and wants. When hungry, one needs food, and to be healthy one needs nutritious food. However, as is evidenced by the West’s current fast-food culture, what the eye deems attractive is often not good for the belly: consumers have become victims of clever advertising and the creation of artificial needs, as in “I need a Big Mac.” The desires aroused by such manipulations, if you will, are part of nature in that no supernatural explanation is needed to account for them, but in a more relevant sense, they are not natural, they are cultural (a distinction that Sober fails to make), and culture is one of the things the sage-ruler distrusts. But beyond that, one can over-indulge in the most nutritious food available, to the detriment of health and well-being, as one can over-indulge in any other natural need or desire, and such over-indulgence is antipathetic to the Dao. In short, the sage-ruler directs the appetites and desires of himself, the people, and the state to what they need, not to what may appear to them as desirable. Chad Hansen makes a useful contribution to the idea of need versus want, although he overstates his case, when he argues that chapter 12 of the Daodejing is not some extreme ascetic revulsion at human physicality, but revulsion at human culture. Hansen argues that the desires which the Daodejing rails against are social constructions, not natural needs. He also declares that, because the early Daoists were nature worshippers, it is counterintuitive to interpret chapter 12 (or any of the Daodejing, for that matter) as anything like the asceticism that has warped Western thought for centuries, and that its presence has been read into the Daodejing by Western interpreters. 34 The interpretation Hansen offers instead is “What blinds you figuratively is not exposure to color but the conventional categorizing of colors into five. That conditions us to ignore all the richness of hues and shades in nature. . . . It is society’s imposing a gross social distinction that blinds us to the infinite

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richness of natural hues and shades.” 35 In this opinion, I think Hansen is mistaken. Hansen is correct that the Daodejing is clearly anti-culture, but a prominent theme throughout the book and clearly present in chapter 12 is that overindulgence in any kind of sensory experience, not only ones that are socially constructed, goes against the Dao. In fact, the prominence in the text of the image of the uncarved block and the insistence that the sage-ruler occupy the most desolate and undesirable positions do point to a prescribed asceticism for any would-be sage-ruler, but again, while the Daodejing does oppose the social conventions that create and multiply desires, it also insists that even natural needs be kept moderate and on a very short leash. For Laozi, Hansen’s rhapsodic praise of “all the richness of hues and shades in nature” and “the infinite richness of natural hues and shades” would be as perverse, in modern terms, as coal-tar dyes and neon light. This is why wine tasters always cleanse their palates before the first sip of each wine; otherwise, the true flavor of the wine will be distorted. For the sage-ruler, the stakes are higher than missing out the full experience of fine wine, for if his senses become dulled by drink or drugs, or he becomes distracted (even obsessed) with any other objects of human desire, like material gain or sexual activities, he will completely sever his relationship with the Dao, causing his judgment to become clouded and his ability to rule become enfeebled. It never occurs to Machiavelli to distinguish between natural and unnatural desires, or to rid oneself of all desires, because the source of all desires, the ego, is something that would never occur to him to call into question. The ego is simply part of human reality for Machiavelli, and even if the odd saint or mystic seems to have risen above it, it is clear to Machiavelli that no prince or politician ever existed, let alone succeeded, without a robust ego. Machiavelli takes desires as a given, an irrepressible aspect of human nature, and his only concern is how to manage them. In the public sphere, no excessive desires are permissible for the prince except for the desire to go down in history as a glorious individual who founded a new state or reformed a decaying one. In the private sphere, desires have to remain sufficiently in check that the populace does not sink into laziness or decadence, and as a result, corrupt the state. Thus, Machiavelli never addresses the distinction between natural and unnatural desires, but he does place humans and their desires, at least partially, within the natural world. In this limited sense, Machiavelli’s account of human nature resonates with Laozi’s, although Machiavelli’s interpretation of what it means to be natural or animal is different from Laozi’s. One of the reasons Machiavelli has angered so many, especially the Church, is his insistence that humans are deeply rooted in the animal world. He declares that we are half-man, half-beast, a secret doctrine which, he says, the ancients taught when they spoke of princes being educated by Chiron the centaur. The point

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for Machiavelli is simple: to be successful, a ruler must know how to conduct himself both as man and as an animal. Men live according to laws, but animals do not, and so in addition to good laws, the successful ruler also needs good weapons such as the strength of the lion and the cunning of the fox: a dangerous, 36 but by Machiavelli’s own admission, not unprecedented claim, as the ancients taught it. Schwartz’s description of human consciousness from a Daoist perspective, that the human realm goes to extremes that are impoverished from a natural perspective, goes to the heart of Machiavelli’s unfinished poem, The Golden Ass. At the end of this poem, the damsel leads the narrator to the houses where all the human beings have been transformed into animal equivalents of their character by Circe. The damsel gives the narrator the opportunity to talk to a pig covered in mud and excrement. When he offers to have Circe’s damsel turn the hog into a human, at least for the length of their conversation, the pig upbraids him, telling him that he is deceived by selflove to the point that he does not “believe that there is any good apart from human existence and its worth.” 37 The swine insists that his condition, and the condition of all the other animals, is far superior to that in which humans live, and proceeds to enumerate a litany of afflictions which the narrator must endure: poverty, an obsession with love, greed, gluttony, avarice, cruelty. All of these are extremes, and none of them are found in nature. Animals kill and eat one another, but as the pig claims: “One hog to another hog causes no pain, one stag to another; man by another man is slain, crucified and plundered.” 38 Whereas Schwartz characterizes the Daodejing as being critical of the conscious attempt to isolate and pursue the good to the exclusion of other things, Machiavelli sees humanity’s inability to do this successfully as the problem, not the solution, when he avers that persons do not know how to be fully good or bad. 39 If persons could be fully good, the job of the ruler would be much simpler, and if people—at least the rulers—could be fully bad when they needed to be, they would be much more effective at ruling. This issue of extremes underscores the fact that, despite sharing significant aspects of their basic understanding of the human condition, Machiavelli and the Daodejing diverge in how they interpret and respond to this condition. Thus for the Daodejing, the extremes that human consciousness enables are seen as problematic and the natural flow of things as the solution to the problem, while Machiavelli sees the natural flow of things as something to be overcome, and it is the extremes that enable the ruler to do so.

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DESIRES AND THE POLITICAL AGENDA IN THE DAODEJING AND MACHIAVELLI’S PHILOSOPHY Recognizing that desires are parasitic on the ego, Laozi prescribes a much more primordial means of managing desires than Machiavelli does, a course of treatment that directly addresses the cause of the problem instead of merely dealing with its symptoms. Laozi urges the prince to engage in meditation, (or if not meditation, at least a serious introspection). This is an idea that is utterly foreign to Machiavelli’s philosophy. Peerenboom, again, argues that the Daodejing encourages the practice of apophatic meditation, in which pure consciousness is sought through emptying the mind of all content (images, feelings, etcetera). 40 In such a state, one is without desires, and it is only from such a vantage point that the sage-ruler can truly rule effectively and impartially, and enact policies of non-contention. This state of emptiness is also what empowers the sage-ruler to maintain flexibility of mind indefinitely, and to act spontaneously and according to wu-wei, responding as the situation requires. According to Laozi, to deal effectively with desires one must understand them, and this means, paradoxically, that one must first have them. Desires are, after all, natural. Daoists, as many have pointed out, are not worlddenying ascetics, but naturalists, so suppressing natural needs or desires is anathema to them. Instead, Laozi encourages the sage-ruler to “always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets; / But allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.” 41 There is a dual rationale in this instruction: on one hand, having desires will enable the sage-ruler to understand the nature of desire, on the other having none will enable him to understand how the Dao works. Desires, as a part of the natural world, arise in accordance with the Dao, and so observing them is observation of how the Dao manifests. The trick for the sage-ruler is to strike the right balance. Too many desires will cloud the sage-ruler’s mind and he will lose touch with the Dao; too few desires and the sage-ruler will not have enough experience of desires or the Dao to understand either the Dao or his own people. The paradoxical nature of this task, and the difficulty of achieving the balance that must be struck, is expressed in chapter 15, where the sage-ruler is instructed to “[d]esire not to be full. / It is because he is not full / That he can be worn and yet newly made,” 42 and again in chapter 64: Therefore the sage desires not to desire And does not value goods which are hard to come by; Learns to be without learning And makes good the mistakes of the multitude In order to help the myriad creatures to be natural and to refrain from daring to act. 43

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A sage-ruler obviously has to have an agenda of some sort if he intends to be the sage-ruler or to keep himself in that position. But traditional agendas of self-interest do not legitimate the sage-ruler; the only goal he can have is to endure, but his personal endurance is intimately linked with the health of the state and its ability to endure. Longevity is key to the political philosophy of both the Daodejing and Machiavelli, and as will soon be demonstrated, ethical considerations have no positive role in either the sage-ruler’s or prince’s longevity. In fact, each thinker maintains that traditional ethics is at times inimical to political success, but for different reasons. For Laozi, as noted previously, ethics and ethical practice are a sign of social decay. People need rules and laws because they do not do what is appropriate of their own accord; they fail to do so because they no longer embody the Dao. For Machiavelli, ethics are simply an impediment to effective rule because those people the prince must deal with cannot be expected to act ethically. To guide his behavior by ethical codes that others do not observe places the prince at a serious tactical disadvantage. Not only is personal longevity the measure of success for both the Daodejing and Machiavelli, but in both instances this longevity has a dual nature that underscores the symbiotic relationship between the ruler and the state. Given the violence that plagued both the politics of the Italian Renaissance and Warring States China, first and foremost in any prince or sage-ruler’s mind would be his personal survival. The Daodejing capitalizes on this concern in a number of passages, such as that in chapter 55 where premature death is foretold for anything or anyone which goes “against the way,” 44 and conversely in chapter 16, where one is assured that “to the end of one’s days one will meet with no danger” 45 so long as one follows the Dao. Machiavelli consistently addresses his advice and analyses in The Prince and the Discourses in words that parallel Laozi’s. The former’s fierce disparagement of those who rise to power through crime 46 or factionalism, 47 and those who otherwise ruin a state or leave it weak and divided, is balanced by his equally emphatic praise of those who rejuvenate a state and prolong its life, 48 and makes it clear that longevity is the ultimate source of glory in Machiavelli’s philosophy. Machiavelli’s political horizon stretches beyond the immediate life of the prince and embraces history. Not only is historical glory the lure by which true leaders are compelled to devote their lives to the state, 49 but history is also the final judge of a leader’s success. In short, the longer his state lasts, the greater his glory for the role he played in its life. The founders of states deserves the greatest praise, followed by those who bring a state back to its beginnings, while those who merely maintain the status quo deserve little praise and those who facilitate the downfall of the state through their own shortsighted self-interest or incompetence deserve only contempt.

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The Daodejing is more sparing in its praise and blame of rulers, but references suggesting that endurance should be the only real goal of the sageruler are peppered throughout the text. Thus, chapter 7 states: Heaven and earth are enduring. The reason why heaven and earth can be enduring is that they do not give themselves life. Hence they are able to be long-lived. Therefore, the sage puts his person last and it comes first, Treats it as extraneous to himself and it is preserved. Is it not because he is without thought of self that he is able to accomplish his private ends? 50

Chapter 44 locates the secret to longevity in control of one’s desires, as well as in good timing: “Know when to stop / And you will meet with no danger. / You can then endure.” 51 And chapter 59 makes it clear that ultimately, following the Dao is the only path that allows one to endure: In ruling the people and in serving heaven it is best for a ruler to be sparing. It is because he is sparing That he may be said to follow the way from the start; Following the way from the start he may be said to accumulate an abundance of virtue; Accumulating an abundance of virtue, there is nothing he cannot overcome; When there is nothing he cannot overcome, no one knows his limit; When no one knows his limit He can possess a state; When he possesses the mother of a state He can then endure. 52

The success of the sage-ruler, however, cannot come at the expense of the people, insofar as they are synonymous with the state for, as Robinet observes, “The human body is also analogous to the organization of a nation, which was conceived as an organism throughout Chinese tradition. Many Daoist texts present this concept in a precise and developed way, relating each organ to an official, with the ruling organ, the heart, the homologue of the prince.” 53 The image of the body draws attention to the sage-ruler’s relation to the people—a healthy organ, even the heart, is doomed to die if the rest of the body is corrupt. The health of the sage-ruler and his ability to endure depend on the rest of the state possessing health and an ability to endure. Thus, beyond the desire to endure, which is tied to the health of the state, the sage-ruler has no personal agenda, nor is he set above others. He is certainly undemocratic, but he does not live a life of luxury or privilege. He

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is empty, which is why he occupies the low position, and is called an orphan. 54 As chapter 49 puts it, “The sage has no mind of his own. He takes as his own the mind of the people.” 55 While Machiavelli does use the imagery of bodies and physicians to illustrate the benefits of discovering and treating problems in their infancy, he never explicitly embraces the image of the state as an organism. 56 Basu claims that Machiavelli’s political philosophy, where it concerns the balance of interests between the nobles and the people, is deeply rooted in the Renaissance natural philosophy of the humors. 57 This, however, is only one explanation among many possibilities for how Machiavelli reached his proposed solution of balancing the interests of the different classes internally or venting them in wars. 58 The Florentine does see the prince’s survival as linked to the health of the state, but health for Machiavelli is not the same thing as it is for Laozi. The Daodejing views a healthy state as one that is in line with the Dao and possesses inner harmony, whereas for Machiavelli, inner harmony is not necessary for a healthy state. So long as the contending energies between different classes and between individual persons are constructively channeled to serve the interests of the state, the state will be healthy. In this sense, both Laozi and Machiavelli premise a leader’s continued success on the health of the state. Machiavelli takes the idea of longevity in a direction that Laozi shuns, however. No prince can live forever, so truly great princes are those who achieve an earthly immortality through the longevity of their states. The better organized a state is, the longer it will endure, and the greater the prince’s legacy and glory will be. But while longevity, both of the person and the state, is also the sage-ruler’s goal, Laozi does not use the length of the state’s survival as his benchmark for gauging success, and for two reasons. The first is that the sage-ruler is not motivated by personal glory; the second is that the only way to measure the state’s survival is through history, and there would be no history in the state envisaged in the Daodejing. History is one of the trappings of culture, which Laozi sees as indicative of the separation of the people from nature and the Dao. In contrast, Machiavelli embraces the cultural world, and is determined to erect its edifice even in the face of the slow and relentless natural order that will wear it down and corrupt it. Thus, while longevity is a goal shared by both the prince and the sage-ruler, it means different things in the philosophies of Machiavelli and Laozi. PRESCRIBED BEHAVIOR OF THE SAGE-RULER AND THE PRINCE How does the sage-ruler endure? He follows the Dao, possesses only natural desires, and as a consequence, devotes himself entirely to his people and the

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state. In chapter 52, the sage-ruler is told to “[b]lock the openings, / Shut the doors, / And all your life you will not run dry. / Unblock the openings, / Add to your troubles.” 59 The images of the openings and doors correspond to the senses and intelligence, which prove to be distractions and multipliers of desires. This ascetic strain of thought, as we have seen, is a recurring theme throughout the Daodejing. If the sage-ruler is to be successful, he cannot tolerate any distractions, nor can he entertain anything superfluous to his purpose. Thus chapter 46 cautions: There is no crime greater than having too many desires; There is no disaster greater than not being content; There is no misfortune greater than being covetous. Hence in being content, one will always have enough. 60

Peerenboom identifies the means by which the sage-ruler can keep desires in check as the practice of apophatic meditation, which systematically empties consciousness of all images, thoughts, and feelings to the point that the egoself is dissolved. The sage-ruler describes the practice in chapter 16: “I do my utmost to attain emptiness; / I hold firmly to stillness.” 61 From this position of emptiness, the sage-ruler is said to have almost supernatural powers of insight, as indicated in chapter 47: Without stirring abroad Onc can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows. Therefore the sage knows without having to stir, Identifies without having to see, Accomplishes without having to act. 62

This knowledge gained is not supernatural, however; it is merely clear and penetrating insight into human affairs and natural phenomena, an insight unmuddied by distractions, physical sensations of pleasure, intellectual and emotional baggage from the past, anxiety about the future, or thoughts of self. But of course, even if the sage-ruler can attain a state of true emptiness, he will still have physical needs. The people too, who are much less likely to attain a state of emptiness, also have needs. The sage-ruler must order society in such a way that these needs are fulfilled without creating the conditions that give rise to excessive or unnatural desires; he must focus on the satisfaction of needs, not wants. Hence chapter 3 states:

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And chapter 12 warns the sage-ruler: “Riding and hunting / Make his mind go wild with excitement.” 64 This passage illustrates another similarity and another break with Machiavelli. The Florentine also maintained that a prince must be dedicated solely to the health and preservation of his state (and to his position as the head of state), and likewise counsels him to avoid distractions at all costs. However, Machiavelli’s version of the disciplined prince as it appears in chapter 14 of The Prince includes riding and hunting. This is not a minor disagreement, but goes to the heart of where the two thinkers part ways. For Machiavelli, the prince continuously faces crises that threaten to overwhelm the state, and in order to survive these crises he must wholeheartedly devote himself to the art of war. Riding and hunting are essential, because they toughen the prince physically and sharpen his senses as well as provide him with lessons in topography, an understanding of which is vital to planning either defensive or offensive battle. Even at rest, the prince is to study military history so that he may learn from great leaders of the past which strategies work, which do not, and under what circumstances. 65 In short, the prince is a workaholic; there is no room for anything but the most fleeting of pleasures in his life. Everything else—physical comforts, relationships, vices such as gambling or drinking—will shatter his focus and make him weak. While Laozi would applaud the discipline and focus of the prince, he would, as shown, see the prince’s preoccupation with war as symptomatic of a politics that has ceased functioning properly. Despite having a different conception of what a properly functioning politics is, Machiavelli would agree with Laozi on this point, for the prince’s presence is required only when corruption has taken hold of the state. However, corruption and crises are inevitable, and instead of decrying the prince as a sign of the state’s failure, Machiavelli celebrates the prince as a savior and a solution to these problems. THE SINS OF THE PEOPLE STEM FROM THE RULER Both Laozi and Machiavelli agree not only that personal pleasures are distracting and destructive things for the ruler to give into, but also that extravagant pleasures have the potential to cause widespread social chaos, because the personal character of the ruler sets the tone for the people. If the ruler is

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decadent or corrupt, so too will be the people, and in the case of Laozi, this infection will spread to the natural world as well. For both Machiavelli and Laozi, the ruler shares an intimate and profound relationship with the state. This relationship sees the ruler setting the tone for the health of the state; a good ruler means a strong and healthy state, a corrupt ruler means a weak and sickly state. Machiavelli is clear that the ruler sets the tone for the entire society. In book 3 of the Discourses he chastises rulers thusly: Princes should not complain of any sin committed by the people they have under their control, because such sins of necessity arise either from his negligence or from his being tainted by similar errors. Anyone who will examine the peoples who in our times have been considered abounding in robberies and similar faults will see that all of them begin with those who govern them and are of a similar nature. 66

Therefore it is imperative for both Machiavelli and Laozi that the ruler never be seen to be morally flawed. The best way to accomplish this is for the ruler never to be seen at all, for him to be merely a shadowy presence. In the Daodejing, this is merely an extension of the Daoist conception of de, which operates by the sage-ruler’s placing himself beneath all others, but whose effects then emanate through the population and extend even into the natural world. For Machiavelli, the prince’s virtú emanates through the population while he is alive, and can continue to influence them after his death by means of the legal, political, and social institutions he creates, but never extends to the natural sphere. As a historical figure, the prince can be glorified and become an unassailable icon. If a living prince has not yet transformed his kingdom into a republic, the surest way to avoid being seen as morally flawed is to devote himself to his state, maintain fierce control over his appetites (so as not to impose on his people through excessive taxation or other economic fiddling, as well as to avoid setting a bad example). When he must contravene the morals and laws of his society, he must delegate the task to another whom he can later blame, and if need be, sacrifice in order to show that the prince upholds the laws and customs of the state and will not tolerate their violation. The mere appearance of morality is always an acceptable, and often necessary, substitute for reality in Machiavelli’s counsel. That the sins of the people can be laid at the feet of the prince is not only a matter of his setting a bad example for their subjects, it speaks to a culture of corruption. In his discussion of Alexander VI and the lawless Romagna region, Machiavelli argues that Alexander VI’s rapacious behavior not only set a precedent, but also impoverished the people to the point that they had no choice but to turn to crime. This naturally undermined their respect for law, making it no wonder that the area was as tumultuous and lawless as it was.

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Laozi also recognized that desires are contagious and will spread from one person to another. This is why the sage-ruler “embraces the One and is a model for the empire,” 67 for such a course of action renders the sage-ruler unpretentious, and as such, neither he nor his position incites excessive or unnatural desires in others. Thus, chapter 57 has the sage-ruler proclaim: I take no action and the people are transformed of themselves; I prefer stillness and the people are rectified of themselves; I am not meddlesome and the people prosper of themselves; I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block. 68

That the sage-ruler has the ability to effect change in the people is reaffirmed in chapter 27, where Laozi states: “Hence the good man is the teacher the bad learns from; / And the bad man is the material the good works on.” 69 This effect of the sage-ruler’s de goes beyond merely enabling the people to transform of their own accord, and extends into the natural world as well. Going much farther than Machiavelli would regarding the power of virtù, Laozi proclaims of de, as symbolized by the uncarved block: “Should lords and princes be able to hold fast to it / The myriad creatures will submit of their own accord, / Heaven and earth will unite and sweet dew will fall, / And the people will be equitable, though no one so decrees.” 70 Such is the power of the sage-ruler’s de in penetrating into the natural realm, that Laozi claims that it endows the sage-ruler with an almost supernatural ability to exist as part of nature without any form of contention with nature. In short, the natural world accepts and honors the sage-ruler, as indicated in chapter 55, where Laozi maintains: “One who possesses virtue [de] in abundance is comparable to a new born babe: / Poisonous insects will not sting it; / Ferocious animals will not pounce on it; / Predatory birds will not swoop down on it.” 71 THE IDEAL STYLE OF LEADERSHIP The style of leadership the sage-ruler employs is crucial to his ability to effect society. The sage-ruler should avoid craftiness and innovation, and always seek a return to the beginnings, that is, to the state of simplicity as symbolized by the uncarved block. The difference between acting from a state of emptiness and seeking simplicity on the one hand, and acting from a sense of ego and seeking to be clever is spelled out in chapter 16: Woe to him who willfully innovates

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While ignorant of the constant, But should one act from knowledge of the constant One’s action will lead to impartiality, Impartiality to kingliness, Kingliness to heaven, Heaven to the way, The way to perpetuity, And to the end of one’s days one will meet with no danger. 72

It should not be overlooked that the path of acting from the constant, the Dao, not only leads to proper government but also to longevity, whereas it is implied that the other path will lead to factionalism and a short reign. For the sage-ruler, wu-wei is not merely a strategic maneuver, but takes on the status of a sacred duty. Chapter 29 makes it clear that “[t]he empire is a sacred vessel and nothing should be done to it. Whoever does anything to it will ruin it; whoever lays hold of it will lose it.” 73 The sage-ruler is not merely to prevent clever innovations to the state, but his own comportment is to be humble and simple. Therefore in chapter 9 the sage-ruler is warned that “[t]o be overbearing when one has wealth and position / Is to bring calamity upon oneself,” 74 and in chapter 81 the sage-ruler is described as “having no wide learning.” 75 The general approach of the sage-ruler is one of wu-wei. Although not reducible to non-contention, wu-wei categorically rules out the imposition of one’s perspective (ideology, desires, preconceptions) onto a situation, and so often wu-wei manifests as non-interference. This aspect of wu-wei is stressed repeatedly in terms of how the sage-ruler relates to others; he does not micromanage his subordinates nor force an agenda onto the state or any situation, but rather allows the situation to evolve of its own accord. This is clearly stated in chapter 64 when Laozi argues that “[w]hoever does anything to it [the state] will ruin it; whoever lays hold of it [the state] will lose it. / Therefore the sage, because he does nothing, never ruins anything; and, because he does not lay hold of anything, loses nothing.” 76 There are three basic modes of non-interference present in the Daodejing. The first is to occupy the low position, a recurring theme of the Daodejing. In chapter 39 the sage-ruler is depicted as taking “the inferior as root” and referring to himself as “‘solitary,’ ‘desolate,’ and ‘hapless,’” 77 and in chapter 20 the sage-ruler says, “I alone am inactive and reveal no signs.” 78 Elsewhere the sage-ruler is told to follow the lead of water, and be a “ravine to the empire,” 79 for just as occupying the lower position is what allows the river and the sea “to be king of the hundred valleys” in “desiring to rule over the people, / One must in one’s words humble oneself before them; / And, desiring to lead the people, / One must, in one’s person, follow behind them.” 80 In occupying the lower position, the sage-ruler not only never con-

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tends with others, for no one else wants to hold the position the sage-ruler does, but as the lower position is representative of the Dao, the sage-ruler transforms his own way of interacting with the world. The contrast between seeking advancement in the traditional manner and seeking advancement through holding to the lower position is made in chapter 48: In the pursuit of learning one knows more every day; in the pursuit of the way one does less every day. One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone. It is always through not meddling that the empire is won. Should you meddle, then you are not equal to the task of winning the empire. 81

This form of non-interference culminates in a passage from chapter 36 in which it is said “[t]he fish must not be allowed to leave the deep; / The instruments of power in a state must not be revealed to anyone.” 82 This passage is a curious one because of its references to the instruments of power, and would later become the focus of a commentary by Han Feizi (who views rewards and punishments and the tallying of names to be the instruments of power). However, the Daodejing decries laws as a symptom of social decline, and so in a well-organized state the instruments of power would not be necessary. This passage is not so much an insistence that the ruler must not, as Han Feizi maintains, allow rewards and punishments to be administered by his ministers for fear of losing his authority to them; rather rewards and punishments should not appear at all to anyone—there should be no need of rewards or punishments. If the sage-ruler must resort to these tactics, social decay has already taken root. To that end, the sage-ruler should not leave the deep, nor make his presence known, nor reveal punishments or rewards. In a well-run Daoist state, there is no need for him to do so. When the sage-ruler does have to appear, his attitude is one of humility and unpretentiousness. As chapter 68 maintains: One who excels as a warrior does not appear formidable; One who excels in fighting is never roused in anger; One who excels in defeating his enemy does not join issue; One who excels in employing others humbles himself before them. This is known as the virtue of non-contention; This is known as making use of the efforts of others; This is known as matching the sublimity of heaven. 83

In short, those who can perform a task are secure in their efficacy and, therefore, are not egotistical about what they accomplish. They feel no need to convince others of their abilities: the ruler has no need to go about in the

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trappings of nobility, and the warrior does not need to appear formidable; their lack of ego means they are centered psychologically (and spiritually) and are not susceptible to rash behavior; they would never, for example, respond to a taunt or an insult. Furthermore, their success is often understated and appears paradoxical precisely because of how effortless their actions appear and of how humble they are in their success. Thus, the description of the sage-ruler in chapter 58: “the sage ruler is square-edged but does not scrape, / has corners but does not jab, / Extends himself but not at the expense of others, / Shines but does not dazzle.” 84 The second mode of non-interference is to rely on non-contention as a strategy of engagement, as seen in chapter 63 where the sage-ruler is encouraged to “[d]o that which consists in taking no action; pursue that which is not meddlesome.” 85 The image of a fish is again invoked in chapter 60, but this time the fish, specifically a small fish, is representative of the state: “Governing a large state is like boiling a small fish.” 86 The analogy is clear: just as handling the small fish can spoil it, so to can doing anything to the state ruin the state. In chapter 64, this rule of non-interference is implicit in the explanation of why the sage-ruler meets with success: “the sage, because he does nothing, never ruins anything; and, because he does not lay hold of anything, loses nothing.” 87 Chapter 57 also advises the ruler to “[g]overn the state by being straightforward; wage war by being crafty; but win the empire by not being meddlesome,” 88 before launching into a long list of advancements and innovations that are indicative of how unnatural the people are becoming. The Daodejing makes it perfectly clear that a heavy-handed approach that tries to impose preconceived ideas onto the situation, as opposed to letting the situation unfold of its own accord, will lead to disaster. The third mode of non-interference is to refrain from being a burden to the people. For the sage-ruler this means three things. As already indicated, it is imperative not to burden the people with laws, but also not to burden them with unnecessary wars—and all but defensive wars fought as a last resort are unnecessary from a Daoist political perspective. Finally, the sage-ruler must refrain from burdening them with unnecessary taxes. Chapter 75 makes it clear that, as with too many laws, excessive taxation is a harmful imposition on the people: “It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes / That the people are hungry.” 89 Again in chapter 72, the sage-ruler is warned: “[d]o not constrict their living space; do not press down on their means of livelihood. It is because you do not press down on them that they will not wary of the burden.” 90 Machiavelli rejects taking the low position and adopting strategies of non-contention, except as a tactical maneuver when the ruler has no other viable options, but he does agree with Laozi that the ruler should not become a burden to his subjects. The easiest way to ensure that he is not a burden to the people is for the ruler to engage in a policy of self-sufficiency and

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moderation as opposed to living lavishly and trying to gain his way through grandiose acts of generosity. Whatever its underlying motive, whether to appear benevolent or buy the loyalty of underlings, Machiavelli regards generosity of the ordinary sort to be a self-defeating virtue. He reasons that every time a ruler gives generously, he depletes his wealth, and if he does it too often, he will be left with nothing, no longer able to extend his generosity to anyone. This will offend the people who have become accustomed to his handouts, and everyone will consider his self-inflicted poverty as a sign of weakness. The only recourse left to him then, if he wishes to continue in his foolishness, is to impose unjust taxes on his subjects, which will lead to his being hated by a lot more people than just his erstwhile friends. The only prudent course of action, obviously, is never to give into generous urges. If this is done, the people will be better off and will not only appreciate the ruler’s beneficence in not oppressing their livelihoods through taxation, but will also come to think of his self-sufficiency as true generosity. If a prince who has been unwisely generous follows this course, the few who will be angered by the termination of his largesse will not dare to complain openly about it, because they know that they will find no support among the populace. 91 The only exception to the prohibition on traditional generosity that Machiavelli counsels is spending the wealth of other states once he gains access to it. Machiavelli’s assessment is typically concise and hardheaded: “A prince either spends his own money and that of his subjects, or that of others. In the first case he must be economical; in the second, he must not hold back any part of his generosity.” 92 Once again, Laozi’s counsel is much more radical than Machiavelli’s, for Laozi would maintain that all taxes are unnecessary, for what purpose could taxation serve in a Daoist state? The Daoist state would be even more minimalist than the night-watchman state of Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, for the night-watchman state is set in an industrialized world and thus requires provisions for infrastructure. Additionally, the corrupted characters of those in Nozick’s thought experiment (corrupted, that is, from a Daoist perspective) require the financing of a legal system to ensure that law and order governs transactions. 93 However, in the small, simple, agrarian state described in chapter 80 of the Daodejing, infrastructure is rudimentary, and the legal system would be shunned as a sign of social corruption. It is clear that taxes would not exist at all in a Daoist state, unless the state had already begun to fail. In fact, the Daodejing never speaks of the sage-ruler sharing power with or even having ministers. To this end, Laozi insists that the sage-ruler gather all power unto himself and act alone, and illustrates this point with the image of the wheel, where “[t]hirty spokes / Share one hub.” 94 The radical centralization of all power within the personage of the ruler is an idea that Han Feizi later adopts from the Daodejing and wholeheartedly endorses. Machiavelli,

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too, accepts it under specific circumstances, but never as a standing policy. These circumstances, like the legal office of dictator, which is limited in both scope and duration, and more unrestricted instances of the rise of a rejuvenator or a prince, are all responses to corruption. The rest of the time, power is to be spread out through the social institutions of the republic in a series of checks and balances. Whereas in the Daodejing, ministers and bureaucracy are signs that the sage-ruler’s reign is faltering, Han Feizi and Machiavelli consider them to be necessary, and Machiavelli goes so far as to view the prince’s ability to select competent ministers and manage them effectively, both to keep them in their place as well as to use them to execute his decisions and policies, as two of the trademarks of a good ruler. LAOZI ON MANIPULATING THE PEOPLE The sage-ruler may successfully attain emptiness and live in harmony with the Dao; however, the people, transformed though they may be of their own accord, are more susceptible to a relapse than he. This is so simply because they are ordinary people, the spokes and not the hub of the wheel. There will be times, therefore, when the people will become corrupt and will need to be manipulated for their own good. Assume that the sage-ruler is dealing with an already existing Daoist state. In this situation, corruption would not have taken very strong root, and the sage-ruler would discern it immediately and eradicate it before it became a problem visible to the people. Laozi offers useful counsel on how to do this. In chapter 12 the sage-ruler is said to be “[f]or the belly / Not for the eye,” 95 and in chapter 49, Laozi goes further, advocating that the sage-ruler ensure no one is lacking the necessities of life, while at the same time not permitting any luxuries: “The sage in his attempt to distract the mind of the empire seeks urgently to muddle it. The people all have something to occupy their eyes and ears, and the sage treats them all like children.” 96 The paternalism inherent in Daoist politics is clear; while the Doadejing trumpets the notion that the people can do things of their own accord, the fact that the sage-ruler must treat them like children suggests that the people can easily become corrupt if left to their own devices. A more revealing version of this position appears in chapter 3, where Laozi maintains “in governing the people, the sage empties their minds but fills their bellies, weakens their wills but strengthens their bones. He always keeps them innocent of knowledge and free from desire, and ensures that the clever never dare to act.” 97 Thus, even in a well-run Daoist state, there will be people with clever tendencies who would like to meddle and innovate, people whom the sage-ruler needs to keep in check. In chapter 65, this sort of advice is given an authoritative stamp through an appeal to antiquity: “Of old those who excelled in the

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pursuit of the way did not use it to enlighten the people but to hoodwink them. The reason why the people are difficult to govern is that they are too clever.” 98 So long as the sage-ruler is tasked with the maintenance of a smoothly running Daoist state, the measures he employs can be gentle and even playful, just as parents will often distract children with silly jokes or a mild diversion to keep them from getting upset over something else. However, if corruption already exists when the sage-ruler assumes power, he must be prepared to use harsher measures. As Laozi states in chapter 5, “Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.” 99 The sage-ruler should not employ harsh measures constantly, or even frequently, but there will be times when they are necessary. As Laozi says in chapter 37: “After they [the people] are transformed, should desire raise its head, / I shall press it down with the weight of the nameless uncarved block.” 100 Laozi never mentions specific methods for quelling the desires of the people, but it is clear that at times, something other than non-contention will be needed. This vagueness is the weakness in the political philosophy of the Daodejing. MACHIAVELLI ON MANIPULATING THE PEOPLE Machiavelli also thought that the people needed to be hoodwinked on occasion, but for him, manipulation was not about keeping the people in a state of simplicity, but about keeping them in a state of fear. Key to this for Machiavelli was religion, but not any religion would do. The only religion worth having for Machiavelli is one that will serve to make people good—in the sense of honoring their civic duties, respecting the rule of law, and upholding the socially necessary norms held by their society—in effect, making the state strong. Christianity could be such a religion, Machiavelli claims, but the Christianity of his day was unsuitable. He offers two criticisms of Renaissance Christianity, both of which explain why the Italian peninsula of his day was so politically wretched. The first criticism is that it is not so much that Christianity was corrupt, but that it was not corrupt in the right way. Machiavelli’s conception of religion is a thoroughly political one, and immorality within a religion that serves a legitimate political purpose is completely acceptable. What is not acceptable is the petty, self-serving corruption of clergy that causes people to stop fearing authority or the law and instills vices in them through bad examples. The second criticism of Christianity that Machiavelli makes is that the religion has lost its way; its origins were vigorous but it has since been interpreted according to sloth, and its adherents have become lazy and corrupt. Machiavelli was not alone in thinking this; Maurizio Viroli catalogues a

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long list of humanist scholars who predated Machiavelli as well as of Machiavelli’s contemporaries who longed to see a militant renewal of Christianity. 101 The most dramatic result of Christianity being a religion of sloth was its weakening of the political powers of the Italian peninsula. As Machiavelli laments in his The Art of War, the Christianity of his day does not impose the same necessity for defending ourselves as antiquity did. Then men overcome in war either were killed or kept in perpetual slavery, so that they passed their lives wretchedly; conquered cities were either laid waste or the inhabitants driven out, their goods taken from them and they themselves sent wandering through the world. . . . Terrorized by this dread, men kept military training alive and honored those who were excellent in it. Today this fear has for the most part disappeared; of the conquered, few are killed; no one is long held a prisoner because captives are easily freed. Cities, even though they have rebelled many times, are not destroyed; men are allowed to keep their property, so that the greatest evil they fear is a tax. Hence men do not wish to submit to military regulations and to endure steady hardships under them in order to escape dangers they fear little. 102

It is fear that makes people good, according to Machiavelli: fear of losing one’s property, one’s life, or even fear of divine punishment. This fear is essential to maintaining good order in the military; it aids discipline as well as ensuring that oaths are kept. 103 If fear of God is not in place, what could possibly motivate an army? After all, Machiavelli asks, “[i]n whom ought there to be more fear of God than in a man who every day, being exposed to countless perils, has great need for his aid?” 104 In the critique of Christianity that appears in the Discourses, Machiavelli contrasts the difference between the fear-inspiring pagan religious rituals “the act of sacrifice full of blood and cruelty, and the slaughter of a great number of animals” and its effects on witnesses, with the mildness of Christian ritual which has “some pomp that is more delicate than magnificent but no bold or ferocious action.” 105 But the differing rituals are just a symptom of a deeper divide between pagan and Christian mentalities. The real issue is that paganism values success in this world, while Christianity values success in the next, and the result is that: This way of living seems, therefore, to have made the world weak and to have given it over to be plundered by wicked men, who are easily able to dominate it, since in order to go to paradise, most men think more about enduring their pains than about avenging them . . . this arises more from the cowardice of men who have interpreted our religion according to an ideal of freedom from earthly toil and not according to one of exceptional ability. For if they would consider how our religion permits us to exalt and defend our native land, they would see that it also wants us to love and honour it and prepare ourselves in such a way that we can defend it. 106

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In short, a more vigorous version of Christianity would hold its leaders to account and demand success of them in this life as opposed to letting justice be meted out in the afterlife. Failure to do so at best leaves a Christian society with leaders who are more concerned with themselves, be it for short-term, petty gains, or the fate of their immortal souls than with leading a nation. Thus Machiavelli praises Saints Dominic and Francis for their rejuvenations of Christianity, returning to the example of Christ’s poverty and life, but immediately admonishes the prelates for encouraging the slothful interpretation of Christianity by teaching the people that it is wrong to condemn church officials who are incompetent or corrupt, because such judgments are the domain of God. As a result, Machiavelli laments, the clergy act with impunity and rest comfortably, for they do not believe in the divine punishment of which they preach and they know that will not be held accountable for their behavior in this life. 107 In the end, Machiavelli’s treatment of religion reveals that religions are mixed bodies like any other social organization—they have origins, they live, in time they are subject to decay, and if they are not rejuvenated, they will die. Machiavelli’s emphasis is never on religion itself, but always on the health of the state. Since religion is a crucial part of the social order, 108 and one that survives long past the limited life span of the prince, a failed or even a slothful religion will make the state weak. Therefore, Machiavelli concludes that rulers must “uphold the foundations of the religion they profess; and having done this, they will find it an easy matter for them to maintain a devout republic and, as a consequence, one that is good and united. They must also encourage and support all those things that arise in favour of this religion, even those they judge to be false.” 109 Religion for Machiavelli is simply the easiest way to manipulate the people and promote civic virtù. THE REGULATION OF TIME IN THE DAODEJING A central task of the sage-ruler is to regulate time in relation to society. Obviously, the sage-ruler cannot control time, but he can control the timing of activities within the state. On the surface, this seems deeply invasive in the lives of the populace and inimical to the spirit of the Daoist project; however, Moeller makes an interesting case for how crucial the regulation of time would be to order in a Daoist state (or any state, for that matter). The regulation of time is a precondition to the permanence of the state, for a state that has lousy timing will collapse quickly. Timing, in short, is everything. The Daodejing affirms this in several places: “In action it is timeliness that matters,” 110 and “One ought to know that it is time to stop. / Knowing when to stop one can be free from danger.” 111 Moeller views timing, the correct ordering of time segments, as the key to permanence, because he sees perma-

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nence as consisting precisely of these time segments. 112 In political terms, the strength of any state in the Warring States period was its agriculture: if crops were not planted and harvested at the appropriate times, the state would be weakened because of food shortages. Further, as Mark Edward Lewis observes, because war in the Warring States period involved so many members of society, “warfare and agriculture rose and fell in a cycle of complementary opposition.” 113 There was simply not enough available labor to conduct agriculture and military campaigns simultaneously; to engage in one at the expense of the other left the state weak. Important to note in the Daoist conception of permanence is that permanence—the ultimate in longevity—is an unobtainable ideal, just as it is in Machiavelli’s philosophy. This can be seen in chapter 23 where Laozi maintains that “a gusty wind cannot last all morning, and a sudden downpour cannot last all day. Who is it that produces these? Heaven and earth. If even heaven and earth cannot go on for ever, much less can man. That is why one follows the way.” 114 Following the Dao is the best option. However, if heaven and earth cannot attain permanence, the prospects for the human realm to do so are bleak indeed. Nevertheless, in chapter 25 the Daodejing insists that the attempt be made: “Man models himself on earth, / Earth on heaven, / Heaven on the way, / And the way on that which is naturally so.” 115 Furthermore, longevity can only be had on a large scale. The state can aspire to permanence (even though this cannot be maintained indefinitely), but the individual persons, even the sage-ruler, and their activities are all transitory. After all, the sage-ruler is still just a mortal, even if an exceptional one, and Laozi himself was said to have lived only to somewhere between 160 and 200 years of age. The proper ordering of time is also a crucial aspect of the sage-ruler’s flexibility. Proper ordering prevents the past and the future from intruding on the business at hand; in short, concern with the past, whether nostalgic or so much emotional baggage, and anticipation of the future, are distractions from the present and are liable to prevent the sage-ruler from being able to live in the moment and deal freely with the affairs before him. A quick look at one of the reasons Machiavelli offers in chapter 25 of The Prince as to why individuals cannot remain flexible indefinitely confirms this: “he cannot be persuaded to depart from a path after having always prospered by following it.” 116 If one dwells on them, the successes of the past cloud judgments about the present, and while Machiavelli acknowledges this and simply laments it as an eventuality, Laozi’s ordering of time offers a remedy.

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THE REGULATION OF TIME IN MACHIAVELLI’S PHILOSOPHY Beyond the elusiveness of permanence and the need to keep one’s mind focused on the present, Machiavelli’s conception of time is not dissimilar to Laozi’s, and also requires that political leaders regulate the flow of events. On a grand scale, this takes place within the overarching cycles of history. In his articulation of the cyclic nature of history, Machiavelli not only acknowledges that the every cycle is made up of different stages that cannot be allowed to overlap, but he also notes that these stages have their own unique characteristics, which is why generals, who are men of necessity, are born before philosophers, who are men of laziness. In book 3 of the Discourses, Machiavelli explicitly connects this conception of time with the political realm: [A]fter the transformation of the state either from a republic into a tyranny or from a tyranny into a republic, a memorable action must be taken against the enemies of present circumstances. Anyone who creates a tyranny without killing Brutus, and anyone who creates a free government and does not kill the sons of Brutus, will not sustain himself for long. 117

In short, the political regimes of each stage of the historical cycle cannot allow remnants of the other stages to continue into their reign; their time is over politically, and since they are unlikely to accept this, they must be eliminated. Even the prince who seeks glory for founding a state must allow his person to be discarded by transforming the state into a republic if he wants it to survive his death. The Daodejing endorses such an approach in chapter 5, where Laozi comments that “Heaven and Earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.” 118 Straw dogs were treated with the utmost respect during ritual ceremonies, but afterward were discarded without any consideration. On a smaller scale, Machiavelli maintains that the prince, or any political actor, must also regulate his own conduct regarding the timing of events. Robert Orr links time to Fortune and goes so far as to argue that the real contest in Machiavelli’s writings is that the prince “inhabits a world ruled neither by fortune, nor by himself, but by time.” 119 The part of Orr’s analysis of Machiavelli that resonates the most with the role of the sage-ruler is his division of the contest with Fortune into three temporal phases: before she arrives, when she is present, and after she departs. It is imperative that the prince recognize these three phases, and act appropriately in each phase. Machiavelli offers several pieces of advice to the prince regarding how to act in each phase. Before Fortune arrives, the proper mode of conduct is characterized by prudence. In The Prince Machiavelli makes this point by

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comparing Fortune to a raging river, and argues that the wise prince takes advantages of those times when the river is peaceful to erect dams and dikes so as to mitigate the destructive force of the river when peaceful times end. 120 In the Discourses, Machiavelli argues that the cause of Rome’s success was that it never fought two major conflicts simultaneously, but he attributes this to Roman discipline and prudence, not to Fortune’s influence, as Plutarch and Livy had done. The Romans used allies “to serve as a ladder to climb up or a gate through which to enter” or held onto enemy territories and used their reputation to prevent their neighbors from attacking. 121 Later in the Discourses, Machiavelli argues that, in military terms, discipline allowed the Roman army to endure the vagaries of Fortune. 122 Because the prince inevitably will die, the adoption of a republican constitution, that is, the creation of social institutions infused with the prince’s virtù, is perhaps the greatest act of prudence possible. 123 But all of these options are only effective if performed at the right time, before Fortune has arrived. Dams and dikes cannot be put in place during a flood, discipline or military leadership or soldiers cannot be instilled instantly, and constitutions are thoughtful pieces of work carefully crafted over long periods of time. Once Fortune has made her presence known, the second phase of the cycle, the prince’s work continues apace. Even if he has followed Machiavelli’s advice, and has put dams and dikes in place, these can only serve to improve his chances of successfully engaging Fortune; rarely are they enough to win the day. Machiavelli offers three different strategies for dealing with Fortune. The first strategy is to act aggressively. Orr’s interpretation of aggression is temporal, the goal being to strike first: “The essence of an audacious act is its speed; it takes place before anybody, including Fortuna, has time to predict it and dispose themselves accordingly.” 124 Audacity clearly has its advantages, as Machiavelli notes in his discussion of Julius II’s swiftness in committing to military action against Bologna so as to intimidate Venice into neutrality and force the French to send aid to the Pope’s forces. 125 The second strategy Machiavelli counsels involves being able to identify and seize opportunities. In the Tercets on Fortune, he describes Opportunity as “a tousle-haired and simple maiden” who “alone finds sport . . . frisking about among the wheels.” 126 Elsewhere, in a questionable or perhaps creative translation of Ausonius’s twelfth epigram, titled On Occasion, Machiavelli has Opportunity describe herself: Low on my brow before me spreads my hair, So that it covers all my breast and face; Thus, no one knows me, coming, till I’m there. Of hair behind my head there’s not a trace, Hence, once I’ve turned against, or hurried by,

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She then introduces a figure by her side, Penitence, and warns the reader that those who do not recognize and seize Opportunity, or Occasion, as she is also known, are destined to end up with Penitence as their bride. Despite her depiction as a mere maiden, she is of the utmost importance and even the great need her, for without the opportunity to show their greatness, their abilities can never be exercised. This applies not only to specific circumstances, but to the general mood of the times as well. Hence, ultimately, Machiavelli maintains, “men can side with fortune but not oppose her; they can weave her warp but they cannot tear it apart.” 128 The third and final strategy that Machiavelli offers is simply to do nothing and lie low until the dust settles. That Machiavelli is loath to recommend this option is made clear when he states in Discourses 2.29 that when utterly crushed by circumstances, rulers “must never give up, for without knowing her [Fortune’s] goals as she moves along paths both crossed and unknown, men always have to hope, and with hope, they should never give up.” 129 Nevertheless, Machiavelli advises precisely this strategy in a letter he wrote to Francesco Vettori while in exile on 10 December 1513; there, he states that “since Fortune is eager to shape everything, she wants people to let her do so, to be still, not to trouble her, and to await the moment when she will let men do something.” 130 A few years later in a letter to Giovanni Vernacci, Machiavelli admits to being reduced to this approach because all other avenues have failed: “I bide my time so that I may be ready to seize good Fortune should she come; should she not come, I am ready to be patient.” 131 This may sound like the Daoist idea of wu-wei, but it is not. Lying low and letting Fortune have her way with you is not acting naturally or spontaneously; for Machiavelli it is a last resort when one is powerless to act purposefully in a situation, and is to be undertaken with a certain amount of cunning and readiness to act when Fortune’s wheel turns and Opportunity presents herself. Machiavelli acknowledges that the same tactics will not be equally effective in all situations, and so advises numerous strategies for dealing with Fortune. So long as the strategy is appropriate to the conditions, the prince has a fighting chance of winning the encounter with Fortune. There is, however, one strategy that is unequivocally forbidden: sustained defiance of the flow of events. As Machiavelli says in Discourses 3.9, the reason success varies for a given individual is that Fortune “brings about the changes in the times while he fails to modify his methods.” 132 The last temporal phase takes place after Fortune has departed. Once the engagement with Fortune is over, the prince must still be vigilant. Even if he appears victorious in his encounter with Fortune, the aftermath of such an encounter can lead him to ruin. The successful prince must have sufficient

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strength of character that he remains unaffected by his dealings with Fortune. Without such integrity of character, a prince is likely to be destroyed in the wake of Fortune, for the motion of Fortune comes full circle: once she departs she can return at any moment, and one must be ready. If Fortune treats him roughly and inflicts serious wounds on his prospects and plans, the prince may become despondent or give into self-pity; such an attitude is not conducive to preparing for the next time Fortune visits. If the initial battle with Fortune goes well, either by reason of the virtù of the prince or of the fleeting malfeasance of Fortune, he may become overconfident and lax in discipline. An undisciplined attitude is not suited to preparing for the next meeting with Fortune either. Machiavelli’s characterization of the true prince is the same as his one of the Roman state: “they will act with the same spirit on all occasions, and they will maintain the same dignity” 133 and so will always be ready for Fortune’s next visitation. THE RANKING OF RULERS Two of the most telling points of congruence between Machiavelli and Laozi stem from their ranking of leaders and their conception of the political bodies that possess the greatest longevity. The Daoist ranking of rulers occurs in chapter 17, where Laozi states: The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects. Next comes the ruler they love and praise; Next comes one they fear; Next comes one with whom they take liberties. 134

The descending order of leadership that is put forth in the Daodejing clearly takes the ruler who employs a strategy of non-contention as the best ruler. This ruler is barely noticeable to his subjects because he does not contend with them, but also because he occupies the position that no one else wants. Such leaders are solitary, desolate, and hapless, 135 and so no one notices them. Further, their avoidance of the things that most people desire leaves them unadorned, like the uncarved block. Despite their inconspicuousness, the fact that they take the lower position in the state means that the people gravitate to them of their own accord, just as the rivers flow to the sea. It is because the sage-ruler operates through non-contention that the people joyfully obey; they never feel that tasks are thrust upon them, rather that the task was their own idea, and take credit for it accordingly. This is why chapter 17 of the Daodejing states “When his [the sage-ruler’s] task is accomplished and his work done / The people all say, ‘It happened to us naturally.’” 136 This is also why the sage-ruler “lays claim to no merit.” 137

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Machiavelli never embraces non-contention as a mode of ruling; at best, he suggests it as a tactic when no other viable option is available. Yet there are two cases that come close to the shrouded image of the Daoist sage-ruler: republics and ecclesiastical states. Since the virtù of the prince dies with him, the long-term security and prosperity of the state depend on the prince’s transforming his kingdom into a republic, with social institutions that are designed to mimic the virtù of the deceased prince. 138 Thus, the best form of rule for Machiavelli is, as the Daodejing puts it, for the prince to be “but a shadowy presence to his subjects.” 139 For Machiavelli, this means that the prince must transform the kingdom into a republic (although an ecclesiastical state would work here too). If the prince does this properly, he can rule effectively from beyond the grave for decades, perhaps centuries, as his virtù will continue to live on in the social institutions and guide the state in his absence. In effect, the virtù of the prince becomes infused into the state itself, and the prince is reduced from a physical person to a shadowy presence. Machiavelli’s description of ecclesiastical states in chapter 11 of The Prince is also remarkably Daoist in tone. He argues: [A]ll the problems occur before they are acquired, since they are acquired either through virtue or through Fortune, and are maintained without one or the other. They are sustained by the ancient institutions of religion, which are so powerful and of such a quality that they keep their princes in power no matter how they act and live their lives. These princes alone have states and do not defend them; have subjects and do not govern them; and their states, though undefended, are never taken away from them; and their subjects, being ungoverned, show no concern, and do not think about severing their ties with them, nor are they able to. These principalities, then, are the only secure and successful ones. 140

There is a crucial difference here between ecclesiastical states and republics because the ruler of the former, in this case the Pope, is still present and the center of attention. The mystifying control ecclesiastical states have over their subjects is not due to spiritual forces, but rather is located in human nature, for “men never do good unless necessity drives them to it,” according to Machiavelli, and thus “it is said that hunger and poverty make men industrious and laws make them good, and where something works well by itself without the law, the law is unnecessary, but when that good custom is lacking, the law is immediately necessary.” 141 The source of the ruler’s power in this instance arises not from the being of the prince himself, but from the customs and traditions laid down long ago and reinforced through the years. Thus, the effect of customs grown old through history has given ecclesiastical states the ideal control; unfortunately, in Machiavelli’s view, this control has been squandered through papal corruption and a theology of sloth. Popes having bastard children and selling indulgences are petty corruptions that are

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of no concern to Machiavelli. What does concern him are pontiffs using the papacy and its influence throughout the Italian territories to further their own personal or family ends rather than strengthening the church as an organization. This is why Machiavelli considers Julius II to be superior to Alexander VI—the latter made the Church strong, but did so for personal reasons, whereas the former built on the strength of Alexander VI’s reign, but did so for the sake of the Church. 142 The emphasis on ruling by means of custom and tradition is important, and resonates with the Daoist claim that the best ruler is but a shadowy presence; custom is what steers society, not the constant interventions of the ruler. No doubt, Machiavelli hoped that such customs and laws would have similar results for a republic. This passage is noteworthy for the way in which the ruler of an ecclesiastical state parallels the best of all rulers from the Daodejing, specifically the fact that neither has to do anything and yet all is accomplished. Thus the most effective form of rule for Machiavelli is akin to non-contention. The second best kind of ruler, according to the Daodejing, is the one the people “love and praise,” and the third, the “one they fear.” 143 For Laozi, such a ruler is problematic because, in order to be loved, praised, or feared, one has to be more than a shadowy presence. The sage-rulers of both these kinds have become focal points of attention, and are thus no longer solitary, desolate, nor hapless, nor can they easily use strategies of non-contention to rule. Further, in being loved, praised, or feared, their persons, manner of living, or position have become such that they evoke desires in others. In being noticed, the sage-ruler has already corrupted the state. As a result, the type of ruler who is loved, praised, or feared can only exist in a state that is already experiencing decline. In Machiavelli’s cycle of history, this is the role of the prince. There is need of a prince only when the customs of society have become so corrupted that the state’s health is failing. The prince’s task is to restore order and health to society. To do this, according to Machiavelli, he must be visible. Aside from the exhibitionism inherent in Machiavelli’s conception of virtù, Machiavelli was aware that being visible made the prince a target for the emotions of the people, whose sentiments could change without warning. Thus, in chapter 17 of The Prince, Machiavelli counsels rulers and would-be rulers alike that it is ideal to be both loved and feared simultaneously; however, “since it is difficult to be both together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when one of the two must be lacking.” 144 Thus, Machiavelli also sees the leader who is loved, praised, or feared as the second best, for the simple reason that he is operating within the context of a corrupted state. A notable difference between Machiavelli and Laozi here is that, in such an endeavor, Machiavelli sees an opportunity for greatness in rejuvenating a state or creating a new one out of the remains of an old one. The desire for immortality through a state’s history

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is something foreign to Laozi, who does not view history in the same way that Machiavelli does at all, and thus does not see a need to praise individual rulers for their contribution to the state’s health. The worst type of ruler the Daodejing lists is the one with whom the people take liberties. As with rulers who are loved, praised, or feared, such a ruler is obviously visible, but what is worse, he has completely lost his efficacy. Again, this parallels Machiavelli’s hierarchy of rulers, for in telling the prince that when he cannot be both loved and feared, he should rely on the fear of the people, Machiavelli makes it clear that there are limits to what one can do in appealing to his subjects through either of these emotions. It is good for a ruler to be feared, but to be hated or to be thought effeminate is the beginning of the end of a ruler’s reign (and in Machiavelli’s day, most likely his life as well). Whether they love him or fear him, the people will take liberties with the prince and move against him in one way or another. There is one last category of ruler which Machiavelli mentions, but which is absent from the Daodejing: the ruler who is not only unsuccessful, but who, through his greed or incompetence, weakens or hastens the decline of the state. So, in his discussion of glory, Machiavelli writes: Among all men who are praised, the most highly praised are those who have been leaders and founders of religions. Close afterwards come those who have founded either republics or kingdoms. After them the most celebrated men are those who, placed at the head of armies, have enlarged either their own realm or that of their native country. To these may be added men of letters, who, being of many types, are each celebrated according to his level of accomplishment. To other men, infinite in number, some portion of praise may be attributed, on the basis of their profession or its practice. On the contrary, infamous and detestable are those men who have been destroyers of religions, wasters of kingdoms and republics, enemies of the virtues, of letters, and of every other profession that brings honour and advantage to the human race, such as the impious, the violent, the ignorant, the worthless, the lazy, and the cowardly. 145

Once again, the difference between Laozi and Machiavelli lies in the importance of one’s place in history. Such a concern is antithetical to the philosophy of the Daodejing, which is perhaps why Laozi never mentions this category, but for Machiavelli’s princes, their judge is history and they all want to be remembered as great leaders who achieved great things, not idiots who made colossal blunders. Ultimately and unfortunately, all the different types of leaders Machiavelli lists operate from the level of the ego (ecclesiastical states and republics are types of states, not actual leaders). They view themselves as distinct from all other entities, human and nonhuman, because they have a notion of self that separates them from all else. This ego seeks to impose itself on every situation the prince encounters, and this is why he is doomed to fail. The ego

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gets in the way and deafens the prince to what the situation demands, and prevents him from clearly ascertaining the speed and direction of Fortune’s wheels. As a result, while the prince has, in principle, the ability to jump from wheel to wheel indefinitely, he is, in the long run, unlikely to be successful, because he cannot quell his ego the way the sage-ruler silences his. The fact that, as Machiavelli observes, the ruler sets the tone for society also means that, if the prince is operating from the level of the ego, so too will the people. Thus, even Machiavelli’s republic, in which the prince merely haunts the social institutions which he painstakingly crafted to rule after his death, is in the final analysis doomed. For these social institutions are all premised on the existence of the ego, and seek to channel the people’s egos and their excessive, unnatural desires into useful paths, as opposed to weakening their egos and reducing their desires to only natural ones. THE CENTAUR AND THE DRAGON Despite the similarities inherent in their prescriptions for rulers, it is clear that Machiavelli and Laozi remain separated by conceptual commitments that take them in very different directions, and which culminate in the imagery used to express the ideal for their respective rulers: the centaur and the dragon. Jullien locates the source of this disagreement in the West’s fetish for action, specifically heroic action. Both Greek philosophy and Christian religion, he argues, conceive of the world as the effect of action either of God or a demiurge (as in Plato’s Timaeus), and this has caused Western cultures to view action with a certain idolatry that makes it a centerpiece of the Western perspective. This resulted in the earliest heroes of the West being men of action, like Odysseus. 146 Jullien is onto something with this claim; however, he does not probe deep enough. The focus on heroic action is merely a symptom of a deeper attitude the West holds, and which ancient China did not, namely, the idea that nature is something hostile to humanity and which must be dominated by humans. This notion of nature as something that must be dominated is firmly rooted in the Greek and Judeo-Christian worldviews. Plato viewed nature as an imperfect copy of the eternal forms, and the Judeo-Christian view first places nature in submission to man in the garden of Eden (Adam gets to name the animals and the plants which exist to furnish him with food), and once humanity gets itself evicted from the garden, nature’s relationship with humans is made to be antagonistic as a form of divine punishment, with Adam being told that he will have to work hard to get any food to grow and Eve being condemned to both subservience to Adam and painful childbirth. In contrast, the ancient Chinese conception of humanity’s relationship to nature is harmonious. As Moeller describes it, humanity is strictly a natural

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phenomenon, although it is “the most volatile and unstable element in nature.” 147 The role of the sage-ruler becomes regulating human activity so as to maintain order, both within the human community as well as with the nonhuman world, for “the political realm of human society is neither isolated from nor a privileged segment within nature.” 148 And this is why the sageruler must adopt a nonhuman personae; he must devalue himself so much by retreating to the position that no one else could possibly want—the orphan— in order “to connect society and the nonhuman cosmos.” 149 Thus, the sageruler is the one who orders all transactions among persons, as well as among persons and nonpersons. The differences in attitudes to nature of Machiavelli and Laozi is epitomized by the images used to express their ideal ruler. The Daodejing uses all sorts of images to refer to the ruler—he is like the hub of a wheel, as flexible as a blade of grass, as innocent and simple as a newborn babe 150—but Daoist tradition uses another example to epitomize the ruler that is telling in its own right as well as in juxtaposition to Machiavelli’s image of the centaur. The image stems from the meeting, described in the Records of the Historian, in which Confucius seeks guidance about the rites from Laozi. The fact that the Laozi mentioned in the Confucian passage may or may not be the author of the Daodejing is not important, but the image attributed to him, and exalted by later Daoists, is of great significance. After being instructed and humbled by Laozi, Confucius tells his disciples: Birds, I know, can fly; fish, I know, can swim; animals, I know, can run. For the running one can make a net; for the swimming one can make a line; for the flying one can make an arrow. But when it comes to the dragon, I have no means of knowing how it rides the wind and the clouds and ascends into heaven. Today I have seen Lao-tzu who really is like unto a dragon. 151

Why is the dragon a significant image? Jullien’s description of it is both poetic and telling: “The dragon’s flexible body has no fixed form; it weaves and bends in every direction, contracting in order to deploy itself, coiling up in order to progress. It merges so closely with the clouds that, borne constantly along by them, it advances without the slightest effort.” 152 The point of the metaphor is that strategies can never be rigid; they must remain fluid and evolve with the situation as it changes, adapting and responding to it in ways that enhance one’s position within the constraints the situation imposes. Any form of dogmatism or unyieldingness amounts to a self-inflicted wound. Key to the sage-ruler’s effectiveness and longevity is the ability to be flexible. Flexibility, for Laozi, is grounded in the ability of the sage-ruler to empty himself of all thought, emotion, and desire and achieve a psychological state of emptiness akin to the nothingness ascribed to the Dao. It is from this position, devoid of ego, that strategies of non-contention flow most

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easily, and it is from this experience of living purely in the moment that true flexibility, wu-wei, is possible. Wu-wei goes beyond mere non-contention. Non-contention is a tactic and can be clung to; one can be dogmatic in using it (“non-contention worked last time”) and still retain a significant amount of ego, whereas wu-wei involves no premeditation of any kind, no agenda on the part of the sage-ruler, only an emptiness that allows the sage-ruler to listen to what the situation requires and which enables him to respond appropriately. Wu-wei is a state of being, not a tactic. Wu-wei is the paradox of achieving a goal by not trying to accomplish it directly: the action of “non-action.” 153 The phrase literally means “do nothing,” and is commonly translated as “taking no action” or “inaction.” 154 Wei is purposeful, premeditated, and ultimately violent and aggressive human action; wu is the negative, the opposite of action, a call for one to quietly listen to the situation. This is not a passive acceptance of things as they are, but rather is an active attempt at controlling one’s desire to interfere with a situation as it unfolds, for the purpose of attaining a subjective goal. The rationale is that the flow of events is more powerful than human action, and so one must understand this flow and then position oneself in order to capitalize on it. This is why wu-wei involves such little effort, the flow of events does most, if not all, of the work. The sage-ruler positions himself to benefit from the flow of events, or such that he only has to “nudge” events slightly to obtain these benefits. Machiavelli shows a glimmer of understanding this point when he says “men can side with fortune but not oppose her; they can weave her warp but they cannot tear it apart.” 155 For the Daodejing, this means ridding oneself of the ego, which inevitably projects one’s desires onto the flow of events. If one can do this successfully, one can listen to the situation, and be able to act with sufficient prescience that a minimal amount of effort will be required. As Laozi concisely puts it, “[o]ne does less and less until one does nothing at all,” and should one excel in this mode of conduct, the result will be nearly mythic, ensuring that “there is nothing that is undone.” 156 The emphasis is to quell preconceived notions and biases. Instead of aggressively interfering without a proper understanding of the situation, wu-wei allows the situation to present itself as itself, and not how one desires it to be. Wu-wei seeks to discourage the universalization of particulars, and to celebrate the difference of all unique situations. This may seem arbitrary, but the charge of arbitrariness is simply a reaction to the unfamiliar nature of wuwei. If one treats and responds to all situations as unique, one’s conduct will likely appear haphazard and arbitrary to others who unjustly classify a variety of different situations as the same. What makes wu-wei the basis of flexibility is that it effectively removes as much of the human element—the ego—from the equation as is possible. Wu-wei is the near-total suppression of one’s will to direct a situation toward a specific end. The sage-ruler may wish to win a battle with an invading

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adversary but, in operating through wu-wei, the sage-ruler gives up all thought of how the victory is to be accomplished, that is, no preconceived strategies, no preference for the use of a specific weapon, and no lessons from history are permitted to pollute the sage-ruler’s mind. Through apophatic meditative techniques, the sage-ruler empties his consciousness, lets the uniqueness of the situation he is faced with fill his mind, and allows the specific demands of that situation to dictate his actions. This is wu-wei, letting the situation call the shots. Even the initial desire for victory may have to be given up if the situation does not favor it; there is no room for the sageruler to insist on anything if he is to remain truly flexible. Only such living in the moment can free the sage-ruler of the intellectual and emotional commitments people are typically saddled with, and enable him to respond to the situation as the situation demands, as opposed to responding in a way that would satisfy his personality and deep-seated biases. To presume, as many people may well do, that Machiavelli is hostile to the approach of wu-wei is understandable. His approach to political philosophy is premised on the pedagogical usefulness of studying history. Hence, in The Prince he invokes the image of the prudent archer to illustrate the reason rulers should study the history of war, to learn why great leaders of the past succeeded and failed; even if they are of lesser ability than their ancient counterparts, they may come closer to the mark for their effort. 157 Further, his arguments in The Prince as to why he should be taken on as an advisor are rooted in both his knowledge of history and his personal experience of politics. The idea of living in the moment, unencumbered by past experience and the lessons of history, is inimical to Machiavelli’s entire project and would undercut his self-proclamation of being a valuable asset to any ruler. That said, he recognizes the need for the spontaneity and flexibility with which wu-wei endows a leader, but has no advice at all for how a ruler is to achieve and maintain these qualities. This lack of anything approaching apophatic meditation and wu-wei in Machiavelli’s thought is another one of the things that limit the effectiveness of his advice and doom those who follow his counsel. For if a ruler is inflexible and has success only because his mode of conduct agrees with the times, then he is entirely at the mercy of Fortune, and his success a matter of coincidence, not skill. Wu-wei is the means by which the ruler adapts to the situation and the vicissitudes of Fortune, and anything less than this that achieves victory amounts to sheer luck. Although the notion of wu-wei is utterly foreign to Machiavelli, and much of the time such inaction is deemed contemptible by him, he does discuss and advocate ideas that in certain ways come surprisingly close to wu-wei. As already seen, Machiavelli was aware of the stifling effects that personality and past experience could have on the fluidity of one’s mind. He was equally aware of the need for the prince to remain flexible in conduct and thought, proclaiming it the only way to survive Fortune’s vagaries. As Machiavelli

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insists in book 3 of the Discourses, the prince must stay in tune with the times. In a more fine-grained, albeit mythologically-themed analysis found in the Tercets on Fortune, the prince must always adapt to Fortune’s whims as represented by the unpredictable motions of the numerous wheels in her palace. 158 In both cases, success and survival depend on the prince’s ability to read the situation free of preconceptions and anxiety, and respond to the situation appropriately, that is, not with tried and true strategies or with an ideological or dogmatic use of a specific range of tactics, but as the situation requires or with what is necessary as determined by circumstances. The Machiavellian counterpart to Laozi’s dragon is the centaur. This is not a new doctrine, Machiavelli claims, but was one the ancients taught when they wrote that princes were given to Chiron the centaur, half man and half horse, for their education. Chiron obviously represents the two “halves” of the human being, mind and body. Machiavelli, however, refines and develops the image when, in The Prince, he declares that “there are two modes of fighting: one in accordance with laws, the other with force. The first is proper to man, the second to beasts. But because the first, in many cases, is not sufficient, it becomes necessary to have recourse to the second . . . a prince must know how to employ the nature of the one and the other, for the one without the other is not lasting.” 159 From this perspective, the human half of Chiron clearly represents rule by law, but when Machiavelli specifies the particular animals that the prince must emulate when conducting himself as an animal, he chooses the fox and the lion. The fox possesses cunning and can sense traps and outwit his adversaries, while the lion’s strength and fearful roar intimidates and can deter attacks. Both are needed, for the lion is vulnerable to traps and the fox has relatively little strength if a fight begins. In this respect, the human half of the centaur, the fox, and the lion embody all the attributes required by the prince, and if the images are less exotic than the dragon, they are also more down to earth. The bifurcated nature of the centaur is an important and often overlooked point, with commentators voicing their scorn that Machiavelli focuses on the animal half. The human dimension of the centaur is equally important, however, because in Machiavelli’s cyclical account of history, the two main phases are order and disorder, and success means adopting the mode of conduct appropriate to each. Cunning and violence are more suited to times of great disorder (which is why in The Prince the animal half of the centaur receives a fuller treatment), whereas fighting according to laws is more suited to times of order and stability. Thus the centaur, half-man and half-animal, is the most appropriate metaphor available to illustrate the flexibility that Machiavelli seeks. Flexibility and adaptability are key: the prince must be a bit of everything and know how and when to be the fox, when the lion, and when the man, and be astute enough to recognize when and how to employ each. For, as Machiavelli points out in his analysis of Julius II, anyone who

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plays only one role all the time will fail as soon as the wheel of Fortune turns, for Julius II succeeded only because his rashness was in concert with the times. Given the inability of Machiavelli to conceptualize a way of attaining flexibility, it is tempting to dismiss his philosophy as deficient in comparison to Laozi’s. Indeed Machiavelli’s inability to secure flexibility for the prince constitutes the great weakness of his philosophy. However, such a judgment is perhaps unfairly harsh on Machiavelli, for the simple reason that the emptiness of the sage-ruler is not easily achieved, and at best still allows only for the likelihood, not the certainty, of success. Jullien, trumpeting the advice of a range of ancient Chinese philosophers guaranteed to bring the ruler success, seems to forget this. While it is true that the flexibility of adopting wuwei as a strategy, of delay in taking any action or aggressive posturing, is much more efficacious than showing one’s cards unnecessarily, this strategy has its limits. The boundary is already indicated when Jullien discusses the problem of what happens when two (assumedly equally matched) generals employing this same strategy square off against one another. His answer, the only one he can give, is to wait, for “in the logic of things, something is bound to give, so you can be sure that, sooner or later, the enemy will be at risk.” 160 But this is a half-hearted answer. Assuming no human error, the only things that can affect the outcome of a conflict are the initial conditions (strength and longevity of troops, availability of supplies, etcetera) or external factors such as weather, terrain, or the intervention of third parties. Regardless, if the situation changes, the ruler who finds himself at a disadvantage would, by Jullien’s reasoning, seek for a means of retreat, while the ruler who currently has the advantage would not risk his advantage by needlessly pursuing his adversary. Furthermore, the very act of waiting is itself an ideal. For the dragon, despite its fluidity, still has a physical body that by definition has to assume a position at any given moment; so too does the ruler and his forces. As Jullien says, “The dragon’s flexible body has no fixed form; it weaves and bends in every direction, contracting in order to deploy itself, coiling up in order to progress. It merges so closely with the clouds that, borne constantly along by them, it advances without the slightest effort.” 161 If even the dragon changes position from moment to moment, how can a ruler and his forces be expected to remain in suspension? Not deploying his troops at the beginning of an engagement clearly does leave the ruler flexible, for he can deploy them in a greater variety of ways, and do so much more quickly when he has a better idea of the enemy’s situation, than he can redeploy them once they have assumed a position, but those troops still have to stand, sit, or sleep somewhere while they wait for their orders. A strategy of waiting and wu-wei pushes the ideal of flexibility to the extreme, but so long as physical beings are the ones waiting and employing wu-wei, they cannot really avoid taking a

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position, nor can they be completely flexible. Clearly, the advice of both Machiavelli and Laozi is meant as in principle advice, given in the understanding that its implementation will always be subject to a host of contingent and logistical factors that will limit how flexible the prince or the sageruler can truly be. Machiavelli’s choice of the centaur and Laozi’s of the dragon to embody virtù and de employ concepts and iconography that were common currency in their respective times and cultures, but ones to which each thinker adds a deliberate and unique spin. Each image speaks to how the prince or the sageruler is to regulate his desires, the desires of the people, and the temporal flow of events of both human activity and the activity of the state. Once again, numerous affinities are present, but as was the case with the concepts of Fortune and the Dao, these similarities are broad in nature. Machiavelli and Laozi may agree in very general ways on how to deal with desires, or on the demeanor of the ideal ruler, but Machiavelli never formulates his ideas from a position grounded in the emptiness that Laozi embraces and, as a result, his philosophy always stops short of the conclusions that Laozi reaches. The difference the idea of emptiness makes also explains why Laozi’s philosophy is limited in terms of its scope. The Daodejing never discusses how the sage-ruler is to deal with empires or how to transform a people who are already corrupt because, operating from a level of emptiness, it has trouble transforming the perspective of corrupt individuals who, by definition, not only have egos, but possess inflated ones at that. The problem is only magnified when the issue is not one ego, but an expansive society full of them. NOTES 1. Machiavelli, The Prince, 60. 2. Confucius as quoted by Ssu-ma Ch’ien, Records of the Historian, in D. C. Lau, “Introduction” in Lao Fzu, Tao te Ching, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1963), viii. 3. Peerenboom, 179. 4. Mansfield, Machiavelli’s Virtue, 6. 5. Russell Price, “The Senses of Virtù in Machiavelli,” European Studies Review 3, no. 4 (1973): 315–45, 344. 6. David Wootton, Introduction to Machiavelli: Selected Political Writings, trans. and ed. David Wootton (Indianapolis [IN]: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994), xi–xliv, xxix. 7. J. H. Whitfield, Machiavelli (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965). 8. Neal Wood, “Machiavelli’s Conception of Virtù Reconsidered,” Political Studies 15, no. 2 (1967): 159–72, 169. 9. Wood, 171. 10. John Plamenatz, “In Search of Machiavellian Virtù,” in The Political Calculus: Essays on Machiavelli’s Philosophy, ed. Anthony Parel (Toronto [ON]: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 157–78, 158–62. 11. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.10, 47–50.

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12. Philip J. Ivanhoe, “The Concept of de (‘Virtue’) in the Laozi,” in Religious and Philosophical Aspects of the Laozi, ed. Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1999), 239–57, 249–50. 13. Confucius, The Analects, tran. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin Books, 1979). 2.1, 63. 14. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 37, line 81; chapter 55, line 125. 15. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 28, line 63. 16. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 66, line 159. 17. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 9, 37. 18. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 29, line 68. 19. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 46, lines 105–5a. 20. Machiavelli. The Prince, chapter 3, 14. 21. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 20, line 47. 22. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 19, line 43a. 23. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 15, line 35. 24. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 57, line 133. 25. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 42, line 97. 26. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 29, line 66. 27. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 30, line 70. 28. Elliott Sober, “Philosophical Problems for Environmentalism,” in Oxford Readings in Environmental Philosophy, ed. Robert Elliot (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 226–47, 234. 29. For a wonderful and in-depth discussion of how this view has become prominent in the West through both theology and Cartesian philosophy, and how it clashes with current mindscience, please see Owen Flanagan’s The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them (New York: Basic Books, 2002). 30. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, 207. 31. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, 207–8. 32. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, 208. 33. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 12, lines 28–29a. 34. Hansen, 226. 35. Hansen, 227. 36. Jacques Maritain in his “The End of Machiavellianism,” interprets Machiavelli’s insistence that we are half animal as dangerous because it condemns humans entirely to the bestial realm. Jacques Maritain, “The End of Machiavellianism,” Review of Politics 4 (1942): 1–33, 3–4. 37. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 770. 38. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 772. 39. Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.27, 254–5. 40. Peerenboom, 179. 41. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 1, line 3. 42. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 15, line 36. 43. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 64, line 156. 44. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 55, line 127. 45. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 16, line 38. 46. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 8, 30–4. 47. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 7.1, 1336–37. 48. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.10, 50. 49. For an in-depth discussion of Machiavelli’s use of glory, see Russell Price, “The Theme of Gloria in Machiavelli,” Renaissance Quarterly 30, no. 4 (Winter 1977): 588–631. 50. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 7, lines 18–19a. 51. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 44, line 100. 52. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 59, line 137. 53. Isabelle Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, trans. Phyllis Brooks (Stanford [CA]: Stanford University Press, 1997), 14. 54. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 39, line 86a, chapter 42, line 95. 55. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 49, line 110.

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56. Machiavelli uses this image in book 6, chapter 37, of The History of Florence to illustrate Jean of Anjou’s tactical mistake in his war with Ferdinand: “It was of the opinion of Jacopo Piccinino that Jean upon his victory should go to Naples and make himself master of the chief city of the Kingdom; but he refused, saying that he intended first to get from Ferdinand all his territory and then to attack him, thinking that, if he were deprived of his lands, the capture of Naples would be easier. This decision, taken for an opposite purpose, deprived him of victory in that undertaking, because he did not realize how much more easily the limbs follow the head than the head the limbs,” 1334. 57. Basu, 225–26. 58. It should be noted that, while Machiavelli does refer to the natural philosophy of his day including the theory of humors, especially in his reports to his political superiors, this is no way establishes that he based his political philosophy on it or ascribed to it. Machiavelli’s sensitivity to his audience and his ability to adapt his use of language to conform to his audience’s preferences are the skills that made him effective as a writer, and it is plausible that he simply used the parlance of the natural philosophy of his day because those were the terms his superiors used. Undoubtedly, Machiavelli was a product of his age and would be influenced by the prevailing natural philosophy which found expression in every aspect of Florentine life; however, working within this worldview, or even finding justification for one’s ideas within it, is not the same thing as accepting or endorsing this worldview. 59. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 52, line 118. 60. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 46, lines 105–105b. 61. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 16, line 37. 62. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 47, lines 106–107. 63. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 3, lines 8–9. 64. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 12, line 28. 65. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 14, 50–2. 66. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.29, 323. 67. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 22, line 50a. 68. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 57, line 133. 69. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 27, line 62. 70. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 32, line 72. 71. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 55, line 125. 72. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 16, line 38. 73. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 29, line 66. 74. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 9, line 23. 75. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 81, line 194. 76. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 64, lines 154–4a. 77. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 39, line 86a. See also chapter 42, line 95. 78. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 20, line 47. 79. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 28, line 63. 80. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 66, lines 159–160. 81. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 48, lines 108–109. 82. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 36, line 80. 83. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 68, lines 166–166a. 84. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 58, line 136. 85. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 63, line 147. 86. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 60, line 138. 87. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 64, line 154a. 88. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 57, line 131. 89. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 75, line 181. 90. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 72, line 175. 91. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 16, 55. 92. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 16, 56. 93. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 25–26. 94. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 11, line 27. 95. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 12, line 29.

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96. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 49, line 112. 97. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 3, line 9. 98. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 65, line 157. 99. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 5, line 14. 100. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 37, line 81. 101. Viroli, Machiavelli’s God, 43–61. 102. Machiavelli, The Art of War, in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert, book 2, 623. 103. Machiavelli, The Art of War, book 4, 661; book 5, 691 (discipline); book 7, 723 (oaths). 104. Machiavelli, The Art of War, dedication, 567. 105. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.2, 159. 106. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.2, 159. 107. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.1, 249. 108. That religion is an extra-governmental agency of virtue integral to the health of the state is not a view exclusive to Machiavelli. Many later theorists, such as Hobbes, Locke, and Mill also saw religion as a key source of moral education of citizens. See Peter Berkowitz’s Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton [NJ]: Princeton University Press, 1999) for an excellent discussion of these thinkers’ analysis of religion’s place in the political order (esp. pp. 68–69, 94–95, 157). Note that the rationales of Hobbes and Locke resonate strongly with the rationale Machiavelli offers. 109. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.12, 54. 110. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 8, line 21. 111. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 32, line 72. 112. Moeller, Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory, 95. 113. Mark Edward Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China (Albany [NY]: State University of New York Press, 1990), 65. 114. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 23, line 51a. 115. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 25, line 58. 116. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 86. This advice is repeated in Discourses on Livy, 3.9, 282. 117. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.3, 252. 118. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 5, line 14. 119. Robert Orr, “The Time Motif in Machiavelli,” in Machiavelli and the Nature of Political Thought, ed. Martin Fleisher (New York: Antheneum, 1972), 158–208, 188. 120. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 84–85. 121. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.1, 155. 122. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.33, 332–4. 123. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.11. 53. 124. Orr, 203. 125. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.44, 354. 126. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 127. Niccolò Machiavelli, On Occasion, in The Prince: A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Interpretations, Marginalia, 2nd ed., trans. and ed. Robert M. Adams (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992), 134–35, 135. 128. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.29, 236. 129. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.29, 236. 130. Machiavelli, Letter 224, to Francesco Vettori, 10 December 1513, in Machiavelli and His Friends, 263. 131. Machiavelli, Letter 250, to Giovanni Vernacci, 15 February 1516, in Machiavelli and His Friends, 315. 132. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.9, 282. 133. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.31, 331. 134. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 17, line 39. 135. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 39, line 86a, and chapter 42, line 95. 136. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 17, line 41.

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137. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 77, line 185. 138. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.11, 53. 139. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 17, line 39. 140. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 11, 40. 141. Machiavelli, The Discourses on Livy, 1.3, 28. 142. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 11, 41–2. 143. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 17, line 39. 144. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 17, 58. 145. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.10, 47. 146. Jullien, 50–51, 55, and 83. 147. Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 56. 148. Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 67. 149. Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 70. 150. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 11, line 27 (wheel), chapter 76, line 182 (reed), chapter 55, line 125 (babe). 151. Confucius, as quoted in A. C. Graham, “The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan,” 23. 152. Jullien, 97. 153. A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China, 232. 154. Wing-tsit Chan, trans. and ed. Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 255. Also, “There is nothing wrong in rendering wu as a negative. However, in some cases it has to be interpreted. For example. . . . Wu-wei is not simply ‘inaction’ but ‘taking no unnatural action,’” 791. 155. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.29, 236. 156. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 48, line 108. 157. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 6, 20 (the image of the prudent archer), and chapter 14, 52 (the study of military history). 158. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.9, 281–2, and Tercets on Fortune, 747. 159. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 18, 60. 160. Jullien, 70. 161. Jullien, 97.

Chapter Four

Machiavelli and the Han Feizi

“Many writers have imagined republics and principalities that have never been seen nor known to exist in reality. For there is such a difference between how one lives and how one ought to live, that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done achieves his downfall rather than his preservation. A man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good. Therefore it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain himself to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not use it according to necessity.” —Machiavelli, The Prince 1 “[I]t is easy to become skilfull when you have ample resources. Hence, it is easy to scheme for a state that is powerful and orderly but difficult to make plans for one that is weak and chaotic.” —Han Feizi, Han Feizi 2

Despite the numerous affinities between Machiavelli’s philosophy and that of the Daodejing, the comparative literature that analyzes Machiavelli’s ideas in relation to ancient Chinese philosophy is invariably drawn to the philosophy of Han Feizi, which has posthumously been labeled Legalist. This urge to see Machiavelli and Han Feizi as cast from similar molds, while understandable, is regrettable. Han Feizi’s emphasis on the two handles of government, that is, reward and punishment, the tallying of names, the severity of punishments, the need for a strong military, and the concentration of all power in the position of the ruler, all resonate well with the erroneous but popular interpretation of Machiavelli as a teacher of evil and counselor of tyrants so common in the literature. As far as Machiavelli is concerned, few commentators to date have demonstrated that their knowledge of his corpus extends much beyond a superficial reading of The Prince. If this book were all there were to Machiavelli’s conceptions of history, politics, and the human condition, the comparisons to Han Feizi would be appropriate, but there is significantly more to his philosophy, and so the similarities with Han Feizi are less than commentators 147

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think. That said, there are still parallels that are worth exploring, for the Han Feizi takes the Daodejing as its inspiration for many of its key tenets, such as the policy of non-interference by the ruler and the interconnectedness of all things; so there is much common ground between Machiavelli and the Han Feizi by way of the latter’s Daoist heritage. The fact that Han Feizi and Machiavelli are both engaged in seeking ways to make large and populous states strong and enduring also gives them significant similarities in terms of subject matter. So it is not so much that there are no connections to be made between Machiavelli and Han Feizi, but that those connections have, up to now, been misrepresented in the literature. There is a fundamental difference, however, between how Machiavellian thought relates to Laozi’s, and how it relates to Han Feizi’s. The points at which Machiavelli’s thinking intersects with Laozi’s are often generalities, implicit assumptions, or inferences about the world, the human condition, and the appropriate response of a ruler to both. Their strongest affinity is that of two philosophers trying to make sense of and offer solutions for the chaos of their age. Machiavelli’s affinities with Han Feizi, in contrast, more closely resemble that of two long-serving public officials arguing over details of a proposal being written for the ruler. I suspect that it is their mutual likeness to high-ranking civil servants that has led to the bias in the comparative literature that pairs Machiavelli with the Legalists, and with Han Feizi in particular. To be sure, the points of congruency between these thinkers goes much deeper than a militant call to arms or declaring the urgent need for strong, centralized rule in times of crisis. Many passages in Machiavelli that concern the general themes of history and human nature, virtue and religion, and specific advice to the ruler resonate strongly with those found in Han Feizi. And yet Machiavelli is not simply covering the same ground as his Chinese counterpart. There are serious points of divergence, some of them irreconcilable, between their visions of the freedoms of the citizenry in a healthy political body, the delegation of authority, and how to deal with breaches of the law by the ruler. It is my contention that Machiavelli’s theory is more complete in terms of its scope than that offered by Han Feizi and is thus more viable. Like Laozi, Han Feizi is seeking an end to the turmoil of the Warring States period and desires a strong and stable state, but his commitment to a linear conception of history leaves his theory incomplete, and militates against any actual, rigorous implementation of its principles. Han Feizi’s acceptance of the linearity of history characterizes the situation of his day as critical and degraded, a time of deepening crisis, in dark contrast to the preceding age of small populations, plentiful resources, and absence of serious conflicts. This relatively shallow understanding of history limits him to advocating the use, for

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all manner of situations, of the kind of severe measures appropriate only to times of extreme crisis. Han Feizi also lacks the understanding of history possessed by Machiavelli that necessitates a prescription for how to rule after order has been achieved, and he offers little guidance for prolonging the state through times of peace and in the wake of the ruler’s demise. Thus, the Qin Dynasty, which rose to power and ended the Warring States period by enacting a program of Legalist policies, struggled in times of peace and lasted only a few years after the emperor’s death. On the other hand, nations such as the United States, Canada, France, Germany, and Britain that have adopted aspects of Machiavelli’s principles and practices have endured through times of crisis and times of peace for centuries. In the end, despite anticipating in a primitive fashion the political science of the Discourses, the Han Feizi is an equivalent of The Prince, but what Han Feizi’s philosophy needs in order to become complete and viable is a full-blown equivalent of the Discourses, a version of its doctrines formulated for the times of order. EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS WITH HISTORY The Daodejing exhibits nothing like the historical consciousness of Machiavelli’s political writings because, for Laozi, history is a celebration of culture and ego. There are no historians in a Daoist state. The closest thing to one would be the sage-ruler, but instead of chronicling, interpreting, and celebrating the past achievements of the people, the past that the sage-ruler seeks to keep alive lies beyond the human realm in the dark, murky, and primitive proto-history of the Dao. Han Feizi also rejects history, but for very different reasons. Appeals to history were the mainstay of the Confucian scholars with whom he vied for attention, and whom he blamed as partly responsible for the chaos of the Warring States period. In order to undermine his Confucian competitors, Han Feizi needs to show that history is an unreliable and even contradictory guide for a ruler. To that end, Han Feizi voices epistemological concerns about the authenticity of the teachings of the past. Specifically he cites the differing interpretations of Confucian and Mohist thought as evidence that the teachings of Confucius and Mozi are ultimately unknowable, and dismisses their philosophies as useless to the ruler: [S]ince the death of its founder, the Confucian school has split into eight factions, and the Mo-ist school into three. Their doctrines and practices are different or even contradictory, and yet each claims to represent the true teaching of Confucius and Mo Tzu . . . who is to decide which of the present versions of the doctrine is the right one? 3

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Han Feizi then applies this skeptical logic to all learning that seeks answers in the past, condemning them all as the products either of fools, who believe without evidence, or of imposters, who believe what can never be substantiated. 4 This is sufficient for Han Feizi to reject all history as void of educative value for the ruler. Like Han Feizi, Machiavelli does acknowledge that there are problems with historical accounts. He understands that historical records are always incomplete, 5 that historians are not unknown to whitewash the deeds of ancestors of powerful contemporaries in order to avoid angering their descendants, 6 and that even sincere and honest historians are often inconsistent in their appraisal of a subject. 7 Furthermore, in the case of religious history, supplanted belief systems are very often intentionally and systematically destroyed and evidence of their existence either erased from or reduced to caricatures in historical accounts, in order to eliminate any threat they may pose to the new religion. 8 None of this, however, is enough to cause Machiavelli to ignore the past as Rowe contends, 9 or to reject history as useless as Han Feizi does. Machiavelli sees great value in history, if only as a pedagogical tool for leaders to inform their own rule. Thus, in the Discourses, he finds value in the historical records of republics, because the opinions of ancient jurists are the basis of current civil laws and teach present jurists how to judge. 10 In The Prince, Machiavelli similarly declares that, as mental preparation for war, the prudent ruler “must read histories and in them consider the deeds of excellent men. He must see how they conduct themselves in wars. He must examine the reasons for their victories and for their defeats, in order to avoid the latter and to imitate the former.” 11 The idea of imitation resurfaces again when Machiavelli invokes the image of prudent archers who, “aware of the strength of their bow when the target at which they are aiming seems too distant, set their sights much higher than the designated target, not in order to reach such a height with their arrow, but instead to be able, by aiming so high, to strike their target.” 12 Whereas Laozi sees the practice of history as a sign of social decline, and excludes it from his state by seeking to bring the people to a level deeper than history, Han Feizi and Machiavelli, operating from the conventional level of culture and the ego, accept history as a given. That said, the two of them draw very different conclusions about the reliability and usefulness of recording and studying historical matter, despite mutually acknowledging gaps, biases, and contradictions within the historical record. The difference is rooted in their respective contexts. For Han Feizi, the recording of history and appeals to past historical persons and ages were synonymous with Confucianism, and so, as a tactical maneuver, he is forced not only to disparage history as a discipline, but to do everything possible to discredit it as anything more than myth and conjecture. That his hatred of history is a strategic

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move, and not something he is wholeheartedly committed to, is evidenced by the fact that Han Feizi himself constantly uses historical examples to illustrate his arguments, in much the same manner that Machiavelli does. The closest thing to Confucius that Machiavelli has to deal with was the charismatic religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), the Florentine Dominican, whose appeals to the citizens to overthrow the Medicis, and declare a republic, were to religion and God, not to history. Machiavelli has no animosity toward the chronicling of historical events, but embraces its imperfections as something that make it more malleable and therefore more useful to his purposes. In short, Machiavelli embraces history because of its flaws, as much as he embraces it in spite of them, and recommends the study of it as a valuable pedagogical tool to the ruler. HAN FEIZI’S LINEAR VERSUS MACHIAVELLI’S CYCLICAL CONCEPTIONS OF HISTORY Perhaps fearing the charge of inconsistency—that he rejects history as a pedagogical tool at the same time as he uses it as a rhetorical device—Han Feizi makes a distinction between ancient and contemporary times in how he conceives of history. History writ large, as a phenomenon, is conceived by Han Feizi as linear, and the importance of this to his attack on Confucianism cannot be stressed enough. Han Feizi decries references to golden ages of the past, claiming that, if there was more peace and less conflict in earlier ages, it was simply because there were fewer people to compete for finite resources, not because of the wisdom of ancient rulers. 13 Smaller populations ensured that all had enough to satisfy their needs and desires, and there was consequently less cause for conflict. It was not the case, as Confucious declared, that people were more benevolent or righteous, or even that they were better governed: there was simply less cause for conflict. This, in effect, concedes the effectiveness of the Daoist position, and the brief account of the past which Han Feizi offers resonates with the description of the Daoist state, described in chapter 80 of the Daodejing, as small and without conflict. But Han Feizi is no Daoist, despite his commentary on the Daodejing. Yes, the Daoist state and ancient states were peaceful, because of the favorable ratio of resources to population, but times have changed: populations have grown and resources have not, and in some cases resources have diminished or been depleted. Han Feizi’s conception of history as linear makes it impossible for him to concede that the conditions for the Daoist state can ever happen again, and further casts suspicion on the Daoist claim that such a state would be possible even if the people once again were brought to follow the Dao: under conditions of peace and plenty, the people would neither need nor desire to follow the Dao.

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Machiavelli offers a parallel account of the formation of society. He writes that “in the beginning of the world, when its inhabitants were few, they lived for a time scattered like the beasts.” 14 Conflicts are sparse under such conditions, because resources are plentiful, given the fact of small and scattered populations. However, as the populations grow, resources become harder to acquire, and people began to gather together under the banner of the strongest among them and made him their leader: thus, the first prince was created. Despite their similar accounts of the origins of society, however, Machiavelli’s conception of history is very different than Han Feizi’s. The Florentine’s understanding of history as cycles that fluctuate between states of order and disorder is briefly discussed at the beginning of book 5 of The History of Florence: “ability brings forth quiet; quiet, laziness; laziness, disorder; disorder, ruin; and likewise from ruin comes order; from order, ability; from the last, glory and good fortune.” 15 Early in the Discourses, Machiavelli fleshes out this sketch with an account, taken directly from Polybius, in which there are six forms of government that appear throughout each cycle. Three of these forms of government are good, namely principalities, aristocracies, and popular government, and each is accompanied by a distorted mirror image that occurs when the form of government in question becomes corrupt. Thus principalities become tyrannies, aristocracies metamorphose into oligarchies, and democratic governments degenerate into anarchy. 16 The consequences for Machiavelli are, that since circumstances are what make history, and since history is subject to change according to the general model of this cycle, unless actions are taken by the prince to reset or prolong the cycle, decay will inevitable occur. 17 Han Feizi comes close to Machiavelli’s cyclical account of history at times, such as when, commenting on chapter 58 of the Daodejing, he traces the interconnected origins of happiness and misery. He begins by locating the source of happiness in misery: Man encountered by misery feels afraid in mind. If he feels afraid in mind, his motives of conduct will become straight. If his motives of conduct are straight, his thinking process will become careful. If his thinking processes are careful, he will attain principles of affairs. If his motives of conduct are straight, he will meet no misery. If he meets no misery, he will live a life as decreed by heaven. If he attains principles of affairs, he will accomplish meritorious works. If he can live a life as decreed by heaven, his life will be perfect and long. If he accomplishes meritorious works, he will be wealthy and noble. Who is perfect, long-lived, wealthy, and noble is called happy. Thus, happiness originates in the possession of misery. 18

He then completes the circuit by discerning the source of misery in happiness:

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When one has happiness, wealth and nobility come to him. As soon as wealth and nobility come to him, his clothes and food become good. As soon as his clothes and food become good, an arrogant attitude appears. When an arrogant attitude appears, his conduct will become wicked and his action unreasonable. If his conduct is wicked, he will come to an untimely end. If his action is unreasonable, he will accomplish nothing. Indeed, to meet the disaster of premature death without making a reputation for achievement is a great misery. Thus, misery originates in the possession of happiness. 19

However, Han Feizi never makes the link with changing circumstances and history writ large. He rejects trying what worked in the past as being inappropriate to the contemporary world, arguing that “the sage does not try to practice the ways of antiquity or to abide by a fixed standard, but examines the affairs of the age and takes what precautions are necessary.” 20 Both Machiavelli and Han Feizi are in agreement that successful rule requires that one’s actions be in accord with the circumstances but, for Machiavelli, this means the prince must always keep up with the unpredictable goddess, Fortuna. As I have noted, in the Tercets on Fortune, Machiavelli describes Fortune’s palace as being filled with numerous wheels turning in different directions, at different speeds, powered by Laziness and Necessity, subject to changes of speed or direction without warning, and to which the relative good and ill fortune of all persons are tied. He depicts the prince’s plight in terms of trying to remain on an ascending wheel, and so having to jump from wheel to wheel, always anticipating Fortune’s whims. 21 This applies not only to the microcosmic level of specific situations, but also on the macrocosmic level of historical epochs. Han Feizi’s advice is less dramatic: he simply proclaims that the sage “takes into consideration the quantities of things and deliberates on scarcity and plenty. . . . Circumstances change according to the age, and ways of dealing with them change with the circumstances.” 22 The difference is that, for Han Feizi, studying the past will not aid in adapting to the present or in anticipating the future. This one-dimensional perspective on history leads Han Feizi to renounce all schools of thought that imitate previous modes of governing, on the grounds that times are sufficiently different due to the shortages of resources caused by a growing population. As far as Han Feizi is concerned, history has proceeded from happiness to misery, and is stuck in misery; since a return to happiness is impossible, no lessons can be gleaned from history, and this, curiously, despite the fact that happiness has its origins in misery. Thus his verdict: “To try and use the ways of a generous and lenient government to rule the people of a critical age is like trying to drive a runaway horse without using reins or whip.” 23 Machiavelli’s account of history is far more nuanced: he sees the cyclical nature of history at work in many states and times, 24 and so is confident that

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valuable lessons can be distilled from accounts of the past, if one has a sufficiently discriminating intellect. HUMAN NATURE IN HAN FEIZI AND MACHIAVELLI Human nature as conceived by Laozi is more primordial than anything Confucius, Han Feizi, or Machiavelli ever envisaged. The benevolence and righteousness so coveted by Confucius, from the perspective of Laozi, not achievements, but signs of social decay, for they are only discernible when corruption has taken root. Despite claims to the contrary, the benevolence and righteousness of Confucius are grounded in the ego. Self-interest, the primary motivator of all persons according to Han Feizi and Machiavelli, is also clearly rooted in the ego. Furthermore, both thinkers appear committed to the position that the effort to adapt to constantly changing circumstances is ultimately futile. For Machiavelli, the prince will never be able to keep up with Fortune, because even the most virtuous of princes will inevitably fall prey to intellectual rigidity and laziness, simply because he is human, 25 and Han Feizi admits that, all persons want “wealth, nobility, health, and longevity. Yet none can evade the disaster of poverty, lowliness, death, or untimely end.” 26 Human nature, it would appear, will be the ruler’s undoing. For Laozi, true human nature is realized by digging beneath the ego to the level at which one acts spontaneously through wu-wei, according to what the situation demands, not what the ego desires. Neither Machiavelli nor Han Feizi, however, ever considers the possibility of transcending the ego. Both maintain that human beings, while capable of acts of benevolence and altruism, are primarily motivated by self-interest. Han Feizi illustrates this view with a simple but poignant example: [T]he carpenter fashioning coffins hopes that men will die prematurely. It is not that the . . . carpenter [is] a knave. It is only that if men . . . do not die, there will be no market for coffins. The carpenter has no feeling of hatred towards others; he merely stands to profit by their death. 27

That humans are self-interested beings forms the basis of the Han Feizi’s political doctrine; thus, appeals to this self-interest by means of a uniform code of laws which rewards compliance to the law and severely punishes any noncompliance or discrepancy, as determined by the tallying of names, is the most effective form of government. Machiavelli shares the same basic understanding of human nature, although he dresses it up with his characteristic flair. He states that in general men are “ungrateful, fickle, simulators and deceivers, avoiders of danger, greedy for gain. While you work for their benefit they are completely yours, offering you their blood, their property, their lives, and their sons . . . when

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the need to do so is far away. But when it draws nearer to you, they turn away.” 28 He also avers that the “desire to gain possessions is truly a very natural and normal thing, and when those men gain possessions who are able to do so, they will always be praised and not criticized. But when they are not able to do so, and yet wish to do so at any cost, therein lie the error and the blame.” 29 Some commentators, such as Wu, 30 have been swayed by Machiavelli’s rhetoric, and maintain that his account of human nature is wicked but, in actuality, he says nothing of the sort, and his verdict is the same as the one Han Feizi reached: people are not malicious beings, merely self-interested ones. However, instead of following the inference that Han Feizi draws from this, namely that no one can ever be trusted, Machiavelli maintains that one can secure the trust and loyalty of others by linking it to their self-interest. So, in The Prince, Machiavelli counsels rulers and those who aspire to thrones that “a wise prince must think of a method by which his citizens will need the state and himself at all times and in every circumstance. Then they will always be loyal to him.” 31 This is a corollary to one of Machiavelli’s more infamous pieces of advice: “it is much safer to be feared than to be loved.” 32 Machiavelli’s rationale goes back to the prince’s contest with Fortune, for the prince cannot control the people’s affections, but he can control their fear, and so relying on the former leaves him vulnerable to Fortune, whereas relying on the latter does not. While their accounts of human nature are essentially the same, the conclusions each draws about how the ruler should treat people are vastly different. It is important to note that both Machiavelli and Han Feizi maintain that human nature does not change: people of all ages are predominantly selfinterested beings, and golden ages of virtue are nothing more than mirages on the horizon of history. This assumption is crucial to Machiavelli’s view of history as repetitive cycles. Han Feizi, in equating history with studying the ways of Confucius, is effectively forced to reject the worth of history in order to shore up his rejection of Confucianism. But he also fails to see the value of knowledge of the past because he never develops an understanding of the cyclical nature of history, which nevertheless lies dormant within his philosophy. However, for Machiavelli, human nature is the one constant in history. It is precisely this unchanging facet of the human condition that enables one to learn from studying what others have done in past ages: Anyone who studies current affairs will easily recognize that the same desires and humours exist and have always existed in all cities and among all peoples. Thus, it is an easy matter for anyone who examines past events carefully to foresee future events in every republic and to apply the remedies that the

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Unlike Han Feizi, who has to defend his ideas against powerful Confucian enemies and their deep reverence for the past, Machiavelli does not read history as offering lessons in morality, but rather as raw data to be combed through for precious lessons that will grant the prince insights into present circumstances. As Schwartz phrases it, Machiavelli’s sense of history is, in one sense, a “casebook approach.” 34 Thus, studying history is not a matter of looking back to a glorious age and trying to find the secret to making men better, nor is it something to be ignored as specious. It is a matter of looking back at the deeds of other great rulers who practiced the same rules of politics in times of crisis that are called for in the turbulence of Renaissance Italy, and discerning how and why they succeeded or failed. That these lessons are still applicable rests on the conviction that history repeats itself and thus is an invaluable resource, and on the assumption that human nature is, in its most general form, constant. HAN FEIZI AND MACHIAVELLI ON RELIGION AND VIRTUE: CONFUCIUS AND SAVONAROLA Two things must be noted about Han Feizi’s treatment of moral righteousness and religion. The first is that he has no patience with either, and sees both as antithetical to a strong state. The second is that, while other competing doctrines did exist, the main competition of the Legalists was Confucianism, and so it is not surprising that in the Han Feizi religion and Confucianism are discussed as if the two were synonymous, even though Confucianism can be considered a philosophy as easily as it can be considered a religion. 35 Despite the fact that Daoism developed a religious variant of itself, which focused not on the permanence of the state, but on the physical longevity of the individual, Laozi’s philosophy has only limited room for religion. Certainly, any form of religion that involved a religious hierarchy, grandiose buildings and accoutrements, developed a complex theology, or required intensive training of clerics in elaborate rituals and arcane texts would be signs of social decay; but a less ornate and elaborate theology, one in which the sage-ruler also takes on the role of one-and-only priest, has its place in a Daoist society. Such a religion could help order society positively, symbolically marking temporal boundaries such as the passing of the seasons (important for agriculture), as well as symbolizing and managing the relationship between society and nature. 36 In a similar fashion, Machiavelli does not unilaterally condemn religion. Rather, he denounces those religions, such as the Christianity of his day, which weaken the state by undermining the sense of civic duty a strong state

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requires, as well as the naivety of religious figures such as Savonarola. Those religions which reinvigorate the state and emphasize the civic obligations of individuals, be they pagan religions of old or a revitalized and militant brand of Christianity, are welcomed social institutions in a Machiavellian state. HAN FEIZI ON CONFUCIUS AND CONFUCIAN VIRTUE Han Feizi has an ambivalent relationship with Confucius. On the one hand, probably because of his education under the famed Confucian Xunzi, and because of how influential Confucianism had become, he is respectful of Confucius and is cautious about directly criticizing someone so eminent. At one point he even calls Confucius “one of the greatest sages of the world.” 37 On the other hand, Han Feizi casts suspicion on Confucius’s loyalty because he was an itinerant philosopher. While railing against a range of philosophers that deviate from the Legalist program, Han Feizi includes a thinly veiled reference to Confucius: Men who are contemptuous of ranks and stipends, quick to discard their posts and abandon the state in search of another sovereign, I would not call upright. . . . Those who devote all their time to establishing favorable relations with the princes of other states, impoverishing their own state in the process . . . I would not call wise. 38

This could also serve, at least partially, as an indictment of Laozi as well, for, according to the account of Laozi’s life found in The Records of the Grand Historian, Laozi was, in Han Feizi’s words, “quick to discard” his post and “abandoned the state,” albeit not for employment in the service of another regime. Tied to his native state of Han by his aristocratic birth, but ignored by his ruler, Han Feizi had little fondness for, and perhaps even some resentment toward, those who were able to abandon their posts when things looked bleak, or seek audiences with other leaders when their native rulers ignored their words. Han Feizi is critical of Confucianism not only as a cult of personality: he insists that its emphasis on moral righteousness and filial piety are detrimental to effective rule. As far as Han Feizi is concerned, virtue alone is politically inadequate as a guide either for the ruler or the ruled. Not only that, but he declares that if Confucian virtues are tolerated, they will undermine the state. The account of human nature offered in the Han Feizi maintains that only respect for authority and fear of punishment will affect people’s behavior, not virtue: “[T]he people will bow naturally to authority, but few of them can be moved by righteousness.” 39 Han Feizi illustrates this point with the story of a young reprobate who ignores the teachings and admonishments of his parents and teachers, but who alters his conduct when state authorities come

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in search of wrongdoers. 40 Han Feizi also draws an analogy between parenting and ruling a state, to the effect that treating a child with excessive kindness can lead to troublesome children: “power and authority can prevent violence, but kindness and generosity are insufficient to put an end to disorder.” 41 If Han Feizi’s account of human nature is accepted, the only conclusion possible is that appeals to self-interest backed by force are the sole way to motivate people. Confucius, however, proves an exception to Han Feizi’s account of human nature, and once again, his ambivalence about the sage resurfaces. Han Feizi praises Confucius for having perfected his own behavior, and acknowledges that all on this account admired him. But Han Feizi believes that the Confucian path of virtue is too inimitable and not infectious enough to be a useful tool of rule; after all, by the end of Confucius’s life, his influence extended only to seventy disciples. 42 And even then, Confucius was the only one who had attained true benevolence and righteousness. Clearly, when it come to great numbers of people, Han Feizi believes that Confucius grants them far too much credit: “Those who rule must employ measures that will be effective with the majority and discard those that will be effective only with a few. Therefore they devote themselves not to virtue but to law.” 43 But, even while generously praising Confucius’s apparent perfection, Han Feizi points out that Confucius still respected authority; he smugly recalls that the sage had bowed down to Duke Ai of Lu, a man who wielded the authority of ruler, but who was clearly Confucius’s inferior in terms of benevolence and righteousness. 44 For Laozi, the de of the sage-ruler is analogous to a whirlpool, drawing into itself the entire population, even extending to the natural world, and transforming the people as they become swept up in its influence. Han Feizi’s criticism of Confucius applies equally to Laozi, for such a phenomenon can only take place if the population is small and the leader is an exceptional person. Hence, the reliance of both Confucius and Laozi on the de of the ruler to transform the people’s behavior, however each deems it to work, will be effective only in small states. Such states no longer exist in Han Feizi’s day, and large states require Legalist measures; therefore, the idea that any ruler can transform the people’s behavior through his personal qualities or example is moot. There is an important difference between Confucius and Laozi which Han Feizi acknowledges, and it is that the latter understands the limitations on how far the influence of the sage-rulers can reach; hence his call in chapter 80 of the Daodejing to keep the state small and relatively isolated. Han Feizi’s recognition of this awareness is one of the reasons he does not target the Daoist on this issue, understanding that Laozi’s political philosophy was not intended to deal with large states or times of corruption and crisis, and

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was hence not a serious competitor to the Legalist philosophy in Han Feizi’s context. The exception cannot be the rule, and in fact, the ruler and his bureaucracy are unlikely to ever be exceptional. Thus Han Feizi finds little hope for successfully implementing the Confucian model of government: Hardly ten men of true integrity and good faith can be found today, and yet the offices of the state number in the hundreds. If they must be filled by men of integrity and good faith, then there will never be enough men to go around; and if the offices are left unfilled, then those whose business it is to govern will dwindle in numbers while disorderly men increase. 45

And if a lack of ministers is not enough of an incentive to reject Confucianism, Han Feizi points out that to counsel the ruler to rule through benevolence and righteousness “is, in effect, to demand that the ruler rise to the level of Confucius, and that all the ordinary people of the time be like Confucius’ disciples.” 46 But the ambivalence of Han Feizi’s attitude toward Confucius emerges yet again for, despite this praise of Confucius, Han Feizi quickly points out that Confucius was not completely perfect and had been known to commit errors in judgment, 47 this despite his righteousness. If even Confucius could be wrong, what hope was there for a state controlled by others of far lesser character? In addition to its inability to affect meaningful change, Confucianism is problematic because it places loyalty to the state in direct conflict with other loyalties, a position which is unacceptable to Han Feizi. He recounts the story of a man from Lu, who repeatedly deserted his ruler on the battlefield, because if the man died there would be no one left to care for his aged father, and notes with disdain that Confucius rewarded his filial piety by promoting him to a post in government rather than punishing him. “Thus we see that a man who is a filial son to his father may be a traitorous subject to his lord.” 48 This last point cuts to the core of why Confucianism is threatening to a state run on Legalist principles: it is simply too idealistic and soft a philosophy for a state that bases itself largely upon military activity. As Han Feizi bluntly phrases it: “The nation at peace may patronize Confucian scholars and cavaliers, but the nation in danger must call upon its fighting men. Thus those who are patronized are not those who are of real use, and those who are of real use are not those who are patronized. Hence we have disorder.” 49 Such uselessness leads to Han Feizi’s final dismissal of all things Confucian. Comparing the Confucians of his day to the unproven effects of prayers by Shaman priests, Han Feizi claims that they “do not investigate matters of bureaucratic system or law, or examine the realities of villainy and evil,” which would help bring order to the state, “but talk only of the achievements

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of the men who brought order in the past.” 50 From this, Han Feizi concludes that no successful ruler will tolerate the presence of Confucians in his state. MACHIAVELLI ON SAVONAROLA AND CHRISTIAN VIRTUE Machiavelli too saw the sometimes disastrous effects of moral righteousness in politics, having followed and commented on at least some of Girolamo Savonarola’s activities. Savonarola was a Dominican friar who saw the French invasion of the Italian peninsula in 1494 as God’s indictment of how morally bankrupt the various Italian cities had become, and rallied Florence into a religious fervor of moral righteousness and reformation, including the bonfire of the vanities. His initial successes were quickly reversed, however, when Savonarola set his sights on the corrupt papacy of Alexander VI, who responded by having the Dominican excommunicated, arrested, and tried for heresy. Even if Machiavelli did not witness Savonarola’s bloody end firsthand—the friar was hanged over a bonfire and set ablaze, and then his charred remains thrown into the River Arno—Machiavelli would have learned from multiple sources how the Dominican monk’s disastrous attempt at reforming the corrupt papacy of Alexander VI had ended. The lesson Machiavelli derives from this is that unarmed prophets are doomed to failure; and offers as his example, Moses, backed by an army and divine sanction, who succeeded, while without an army, Savonarola was executed as a heretic. 51 Machiavelli acknowledges that it would be preferable if the prince could possess all the traditional Christian virtues; however, because the world is filled with men who do not possess these virtues, he describes the wise prince as one who “should not depart from the good if it is possible to do so, but he should know how to enter into evil when forced by necessity.” 52 Unfortunately, circumstances will dictate the abandonment of virtue so often that, if one is not diligent and sincere in exercising it, this piece of advice quickly amounts to only appearing to possess these virtues. 53 Unlike Han Feizi, who seeks to suppress any form of religion, Confucian or otherwise, Machiavelli has a complex, and at times ambiguous, relationship with organized religion. Certain types of religion, such as the Christianity of his day, only serve to weaken the state, and therefore vice will inevitably triumph over virtue, while the latter will become nothing but hollow show. But, appealing to the pagan religions of ancient Rome, Machiavelli argues that religion can be a valuable tool in maintaining social order and motivating people. Machiavelli thinks little of what Christianity has become in his world, specifically because it has made people effeminate, and weakened the state by emphasizing otherworldly rewards at the expense of civic virtue. Thus, in Discourses 2.2, Machiavelli declares that “in order to go to paradise, most

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men think more about enduring their pains than about avenging them.” 54 Worse, Christianity has convinced people it is “evil to speak ill of the evil,” 55 which makes citizens reticent to criticize their leaders and hold them to account. In general terms, Machiavelli attributes Christianity’s destructiveness to its being interpreted according to sloth as opposed to vigor. Specifically, he charges that its flagrant corruption and lack of a military force sufficient to subdue and unite Italy’s warring political powers, have made the Church guilty of the bloody and humiliating foreign interventions that descend on the Italian peninsula during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. 56 Important to note here is that religion in itself is not condemned, only those religions which weaken the state. In chapter 11 of The Prince, Machiavelli maintains that founding a religion is an even greater accomplishment than founding a state, for religions are sustained by powerful traditions that guarantee their security indefinitely. A good religion for Machiavelli, that is, one that inculcates in its citizenry the virtues necessary to make the state strong, can be an incredibly effective tool for the prince, and Machiavelli claims Christianity could become such a tool: “For if they would consider how our religion permits us to exalt and defend our native land, they would see that it also wants us to love and honour it and to prepare ourselves in such a way that we can defend it.” 57 As Viroli reminds us, the desire to see a militant interpretation of Christianity arise in Italy was not unique to Machiavelli, but was a widespread sentiment. 58 Religion can also be used to maintain social order and to inspire troops. Machiavelli was well aware of this, and counseled the prince to use the supernatural whenever necessary to help secure his ends. Thus, in the Discourses, he cites how divine worship is observed as the barometer of the state’s corruption: “there can be no greater indication of the ruin of a state than to see a disregard for its divine worship” 59; and he advises that rulers “uphold the foundations of the religion they profess . . . [and] encourage and support all those things that arise in favour of this religion, even those they judge to be false.” 60 Some of the trappings of religion—rituals, omens, and miracles in particular—are powerful means of motivating troops and justifying actions. Thus Machiavelli praises pagan rituals that included “the act of sacrifice full of blood and cruelty,” 61 for their ability to move people to honor their sworn oaths. He further commends the cleverness of Roman soldiers who sacked Venice and took the statue of Venus from her temple: they justified their taking the statue by claiming that, when they entered the temple in good order and asked her if she wished to come to Rome, one soldier swore that he saw the statue nod, while another insisted that it spoke its assent. 62 There will always be superstitious people, and Machiavelli advises putting a spin, be it supernatural or mundane, on anything that can be considered

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an ill omen. Therefore, he praises Caesar, who, when he tripped and fell as he disembarked from his boat in Africa, proclaimed, “Africa, I seize you,” 63 as though he had fallen deliberately to embrace the land. He further put creative spins on all manner of phenomena that spooked his troops, thus quelling anxiety or foreboding among the ranks by turning ill omens into auspicious ones. Machiavelli has a more nuanced approach to religion than Han Feizi; while both see certain types of religion as undermining the strength of the state, Han Feizi almost always equates religion with Confucianism. Machiavelli, believing that religion can promote a strong, unified state, is able to draw upon Rome’s pagan past, the example of Moses, and contemporary desire for a more militant interpretation of Christianity to make his point. Machiavelli, then, does not offer a more moderate approach to morality and religion than Han Feizi; rather, he offers a more sophisticated and yet pragmatic approach, one that finds value in the appearance of morality and religion, properly conceived of and effectively employed. Thus, Wu’s claim that “Machiavelli’s attitude toward morality and religion is much more moderate than that of the Chinese Legalists” 64 is inaccurate. While it is true that neither Han Feizi and Machiavelli counsels the ruler to rely on virtue or moral righteousness, whether it be in the hearts of their subjects, or as a guide to their own rule, Machiavelli encourages the prince to pay lip service to the traditional virtues of his day, and while he does not counsel the ruler to embody them consistently, he does advise him to practice them when circumstances permit. SPECIFIC ADVICE TO THE RULER: HOW THE RULER MUST CONDUCT HIMSELF Han Feizi and Machiavelli both offer thoroughgoing instruction to the ruler as to how he should conduct himself and handle matters of state. Grouping them under the three headings of prudence, the use of law, and the ruler’s relations with his ministers, allows us to perceive a fascinating picture of shared assumptions that result in very different conclusions. PRUDENCE The obsession with prudential thinking is something that Machiavelli shares with Laozi and which Han Feizi inherits from the Daodejing. One of the most striking affinities between Machiavelli and Han Feizi is their emphasis on anticipating potential problems, and their counsel that the most effective way of dealing with them is to do so while the problems are small. They both also warn that failure to heed this advice will allow the problems to become

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unmanageable. The thoughts of these two civil servants regarding their governments are so alike in this matter that they even choose the same sets of images to illustrate their message: medical problems and the physician, and rivers and dikes. Han Feizi uses the story of Pien Ch’iao’s efforts to provide aid to Duke Huan of Ch’i to illustrate the importance of prudential thinking for political survival. Pien Ch’iao repeatedly tells the Duke that the latter has an illness, but his warnings are dismissed. By the time the first symptoms of the illness begin to appear, Pien Ch’iao has already left the court, knowing that it was too late to treat the disease. The Duke dies several days later. Han Feizi concludes from this account that “good physicians, when treating diseases, attack them when they are still in the capillary tubes. This means that they manage things when they are small. Hence, the saintly man begins to attend to things when it is early enough.” 65 Likewise, Machiavelli employs a passage that is identical in substance and similar in imagery. He argues: Once evils are recognized ahead of time, they may be easily cured; but if you wait for them to come upon you, the medicine will be too late, because the disease will have become incurable. And what physicians say about consumptive illnesses is applicable here: that at the beginning, such an illness is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognized or treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. The same thing occurs in affairs of state. 66

The second set of images that Machiavelli and Han Feizi share is that of rivers and dikes. Han Feizi argues that: A dike ten thousand feet long begins its crumbling with holes made by ants. . . . For the same reason, Pai Kuei on inspecting the dikes blocked up all holes. . . . Therefore, Pai Kuei met no disaster of any flood . . . [and was a good example of] taking precautions against things when they are easy in order to avoid difficulties and paying attention to things when they are small in order to prevent their greatness. 67

Machiavelli, for his part, likens Fortune to a raging river that has overflowed its banks. The river will damage everything in its path unless precautions have been taken, and so Machiavelli counsels the prince to build dikes and dams during those times when the river is peaceful, in order that the torrent can be directed and contained when the flooding begins. 68 The exercise of prudence is just as important for the manner in which the ruler chooses to live, and in his personal conduct. Han Feizi insists that the ruler must neither become fixated on petty gains 69 nor fall prey to greed, 70 and must not allow himself to become distracted by music 71 or sexual appe-

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tite. 72 A prudent ruler must also be close at hand at all times in order to observe the behavior of his ministers and citizens, and so should avoid lengthy travels abroad. 73 The ruler is also counseled never to trust anyone— minister, progeny, or concubine—as they all have a vested interest in influencing the ruler or stand to profit from the ruler’s death. 74 Machiavelli’s image of the prudent prince’s personal life is similar to Han Feizi’s in its caution against giving way to desire, but is significantly different from that of Han Feizi’s ideal of the ruler when it comes to how he rules. Whereas the latter advises the ruler to adopt a policy of non-interference, giving primacy to the law, Machiavelli’s prince is a hands-on warrior-prince. This is made clear when Machiavelli advises the prince to make his sole occupation the art of war. To succeed, he must remain fit, be capable of wielding weapons, and hunt regularly in order to keep his senses sharp. Hunting also gives him experience in topography, in the strategic and tactical advantages and disadvantages of his region’s terrain, which he can adapt to foreign territory. He must diligently study military history and the deeds of the great leaders who preceded him, so that he may discern what worked for them and what did not, and understand why they succeeded or failed. 75 THE ART OF RULING AND THE SCIENCE OF LAW Han Feizi points out that not only are the common people unlikely to be able to emulate the virtue of Confucius, but that even most rulers would be hard pressed to live up to such a high standard. In fact, according to Han Feizi, the ruler is just as human as his subjects, and hence just as prone to manipulation, if not even more so, because everybody wants to manipulate the ruler. Distraction, vice, and error also plague the ruler more than most others, because his position endows him with greater wealth and power than any of his subjects possess, while at the same time places his every action and decision on display. Han Feizi’s remedy for resisting distraction, vice, and error is again the supremacy of law, for laws “are the means of prohibiting error and ruling out selfish motives” 76 and act as a bulwark against manipulation: If the ruler of men tries to keep a personal check on all the various offices of his government, he will find the day too short and his energies insufficient. Moreover if the ruler uses his eyes, his subordinates will try to prettify what he sees; if he uses his ears, they will try to embellish what he hears; and if he uses his mind, they will be at him with endless speeches. The former kings, knowing that these three faculties would not suffice, accordingly set aside their own abilities; instead they relied upon law and policy, and took care to see that rewards and punishments were correctly apportioned. Since they held fast to the essential point, their legal codes were simple and inviolable, and alone they exercised control over all within the four seas. 77

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Law, clearly articulated and simple in nature, 78 and applied universally regardless of social standing or political connections, 79 will prevent the ruler from becoming ineffective and losing control of the state. The law is to serve as an objective and reliable substitute for the ruler’s subjective, capricious, and error-prone judgment. Machiavelli, too, sees the value of not making exceptions to the law, at least in a state that is well ordered and free of corruption. In the Discourses, he cites Horatius’ being brought up on charges of having killed his sister, despite his exemplary service to Rome, as a good thing, claiming that “no well-organized republic ever cancels the demerits of its citizens with their merits, but after having instituted rewards for a good deed and punishments for an evil one, and after rewarding a man for having acted well, if that same individual later acts badly it punishes him without any regard whatsoever for his good deeds.” 80 Failure to do so, Machiavelli claims, is a precursor to tyranny, because “if a citizen who has rendered some distinguished service to his city adds to the reputation his deed has brought him additional audacity and the confidence that he will be able to undertake without fear of punishment some action that is not good, he will become in a brief time so insolent that every element of civic life will disappear.” 81 However, here also lies a significant discrepancy between Machiavelli and Han Feizi. The science of politics requires establishment of law in any well-ordered state, but Machiavelli maintains the prince must succeed through his virtù, that ambiguous term which he uses to refer to a range of qualities, most prominent of which are the cunning of the fox and the strength of the lion. The term becomes more problematic because, as has been demonstrated, Machiavelli often uses the term in two distinct ways, the virtù proper to the prince and the lesser kind appropriate to the citizenry. 82 The latter, for Machiavelli, can be inculcated by means of laws and prudent social planning. The former, however, cannot. Princely virtue is ultimately the gift of Fortune. That princely virtù cannot be re-created at will in the same manner as civic virtù may be what prompts Schwartz to hold the position that Machiavelli offers a political art as opposed to a political science. 83 However, it is inaccurate to say that Machiavelli is not offering a political science. True, he is extremely sensitive to the fact that success in politics often means being in harmony with the demands of circumstance, but Machiavelli is also concerned with establishing a well-ordered society that will retain its strength over time, and he asserts that effective social organization, premised on his account of human nature as self-interested, follows certain rules and can be replicated. In The Prince, for example, Machiavelli stresses that the foundation of all stable states is good laws and good armies, and in the Discourses, he insists that the longevity of the state requires the prince’s transforming his state into a republic, and organizing its social insti-

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tutions so as to mimic the effects of his virtù, to the end of fostering civic virtù in the population. 84 That Machiavelli is indeed offering a political science partially explains why the king of Qin, who was able to unite China under the first dynasty and end the Warring States period, is ultimately, if judged by Machiavellian standards, a failure. He had sufficient princely virtù to consolidate his power and maintain order; however, once he died, his princely virtù died with him, and the first dynasty came crashing down shortly thereafter. The king of Qin would be, in Machiavelli’s estimation, at best no better than Solon of Athens, whose state lasted only a hundred years after his death, and at worse no better than Epaminondas of Thebes, whose hard-fought-for empire also collapsed soon after his death. At any rate, the Qin king is no Lycurgus of Sparta, who organized his state and bequeathed laws that saw Sparta remain free and strong for eight hundred years. Nor can he be counted in the same class as the early organizers of Rome. 85 In Machiavelli’s ranking of rulers, great rulers are those who know that their lives are finite, and seek to transfer some semblance of their virtù into the citizenry by creating and organizing social institutions in such a way that, after the rulers’ deaths, these institutions will continue to mimic their princely virtù for society as a whole, while inculcating the civic virtù in citizens necessary for a strong state. Machiavelli acknowledges that, over time, these social institutions will succumb to corruption, necessitating a revival if the state is to continue. While the motive for a prince may be personal glory, the standard of his greatness is clearly the state’s longevity. The greatest states are those that span the greatest periods of time. Such states cannot be sustained only by a political art, but rather require a political science that is aided by political artistry in times of crisis. In even the best scientifically designed state, there will always be the problems of hypocrisy and abuse of the system, as illustrated by the Crown Prince of Qin who broke the law. 86 According to Legalist doctrine, the Crown Prince had to be punished, as no one was exempt from the law. But a perverse application of the law singled his tutor out for punishment instead, on the grounds that the tutor was the one responsible for forming the Crown Prince’s character. This logic, of course, if followed through, would lead to an absurd conclusion. If breaking the law is a result of bad character, and it is the one who formed the character in question who is truly responsible and deserves to be punished, then it is the ruler who should be punished when any law is broken. After all, the ruler makes the laws, and the laws are the sole source of education in a Legalist state; hence, the ruler is the one who forms the character of each and every citizen. Clearly, such a conclusion would be unacceptable to any Legalist. As Hui aptly observes, while it is generally assumed that a body of impersonal laws will mitigate arbitrary rule, in the absence of constitutional democracy, feudal customs possessed the inertia of tradition, and were thus more stable than any set of positive laws, even if

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universally binding, which ultimately reflected the mercurial will of the ruler. Thus, Hui concludes that under such circumstances “there could be only the rule by law (with rulers above the law), not the rule of law (with rulers subject to the law).” 87 The difference between Han Feizi and Machiavelli on this point is telling; Han Feizi’s ruler is considered above the law for the simple reason that he is the sovereign. The prince, on the other hand, although in a sense effectively beyond the reach of the law he enforces, must always give the appearance of being bound by the law himself, even when he circumvents it for reasons of state. In such a case, he must use craft and guile to avoid being seen as a transgressor by having others violate the law for him, and then, if necessary, holding them accountable. If the people see that the prince has broken the law, even for good reason, it sets a dangerous precedent and will quickly lead to others breaking the law for bad reasons. 88 Moreover, the prince may never violate the law for his personal benefit (unless he knows in advance that he can blame such a transgression on another); he must limit his violations only to those activities which are necessitated by the good of the state. He must never do so out of personal pleasure, and he must be careful to commit such moral breaches sparingly and, as far as possible, within the shortest period of time possible. If he must offend someone, he must do so in a way that leaves the other either unable to exact revenge or uninterested in doing so. 89 Failure to adhere to these rules is catastrophic to effective rule. Machiavelli warns that if a prince does commit cruelties without sufficient cause, or for his own financial aggrandizement or out of self-indulgence, he will never cease to find excuses to commit further offenses. 90 This, in turn, will inevitably lead to arousing the people’s hatred, a terminal condition for which there is no cure. The same fate awaits the prince who prolongs acts of cruelty, even necessary ones, for people are more likely to accept cruelties that are committed in a single stroke than ones that are drawn out. 91 Such imprudent and drawn-out cruelties are precisely what Han Feizi mandates: even the smallest infractions of the law are subject to harsh punishments such as mutilation and capital punishment, and the ruler has the freedom to change the laws arbitrarily. Granted, the Han Feizi’s ideal ruler would not whimsically change laws or pass laws that are silly or unenforceable; but would instead employ a policy of non-interference. But this merely underscores an irony lurking at the core of Han Feizi’s philosophy. Han Feizi is critical of the arduous path and near unattainable goal of Confucius, yet holds out an equally difficult route to an equally elusive end: the non-interference of the Daoist sageruler.

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RELATIONS WITH MINISTERS The Daoist state, small in nature, requires no bureaucracy to maintain itself, and this is why the Daodejing contains no advice as to how a ruler should deal with his ministers: he has none and he needs none. Han Feizi and Machiavelli, however, are not interested in small, insular, agrarian states, but are trying to secure the continued existence of large states constantly at risk of internal disorder and conflict with dangerous neighbors. For such states, ministers are a necessary evil; hence, both Han Feizi and Machiavelli devote significant attention to the problem of how a ruler should manage his ministers. Both stress the importance of ministers, but differ on how ministers should be chosen, on how the ruler should relate to them, and on whether or not they should be given the power to determine and administer punishments. The Han Feizi offers advice that has its roots in the Daodejing, even though the latter has little need of bureaucracy and therefore does not directly address how to manage it. The Daodejing does, however, provide guidance as to how the sage-ruler should relate to the people and how the people should relate to one another, expressed elegantly in the image of the wheel found in chapter 11, and Han Feizi applies this image to clarify the proper nature of a ruler’s relationship with his ministers. The counsel contained in the image of the wheel is fourfold: the ruler is to be like the hub, “empty, quiet, and retiring.” 92 From this solitary and isolated position of emptiness, the ruler sees and knows all. “Government reaches to the four quarters, but its source is in the center. The sage holds to the source and the four quarters come to serve him. In emptiness he awaits them, and they spontaneously do what is needed.” 93 This position requires that the ruler emulate the hub, be unmoving, and control the position of the spokes both individually and in relation to each other and to the rim. It is not so much that the spokes are not empty or retiring as that the stability and operation of the wheel depends upon the control that the hub exercises over the whole. The hub can be said never to interfere with the spokes in the sense that if it ever did, by losing its position or breaking down, or trying to be a spoke, the wheel would fly apart or fall off the cart. The Han Feizi further advises the ruler to adopt a policy of non-interference regarding both the law and the state. Commenting on chapter 60 of the Daodejing, in which Laozi compares governing a large state to “boiling a small fish,” 94 the implication being that any touching of the fish is sufficient to ruin it, Han Feizi maintains that: [I]f tasks are big and many and are frequently shifted, then few of them can be accomplished . . . if, when frying small fish, you poke them around too often, you will ruin the cooking; and that if, when governing a big country, you alter laws and decrees too often, the people will suffer hardships. Therefore, the

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ruler who follows the proper course of government, values emptiness and tranquility and takes the alteration of the law seriously. 95

Further on, in commenting on chapter 46 of the Daodejing, Han Feizi argues that when the ruler does not follow the Dao, not only will he mismanage the affairs of the state, leading to a weakening of the economy and military, but that he will also invite conflict with other nations. Obviously, the combination of these consequences would be disastrous, for engaging in a war when the state has insufficient military and economic power is sure to end badly. If the ruler does not adopt a policy of non-interference, if the hub somehow begins to act like a spoke, problems will manifest and multiply, for, as Han Feizi cautions, “All the worries of the ruler come about because he tries to be like others,” 96 and so the wise ruler “does not try to work side by side with his people.” 97 Not only is the relationship between ruler and minister so ordered that any exchange of responsibilities would be catastrophic, but so also are the relationships between ministers and their roles. Just as the spokes must be kept firmly in their places on the hub if the wheel is to function properly, so too must ministers be kept in their assigned positions. The ruler is encouraged to “[l]et no one do as he pleases, and never permit men to change office or to hold two offices at the same time.” 98 Typical of the Legalist philosophy, Han Feizi takes this to extremes and applies it without compromise to even the most innocent and well-meaning infractions. Thus when the Marquis of Han awoke from a drunken stupor and found that he had been covered with the royal robe, he was pleased and questioned his attendants to confirm that it was the keeper of the royal robe who had covered him. When his attendants informed him that it was, instead, the keeper of the royal hat, he had both punished: the keeper of the royal robe for failing in his duties, and the keeper of the royal hat for exceeding his duties and trespassing onto another’s. 99 In order to avoid being manipulated by his subordinates, Han Feizi insists the ruler maintain an uncompromising policy of non-interference. Han Feizi adopts this Daoist-inspired stance because his view of human nature implies that, given a chance, ministers will naturally seek to usurp the power of the ruler, not out of malice, but simply because it is in their interest to do so. This requires the ruler to be godlike in his isolation so that his intentions remain a mystery to his subordinates. 100 Furthermore, the ruler should rely solely on the law and the tallying of names to select them for promotion and demotion, that is, only if their deeds match their words appropriately are they fit to be ministers. 101 In contrast to Han Feizi, Machiavelli maintains that the choice of ministers rests on the prince’s wisdom alone, and is the first test of a new prince. 102 Again the difference lies in the estimation by each writer of the ruler’s level of skill. Han Feizi, skeptical of the ruler’s skill, offers what

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amounts to Ruling for Dummies, a text that any idiot can follow to achieve successful rule. The ruler’s merit lies not in any kind of positive act, but only in his refusal to surrender his authority or be swayed from the law by those who seek to influence him. In contrast, the merit of a prince for Machiavelli is dependent upon his virtù, a skill set which would clearly view non-interference as very foolish, unless it were employed as a cunning ploy, a single diversionary tactic in the implementation of some very well-planned, overall strategy, and only if employed by someone possessed of sufficient virtù. When it comes to the question of a ruler’s relation to his ministers, Han Feizi’s and Machiavelli’s advice differ sharply on numerous important issues. Han Feizi’s advice to the ruler is to be “empty, quiet, and retiring; never put yourself forward.” 103 Assumedly, if no one can tell what the ruler is thinking, then no one can appeal to his preferences in an attempt to influence him. Machiavelli rejects this approach, citing the Emperor Maximilian I as such a man (who prided himself on extreme secrecy of his intentions): Machiavelli claims that such an approach to ruling is ineffective, precisely because “no one ever understands what he wants or what plans he is making, and no one can rely on his decisions.” 104 Of course, this is exactly what Han Feizi directs the ruler to do, apparently unable to foresee the likely consequences of such behavior. One of the most glaring differences between Han Feizi and Machiavelli is their approach to meting out rewards and punishments. According to Han Feizi, the ruler must never allow one of his ministers to have the authority to dispense rewards or punishments. If he does so, then the people will recognize the minister as the ruler, and not the ruler, and the ruler will end up intimidated by his minister’s growing power. 105 Despite devoting a full chapter to the topic of faithfully and effectively serving one’s ruler, in which the ideal relationship between minister and ruler is characterized as one in which they “aid and sustain each other,” 106 Han Feizi doubts that such a relationship will last because of the inevitable self-interest of the minister and the paranoia and personal failings of the ruler. While admitting that rulers without accountability are liable to be fickle, Han Feizi is much more concerned with the behavior of the ministers. In chapter 9, “The Eight Villainies,” he itemizes the various strategies by which ministers will seek self-advancement either by usurping the ruler’s power or by rendering him ineffective in particular situations. 107 Han Feizi sums up the dangers ministers pose with an elegant image in chapter 17, arguing: It is obvious that, under normal conditions, water will overcome fire. But if a kettle comes between them, the water will bubble and boil itself completely dry on top, while the fire goes on burning merrily away underneath, the water having been deprived of the means by which it customarily overcomes fire. 108

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This image graphically illustrates how a ruler can be contained and undermined by his ministers, for if there are problems among the people, the ruler’s only way to extinguish these problems is through the law and the two handles of government. If, however, ministers are allowed to assume the authority of the two handles of government, either doling out punishments or rewards, or if they are permitted to make exceptions to the law, they render the ruler impotent. The fact that water—the Daoist ideal of efficacy—can be contained and made useless is a strong indictment for Han Feizi to make, and one that shows that, while the roots of his philosophy may be Daoist, he clearly rejects Daoism as a practical guide to ruling in favor of rule by law. This is perhaps why his recommendation of Daoist emptiness ends up being a mere tactical maneuver. Machiavelli agrees that making others powerful is a bad idea and likely to cause serious problems for the prince, 109 but disagrees with the claim that one should never divest himself of certain powers. Here Machiavelli offers the prince a strategy premised on a more nuanced view of human emotions than Han Feizi possesses: the prince should retain the authority to mete out rewards and punishments; however, when punishments are severe, the prince should delegate the administration of them to an underling. 110 This way, the people’s resentment and hatred will be directed at the underling for his cruelty, instead of at the prince. Then, his usefulness over, the minister should be liquidated. As a result, not only will the people be grateful to the prince for disposing of one they have come to hate, they will also be fearful of the prince, for, in terminating the life of someone whom they have come to fear, the prince will have demonstrated how much more powerful he is even than the one they hated and feared. As an illustration of this policy’s effectiveness, Machiavelli points to the example of Cesare Borgia, who charged Remirro de Orco with subduing the lawless Papal States by whatever cruelties were necessary, and then had him cut in half and his body left in the public square. 111 The difference between this approach and the Legalist one is significant. Han Feizi maintains that only fear will keep ministers and subjects obedient, and therefore only the ruler can be allowed to command the fear of others through the use of punishments. However, Han Feizi is oblivious to the fact that fear can become hatred if it becomes extreme or is prolonged. Machiavelli’s sensitivity to the full range of human emotions and his talent for political artistry enable him to skirt around the deficiencies of the Han Feizi in this respect, and to offer a more open society, one in which citizens can lead full and rich personal lives, but in which the prince can still command the people’s obedience. Given the similarities of their lives as fellow bureaucrats who witnessed, participated in, and suffered dearly as a result of the realpolitik as it was practiced in their respective eras, it should come as no surprise that Machia-

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velli and Han Feizi agree on many aspects of ruling a large state, as, for example, on the importance of prudential thinking and the importance of the law. However, Han Feizi carries his position on the law to impractical extremes, while Machiavelli considers the appearance of the sanctity of the law as sufficient for the good of the state. They also differ significantly on what is permissible to the ruler regarding the enforcement of the laws, on how strictly he must observe them, and on the importance of the ruler’s personal skills in their administration. Both share concerns about the ruler’s being influenced or misled by sycophants, but they come to fundamentally different conclusions about how the prudent ruler should therefore comport himself toward his ministers. Insofar as Han Feizi articulates a rudimentary political science, his work resonates with Machiavelli’s Discourses, but Han Feizi’s political program is formulated as a response to a political crisis, and thus has more in common with The Prince. Given that Han Feizi conceives of all situations as actual crises, or crises in the making, governing for him is much more an extemporaneous art than it is a reasoned science. This is seen clearly in Han Feizi’s conviction that history is linear and driven by humanity’s innate self-interest, that the peace that existed in antiquity inevitably and irreversibly degenerated into the constant conflict exemplified by the Warring States period, and that the ruler will always be under threat by those around him. Whereas Machiavelli’s corpus offers ample counsel for times of peace as well as crisis, Han Feizi’s system, despite the many points of congruency it shares with Machiavelli’s, is suited only to the latter. NOTES 1. Machiavelli, The Prince, 53. 2. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 114. 3. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 118. 4. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 119. 5. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.5, 168–69. 6. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, preface, 1031–2. 7. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 17, 59. 8. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.5, 168. 9. Rowe argues that “Machiavelli, the historian, places no faith in our knowledge of the past through a study of history. He insists the past cannot be wholly known—by which he means, I assume, it cannot be substantially known. He, in effect, accuses historians of distorting history. Consequently, he does not look to the past,” 47. As will be shown, Rowe’s conclusion displays considerable ignorance of Machiavelli’s works, even the major ones, and of his emphasis upon history as part of any leader’s education. 10. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1, preface, 17. 11. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 14, 52. 12. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 6, 20. 13. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 97–9. 14. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.2, 24. 15. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 5.1, 1232. 16. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.2, 24. 17. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.1, 246–50.

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18. Han Fei Tzu, The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzŭ: A Classic of Chinese Political Science, trans. W. K. Liao, 2 vols. (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1959), 176. Hereafter referred to as Complete Works. 19. Han Fei Tzu, Complete Works, 176–7. 20. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 96–7. 21. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 22. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 99. 23. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 101. 24. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 748. 25. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 86, and Tercets on Fortune, 747. 26. Han Fei Tzu, Complete Works, 177. 27. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 86. 28. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 17, 58. 29. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 3, 14. 30. Wu, 72–73. 31. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 9, 37. 32. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 17, 58. 33. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.39, 105. 34. Schwartz, 387. 35. There is no consensus among sinologists as to whether Confucius is more accurately to be considered a philosophy or a religion. 36. David Abram beautifully describes an analogous role played by shamans in Bali. The following description he offers could easily be applied to the Daoist sage-ruler: “[T]he magician’s intelligence is not encompassed within society; its place is at the edge of the community, mediating between the human community and the larger community of beings upon which the village depends for its nourishment and sustenance. This larger community includes, along with the humans, the multiple nonhuman entities that constitute the local landscape, from the diverse plants and the myriad animals—birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, insects—that inhabit or migrate through the region, to the particular winds and weather patterns that inform the local geography, as well as the various landforms—forests, rivers, caves, mountains—that lend their specific character to the surrounding earth.” David Abram, “A More-Than-Human-World,” in An Invitation to Environmental Philosophy, ed. Anthony Weston (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 17–42, 21. 37. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 102. 38. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 25–26. See Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 102, for a passage that makes it clear that Han Feizi is referring to Confucius in the earlier passage: “Confucius was one of the greatest sages of the world. He perfected his conduct, made clear the Way, and traveled throughout the area within the four seas, but in all that area those who rejoiced in his benevolence, admired his righteousness, and were willing to become his disciples numbered only seventy.” 39. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 102. 40. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 103. 41. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 125. 42. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 102. 43. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 125. 44. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 102. 45. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 109. 46. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 103. 47. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 123. 48. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 106. 49. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 122. 50. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 127. 51. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 6, 22–23. 52. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 18, 61. 53. Stuart Hampshire additionally argues that, in hindsight, the violation of conventional moral norms by political leaders turns out to be not worth the gain they sought to secure. See

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Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 187. 54. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy. 2.2, 159. 55. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.1, 249. 56. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.12, 55–56. 57. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.2, 159. 58. Viroli, Machiavelli’s God, 27–88. 59. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.12, 53. 60. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.12, 54. 61. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.2, 159. 62. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.12, 54. 63. Machiavelli, The Art of War, book 6, 699. 64. Wu, 71. 65. Han Fei Tzu, Complete Works, 214. 66. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 3, 12. 67. Han Fei Tzu, Complete Works, 213–4. 68. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 25, 84–5. 69. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 51–2. 70. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 56–62. 71. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 53–6. 72. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 62–5. 73. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 65–6. 74. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 84–6. 75. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 14, 50–2. 76. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 27. 77. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 26–27. 78. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 90. 79. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 108. 80. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.24, 78. 81. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.24, 78. 82. Plamenatz, 158. 83. Schwartz, 348. 84. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 12, 42, and Discourses on Livy, 1.11, 53. 85. Machiavelli comments on Epaminondas of Thebes in Discourses on Livy, 1.17, 67, on Solon of Athens and Lycurgus of Sparta in Discourses on Livy, 1.2, 23, and attributes Rome’s lengthy success to the wisdom of its early organizers in Discourses on Livy, 1.1, 19–22. 86. Robert Wilkinson, Introduction to The Book of Lord Shang, trans. J. J. L. Duyvendak (Hertfordshire [UK]: Wordsworth, 1998), 135–45, 137. 87. Hui, 181. 88. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.34, 94. 89. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 3, 11. 90. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 17, 58. 91. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 8, 34. 92. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 36. 93. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 35. 94. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 60, line 138. 95. Han Fei Tzu, Complete Works, 185. 96. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 36–37. 97. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 38. 98. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 39. 99. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 32. 100. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 35 and 38–9. 101. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 19 and 92. 102. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 22, 79. 103. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 36. 104. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 23, 81.

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105. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 30–31 and 39. 106. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 77. 107. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 43–48. 108. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 87–88. 109. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 3, 15. Han Fei Tzu also makes this point clearly, but in a discussion of the dangers posed by trusting foreign powers, gives the example of the ruler of the state of Yü who granted the ingratiating Duke Hsien of Chin right of passage through Yü so that Chin could attack the state of Kuo (Complete Works, 216). The advisor to the ruler of Yü warns that allowing Chin to attack and defeat Kuo will imperil Yü; of course, the ruler ignores his advice and after conquering Kuo, Hsien of Chin proceeds to attack and defeat Yü. 110. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 19, 65. 111. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 7, 27.

Chapter Five

Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi Scope, Efficacy, and Possibilities

“Lao Tzu cultivated the way and virtue, and his teachings aimed at selfeffacement. He lived in Chou for a long time, but seeing its decline he departed; when he reached the Pass, the Keeper there was pleased and said to him, ‘As you are about to leave the world behind, could you write a book for my sake?’ As a result, Lao Tzu wrote a work in two books, setting out the meaning of the way and virtue in some five thousand characters, and then departed. None knew where he went to in the end.” —Ssu-ma Ch’ien, Records of the Grand Historian 1 “To inflict mutilation and death on men is called punishment. . . . Those who overstep their offices are condemned to die; those whose words and actions do not tally are punished.” —Han Feizi, Han Feizi 2 “I have never practiced war as my profession, because my profession is to govern my subjects and to defend them, and, in order to be able to defend them, to love peace and to know how to make war. And my king rewards me and esteems me not so much because I understand war as because I also can advise him in peace. No king, then, ought to allow around himself anyone who is not of my sort, if he is wise and intends to conduct himself prudently, because if he has around him either too great lovers of peace or too great lovers of war, they will make him err.” —Fabrizio in The Art of War 3

The congruencies among the ideas of Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi are as profound as the differences that separate the three. All sought stability in the face of chaos. Machiavelli and Laozi conceive of the human condition in very similar ways: as one in which humanity is confronted with and subjected to a mysterious and indifferent principle that has murky origins, is 177

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unknowable, and is powerful beyond measure, and that affects not just individuals, but also the rise and fall of states and empires. Faced with this metaphysical reality, humanity must ultimately come to terms with it, for in the end, any overcoming of Fortune or the Dao is at best a temporary victory. Han Feizi holds to a shallow understanding of the Dao, where the emptiness that places one in touch with the Dao is reduced to a shadow of what it is in the Daodejing, a tactic as opposed to the grounds of one’s actions. All write for the same reason: to find the elusive formula which will ensure the longevity of the ruler as well as of the state, but each pursues this goal from a different level. This fundamental difference explains why Machiavelli seems, at first glance, more Legalist than Daoist. Machiavelli, like Han Feizi, operates from the level of the ego, a perspective from which persons are seen as discreet entities, separate from and privileged over other persons, their environment, and other species. Only Laozi’s sage-ruler escapes the ego-bound perspective. This difference can be seen in the images Machiavelli and Laozi use to exemplify the preeminent trait of the ruler: flexibility. Whereas Machiavelli uses the images of the centaur, the fox, and the lion to represent the three modes of the ruler—prudence and rule by law (humanity), and alternately, strength (the lion) and cunning (the fox)—Laozi is able to express this idea in a single image, that of the dragon. The centaur includes the three modes within which the ruler must always be able to operate, switching from one to another as circumstances dictate, but Laozi’s dragon does not have to jump from one pre-set mode of conduct to another; rather, it morphs effortlessly from one mode into another. The dragon is as close to fluidity—the potential to adopt any mode—as any physical creature can be. The interplay between Machiavelli, Laozi, and Han Feizi is illuminating, for it reveals not only dimensions of their thought that have traditionally been overlooked, such as Machiavelli’s affinities with Laozi’s thought and the necessity for violence in the Daodejing, but also points to a number of problems that plague each thinker. Machiavelli’s prince cannot remain flexible indefinitely, Laozi’s sage-rule would be extremely unlikely to persuade a large or already corrupt populace to convert to the Daoist way, and Han Feizi’s urging that power be centralized in the ruler will almost certainly result in the state degrading into a tyranny. Key to these three flaws is the issue of repetitive historical cycles, clearly articulated by Machiavelli, but only implicit in the writings of Laozi, and trivialized by Han Feizi. The heart of Daoist cosmology is summed up in the symbol of Yin/Yang: the understanding that apparently opposing principles, like dark and light, feminine and masculine, peace and war, are actually complementary, interconnected and interdependent, each giving rise to the other. But although Laozi clearly knew that any state must fluctuate between periods of order and periods of corruption and crisis (the Daodejing was

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written during the Warring States period), he is reluctant to deal with the latter, tailoring his advice overwhelmingly toward times of peace, and offering little guidance for dealing with a state that is populous or already corrupt. Han Feizi inherits the idea of interconnectedness from Laozi, but applies it only to small issues and never connects it to history writ large. For him, history is a one-way street, beginning in conditions of relative abundance and peace that inexorably become conditions of relative scarcity and conflict. Laozi’s idea that a corrupt state could return or be transformed into one that is small, isolated, and virtuous is simply not possible. Hence, Han Feizi formulates his solution to the problem of the Warring States period exclusively in terms of a state of perpetual crisis. It is only Machiavelli’s conception of history that fully grasps that, while times of order are desirable and to be prolonged as Laozi envisions, these will unfailingly alternate with periods of crisis, the default setting for Han Feizi; thus, Machiavelli is the only one of the three who grasps that a complete political theory must encompass both. THE SCOPE OF HISTORY AND THE LIMITATIONS OF THE EGO The sage-ruler of the Daodejing employs a flexibility that arises from his having transcended his ego and achieved a state of emptiness. This is far more efficacious than Machiavelli’s conception of flexibility, which is still rooted in the ego. In spite of this, however, Machiavelli’s counsel promises to allow a state governed by his principles to endure longer than the ideal Daoist state could because the scope of his political system takes into account governing during both times of order and disorder. The weakness of the Daodejing is its inability to provide guidance for bringing a population that is already characterized by widespread corruption, and a rabid selfinterest fueled by mass narcissism, to buy into the Daoist vision of the state, one which abhors the exultation of self and the privileging of self-interest, be it individual or societal, over those of the myriad things. The ruler guided by the political philosophy of the Daodejing will be able to rule effectively only during times of peace. It is true that the Daodejing does contain references to quelling corruption when it appears in his ideal state, and these references open a space in which the Daodejing can be seen as consistent, to an extent, with Machiavelli’s advocacy of strategically employed violence. Despite this congruency, however, these references are sufficiently scant and vague that their usefulness to a ruler would be minimal. Conversely, Machiavelli’s counsel is hindered by two problems that stem from his operating on the plane of the ego. First, no ruler is ever able to be truly flexible for any extended period of time, because his actions never transcend the ego. Second, the prince’s egotism will almost certainly narrow his vision to the extent that he privileges his self and his vision of his state over all other beings and

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takes no account of the natural world, upon which all human activity depends. A perspective ruled by ego cannot perceive, let alone accept, the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. Even when Machiavelli advocates for a state in which the prince is but a shadowy presence—the republic—the social institutions that echo the prince’s virtù are still premised on the ego. Machiavelli lacks the cultural and cognitive tools to entertain the idea of the ruler rising above the sphere of ego and desire, let alone the populace. He would be aware of saints and mystics who have done so, but they by and large were recluses, and Machiavelli is concerned with politicians, warrior-princes, and the people. The best he can hope for is to channel the contending energies in ways that will strengthen the state, and to restrict them by means of checks and balances so that they do not corrupt the social order. The problem of the ego is never dealt with; it is merely transferred from prince to republic where its shadowy presence will gradually overcome the power of social institutions to control and manipulate the desires that arise from ego. Like Machiavelli, Han Feizi never transcends the sphere of ego. History, for Han Feizi, is fueled by increasing competition for dwindling resources. Operating on the assumption that ego is the principle motivator of all human activity, Han Feizi sees the history of any state as inevitably characterized by escalating chaos and violence. Despite its Daoist roots, the Han Feizi does not take the worldview of the Daodejing seriously, and so instead of conceiving of the possibility of peace, it sees only conflict and war. WU-WEI AND THE PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERFERENCE The most profound difference between the Daodejing, Han Feizi, and Machiavelli is the former’s conception of emptiness and wu-wei. Neither Han Feizi nor Machiavelli, obviously, have anything equivalent to Laozi’s conviction that the power of the sage-ruler’s de will draw people to him, and that his being attuned to the Dao and practicing wu-wei will allow the people to transform themselves of their own accord. And, although both the later writers join Laozi in (sometimes) recommending non-interference in the affairs of state, neither intends anything like the wu-wei of the Daodejing. Han Feizi’s ruler must rely predominantly on the heavy-handed enforcement of the law to modify people’s behavior, and Machiavelli’s prince upon the inculcation of civic virtú. The three theorists are alike, at first blush, in advising the ruler to adopt policies of non-interference in, or absence from, the affairs of state, but how each defines the sense of non-interference is unique. The non-involvement or apparent absence in the state of Laozi’s sage-ruler, again, is a function of wuwei. The prince, on the other hand, once he has transformed his principality

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into a republic, retires, his presence limited to the degree to which he has been able to infuse republican institutions with his virtù. The only other instances in which the prince may engage in non-involvement are when Fortune has left him with no other option, or when non-involvement (or the appearance of non-involvement) is used as a tactic to further state interests, such as when Machiavelli advises not changing the laws or customs of a conquered territory, or that problems which have become large be left alone, in the hopes that they may wear themselves out, because heavy-handed interventions are sure to add momentum to them. 4 In Han Feizi’s case, nonintervention is a function of his disbelief that anyone, ruler or subject, can escape acting from self-interest. His vision of humanity makes no allowances for the likes of Machiavelli’s princely virtù. Han Feizi requires that the ruler’s authority be limited to the administration of law, and a very heavyhanded enforcement of the law at that, in order to modify the people’s behavior; that the people will transform themselves of their own accord is too implausible for Han Feizi. The emptiness (if it can be called such) Han Feizi proposes has nothing to do with wu-wei; it is a tactical ploy that is better conceived of as inaction or absence designed to avoid being manipulated and compromised by subordinates, enemies, and any other individual who stands to gain by exerting influence over the ruler. Legalist emptiness also serves to save the ruler from himself, from falling prey to his own weaknesses of character and judgment. This difference arises because Han Feizi, like Machiavelli, operates on the level of the ego, and consequently the emptiness he invokes 5 is not a true emptiness. For if the law is what rules, and not the ruler, then his inability to remain impartial will not threaten the smooth operation of the state. Controlling desire is something the Legalist and the Florentine can appreciate; transcending the ego is something they cannot imagine a successful ruler doing. Despite the numerous affinities between Machiavelli and Han Feizi, one fundamental, and irreconcilable, difference separates them: the relationship between law and morality and what this means for the openness of society. In his obsession with the law, Han Feizi reduces morality to mere adherence to the law. The regime he describes allows no citizen to have a personal space; a society in which everybody spies on everybody else (an idea Han Feizi inherits from The Book of Lord Shang) and the need to tally names leaves no room for freedom. Everything must be exact and controlled, subject to the law, and directed toward the ruler. In short, Han Feizi is sponsoring a vision of society that is essentially totalitarian. Hannah Arendt equates totalitarianism with an “iron band” which “presses people together” to such an extent that there is no space, no freedom of movement, no freedom of thought, neither in public life nor in private life. 6 People may be beaten into submission in this manner, but it pushes them too far and robs them of their humanity too much for such a political system to endure for very long. As Machia-

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velli observed, it is better to be feared than loved; however, one can never allow oneself to become hated. Ultimately, Han Feizi in particular and Legalism in general offer political systems that are so intrusive in the lives of the people that they inevitably provoke hatred from their subjects. In contrast, Machiavelli clearly believes that, while rule of law is important, even if it can and should be violated when necessary, morality is not simply adherence to the law. In The Prince, he argues that power at any price cannot be justified, claiming that “it cannot be called virtue to kill one’s fellow citizens, to betray allies, to be without faith, without pity, without religion; by these means one can acquire power, but not glory” 7 and advises the prince to “not depart from the good if it is possible to do so, but he should know how to enter into evil when forced by necessity.” 8 Clearly, there is a standard for moral behavior, which can be reflected in the law, but which is not exhausted by the law, and this is indicative of Machiavelli’s approach to political philosophy in general. He offers a vision of the state, be it a princedom or a republic that allows for significantly more freedom than Han Feizi’s. There is space in Machiavelli’s advice to the ruler for people to have privacy and personal relations that are not intruded upon by the state. Even his infamous claim that it is better to be feared than loved is benign compared to the Legalist attitude, for Machiavelli advises this only when one cannot be simultaneously feared and loved. Instead of controlling everyone through the use of spies and the tallying of names, Machiavelli’s advice to the prince is much more intelligently humane: the prince is to ensure that everyone at all times needs him, and if this is done well, he will have no fear of anyone moving against him or of their not being there to serve him faithfully when he requires it. This is seen in The Prince where Machiavelli cites the fearful support of the people as the best defense against assassination, 9 and again, in a different form, in his analysis of the different kinds of armies. There, his advice to the prudent ruler is to rely on a militia rather than on an auxiliary army or mercenary soldiers because, among other considerations, a militia is bound to the ruler more strongly than these other types of troops. 10 The only time that Machiavelli approaches the totalitarianism of the Legalists is in relation to the political aspirations of others. Otherwise, citizens, beyond fulfilling their civic duties, are free to have private lives and to participate in the private and social goods that make persons full-fledged human beings. Admittedly, there are times when the prince will have to contravene the law due to a crisis or extreme corruption. In such instances Machiavelli maintains that the law must still appear to be sacrosanct; violations of the law are to be delegated to disposable underlings who can take the fall and serve as salutary warnings afterward. Thus, Cesare Borgia’s liquidation of Remirro de Orco, after having ordered him to pacify the lawless Papal states with extreme bloodshed and cruelty, would have a much stronger impact on the public’s respect for the law than the punishment of the Crown Prince of

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Qin’s tutor for his charge’s breaking of the law. Cesare’s actions not only thrust home to the people the necessity of respect for the law by demonstrating the punishment for disobedience, his utter lack of compunction when it came to holding those of high rank directly accountable for their actions effectively kills two birds with one stone. If the prince transforms his kingdom into a well-organized republic, corruption should be minimal, and therefore the need to take actions that would contravene the law should be rare and prompted only by cases of supreme emergency. Even in such isolated situations, Machiavelli still insists on the rule of law, which is why he endorses the constitutional legality of the office of dictator to grant a chosen individual the sweeping powers necessary to deal with the crisis. THE UBIQUITY OF VIOLENCE IN THE HAN FEIZI All power and violence in Han Feizi’s state is centralized in and controlled by the ruler; absolutely nothing is allowed to pass that has not followed from the law or the ruler’s application of the law. To ensure this, Han Feizi endorses the use of collective spying and corporate responsibility that his fellow Legalist Lord Shang had advised, 11 as well as warns the ruler to guard his power jealously and never to allow any minister the ability to wield either of the two handles of government. 12 While the former acts as a detriment to any infraction of the law, the latter seeks to prevent ministers from usurping the role of ruler: once a minister is given responsibility for administering punishments and rewards, the people will look to the minister, and not the ruler. Likewise, the law must be adhered to rigorously and without exception; special dispensations undermine the authority of the law, even when they are made by the ruler, and if they are made by a minister, they undermine both the authority of the law and of the ruler. The system of rewards and punishments should also be designed to instill both a fear of transgressing the law, and a fearful awe regarding the ruler. Thus Han Feizi advises that “[t]he best penalties are those which are severe and inescapable,” 13 and “in doling out punishment he [the ruler] is as terrible as the thunder; even the holy sages cannot assuage him.” 14 It is easy to dismiss the idea of harsh penalties as mere tough talk until the reality of the severities Han Feizi is advocating are considered. After discussing the case of the drunken Marquis Chao of Han, Han Feizi makes it abundantly clear what he has in mind, for ministers at least: “Those who overstep their offices are condemned to die; those whose words and actions do not tally are punished.” 15 As if capital punishment were not enough, Han Feizi clarifies that, by punishment, he means also “[t]o inflict mutilation” 16 on violators of the law. No “humane” executions for him! Power and violence

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are further centralized in the hands of the ruler by the prohibition of opportunities for freedom and limited access to knowledge of the law. Han Feizi encourages that as many people as possible be engaged in agriculture, for two reasons. Not only was agriculture the backbone of a state’s military power in Warring States China, but also it was sufficiently labor-intensive that those employed in it would have little opportunity to plot rebellions or become preoccupied with the pursuit of luxuries or succumb to greed. In a shot at the Confucians, Daoist in spirit, Han Feizi also decries education as a hindrance to a well-ordered state, arguing that “in the state of an enlightened ruler there are no books written on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers.” 17 Machiavelli’s republic has checks and balances within it, but Han Feizi’s state only has the law, which an inept ruler can change in an unwise fashion, or easily circumvent to the detriment of all. Further, the law is unlikely ever to apply to the ruler himself, which undermines the entire basis of a Legalist state—the impartial application of law to all persons. More importantly, Machiavelli understands that in the bigger picture, not everything is a crisis. As Fabrizio declares in book 1 of The Art of War: “I have never practiced war as my profession, because my profession is to govern my subjects and to defend them, and, in order to be able to defend them, to love peace and to know how to make war.” 18 Thus, in Machiavelli’s eyes, war is simply part and parcel of politics in a world where others are not going to be consistently good. But for Legalism, every situation is a crisis situation, and the state is in a perpetual state of virtual war. This is not what Machiavelli intends when he asserts in chapter 14 of The Prince that war be the sole occupation of the prince. The advice to the prince to devote himself entirely to the art of war is appropriate guidance only because the prince’s very presence is necessitated by the extreme disorder and widespread corruption, which arise when a republic falls into decay. In short, times of corruption and crises require the arts of war, so the prince must be constantly engaged in warfare or planning for it. The well-ordered republic, however, will have peace as its norm and corruption or crisis as the exception to the rule, and hence Fabrizio’s wisdom of the need for knowing how to govern under both conditions. In contrast, Han Feizi does not regard times of peace as opportunities to prepare for future conflicts. Rather, he views times of peace and his own people as a constant threat, and so his ruler can never relax his vigilance and preparedness on that front, either. In short, the Legalist is always at war, and makes no attempt to consider politics as anything else. Thus, Han Feizi defends the harshness of a Legalist ruler compared to the rulers of previous ages in the following terms: “Though his punishments may be light, this is not due to his compassion; though his penalties may be severe, this is not because he is cruel; he simply follows the custom appropriate to the time.

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Circumstances change according to the age, and ways of dealing with them change with the circumstances.” 19 THE NECESSITY OF VIOLENCE IN THE DAODEJING The contrast between Machiavelli and Laozi in their attitudes toward violence is telling. For Machiavelli, a ready army is a prerequisite of good governance. 20 It is the lion’s strength, the force that deters or defeats enemies, and it also acts as a safety valve for the dangerous energies of ambitious citizens. As Machiavelli observes in the Tercets on Ambition: “Ambition uses against foreign peoples that violence which neither law nor the king permits her to use at home.” 21 However, Laozi regards a ready army as indicative of a politics gone awry and a state that is heading for trouble. He cautions: “When the way prevails in the empire, fleet-footed horses are relegated to plowing the fields; when the way does not prevail in the empire, war-horses breed on the border.” 22 Even the militia Machiavelli calls for in The Prince means that resources that could be used to support agriculture and in meeting the needs of the people are diverted to military ends. This improper ordering of priorities has serious consequences that will weaken the state, cause hardships for the people, and eventually lead to their oppression. Nothing good comes of war, for as Laozi observes in chapter 30: “Where troops have encamped / There will brambles grow; / In the wake of a mighty army / Bad harvests follow without fail.” 23 That Machiavelli’s philosophy understands that the ruler must conduct himself differently during times of peace than in times of conflict is what, in principle, enables a Machiavellian state to achieve greater longevity than those run according to the principles found in the Daodejing or the Han Feizi. The historical record supports Machiavelli on this point. Rome lasted centuries compared to the mere decades of the Qin Dynasty and the rule of the Celestial Masters. Of course, it must be remembered that for Machiavelli, while conflict and peace are different and require different types of rule, they are not mutually exclusive; times of peace should be used prudently to prepare so as to stave off corruption and ready the state for war, and times of open conflict should be directed toward securing the peaceful conditions of republican life possible only if the state is strong. Machiavelli does consider a form of political organization akin to the state the Daodejing advocates in chapter 80 when he considers how Sparta and Venice were organized. Machiavelli maintains that there are, in principle, two options that make it possible for a small state to endure. The first is to remain small and exclude foreigners as Sparta did, the second is to keep the populace unarmed for war as the Venetians of Machiavelli’s day did. Such states can survive if they do not attempt to engage in wars of conquest,

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for their victories will quickly reveal their inability to hold and defend the large territories they have seized, as both Sparta and Venice painfully discovered. States organized in this manner must also choose a location that makes attacking them extremely difficult, so as to dissuade foreign aggressors, and must be careful not to become too large or to appear too threatening, lest they cause others to attack preemptively out of fear of becoming targets themselves. Machiavelli further praises Sparta for its founding laws, which resulted in “greater equality of property and less equality of rank.” 24 Small, not aggressive, and financial equality—all this sounds promising from a Daoist perspective. And Machiavelli notes how these qualities gave Sparta its longevity (until they unwisely embarked on a campaign of expansion), but in a move that shows how far from the Daoist temperament he really is, Machiavelli ultimately rejects small states, even ones that can last for centuries, because in his mind they can never be great: “had the Roman state become more peaceful, another disadvantage that would have arisen is that it would have also been weaker, because it would have cut itself off from the path to realizing the greatness it attained, so that had Rome wished to eliminate the causes of her disturbances, she would have also eliminated the causes of her expansion.” 25 Machiavelli’s highest praise is for Rome, which in order to become great, permitted foreigners to enter, armed its citizens for war, and endured the tensions between the masses and the ruling elite of the Senate. Far from getting beyond the ego of the citizenry and the rulers, Machiavelli seeks to harness them and use those energies to accomplish goals worthy of being recorded by historians. In sharp contrast to Machiavelli, Laozi generally condemns expansionism and violent methods, for he has no interest in glory, and little use for history. Laozi condemns Legalist-style violence as both ineffective and risky in chapter 74: “When the people are not afraid of death, wherefore frighten them with death? Were the people always afraid of death, and were I able to arrest and put to death those who innovate, then who would dare?” 26 And in chapter 38 of the Daodejing he argues that violence is a sign of failed politics: A man of the highest virtue does not keep to virtue and that is why he has virtue. A man of the lowest virtue never strays from virtue and that is why he is without virtue. The former never acts yet leaves nothing undone. The latter acts but there are things left undone. . . . A man most conversant in the rites acts, but when no one responds rolls up his sleeves and resorts to persuasion by force. 27

This passage is rich with an anti-Confucian sentiment running through it, and provides a useful insight into how Laozi would view Machiavelli’s ideal of rulership. In terms of Confucianism, the Daodejing takes two mocking shots at the Confucian sage. The first occurs in the different meanings attributed to virtue by the Daodejing, specifically, the idea that true virtue lies in flexibil-

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ity and a willingness to break with conventional ideas of virtue, not in clinging to them. That the first sentence of this passage refers to the Daoist sagerule is clear from the assertion that the former “never acts yet leaves nothing undone.” The second criticism stresses that the Confucian sage, rather than transcending the self, has an inflated ego, a comment that echoes Laozi’s famous chastisement of Confucius for being too full of himself. A man conversant in the rites “acts,” but because he does so conventionally, with forceful purpose (it is implied that he has an “ulterior motive”), and not naturally through wu-wei, he is ineffectual. This is reinforced in the final sentence, where he is said to act, “but . . . no one responds,” at which point, the typical ruler, and the Confucian sage is no exception, resorts to more forceful measures. Only the Daoist sage-ruler understands that to be truly effective, the ego must be dissolved, and one must act/not act through wuwei, according to the demands of the situation. Typically, but not always, this will mean employing strategies of non-contention. The implications of chapter 38 are dismissive of the Machiavellian project, for the presence of ego in the prince and his subjects is something which Machiavelli never questions. Quite the opposite, while he recognizes egos and ambition as the source of most of the problems that any ruler will face, Machiavelli seeks solutions that will manipulate egos and channel their energies into paths that will make the state strong. Part of the reason that the Daodejing has been caricatured as a pacifist text is, no doubt, its heavy use of feminine imagery and its advocacy of strategies of non-contention. However, another reason for assuming the Daodejing to be a pacifist text can be found in how proactive the sage-ruler is, for despite the emphasis on not interfering in the lives of the people, the sageruler is tasked with closely monitoring them for signs of corruption. If this is done well, corruption will never have an opportunity to take hold, because it can be neutralized with minimal effort while the problem is still in its infancy. The Daodejing appears pacifist because a true sage-rule governs effortlessly and without violence except in cases of external threats. If, however, the sage-ruler does not observe diligently and act when appropriate—before anyone even recognizes that there is a problem—then harsher measures will become necessary. What such prescience and sagacity would look like is open to dispute, and numerous commentators have offered their suggestions. Peerenboom, for instance, argues that maintaining internal harmony is the ultimate goal of the Daoist sage-ruler. He calls Daoist politics a “politics of harmony,” and envisages such an endeavor as an attempt to maintain a harmony in which all interests are accommodated in a spontaneous and creative compromise that responds to the uniqueness of the situation and meets the needs of all parties. 28 In his argument that the Daodejing is an anarchist text, Clark offers a similar interpretation of the metaphysics of interconnectedness and interdependence found in the Daodejing as “a harmonious system,” in

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which, if “each being strives only to reach its own natural perfection, and refrains from seeking to dominate others, the greatest possible order will result.” 29 Clark’s projected outcome is similar to Peerenboom’s conception of the politics of the Daodejing as a politics of harmony: “the needs of all will be fulfilled without coercion and domination.” 30 According to these interpretations, there is no room for even the most rudimentary form of utilitarianism, one that would sacrifice the interests of some for those of others. At most, Daoist politics might admit a utilitarianism constrained by the Pareto criterion, that is, that the only courses of action that are permissible are those in which no one is made worse off. Unfortunately, in the real world, a system characterized by interconnectedness, limited resources, and ubiquitous competition, such a criterion could never be satisfied for the same reason that a politics of harmony could never work, because one’s success must always come at the expense of, or encroach (to some degree) on, another’s. It is not necessary even to posit conflicts among over-developed and ambition-hungry egos, as Machiavelli does in his Tercets on Ambition where he notes that “[t]o each of us, another’s success is always vexatious” 31; it is enough that the world and its resources are finite. The situation becomes only more acute when specific territories are considered. Clark’s interpretation of Daoist metaphysics is thus factually incorrect. Clark maintains that Daoism “penetrates the illusion of inevitable natural scarcity (which arose with the political, economic, and technical innovations of civilization), to apprehend the abundance of the outpouring of nature,” and specifically claims that the Daodejing understands nature as “an infinite wealth, a plentitude.” 32 However, Clark’s interpretation of the Daodejing merely replaces the alleged allusion of scarcity with the illusion of limitless resources. While capitalism creates many inequalities and exacerbates other ones, the world today knows all too well that the Earth and its resources are finite; given a continually growing population scarcity of resources is inevitable. Han Feizi is prescient enough to voice this argument in Warring States China when he contrasts the social chaos of his day with the peaceful times of the past, and attributes the tranquility of the past to an abundance of resources relative to the population, not to superior rule. It is plausible that if a Daoist community were small enough that its simple needs could always be met by the natural resources within its modest territory, and in fact the Amish and some Hutterite communities have managed to achieve this. However, these groups have rigid social controls, which makes them decidedly un-Daoist, and suffer from the same problem of foreign aggressors that a Daoist state does. The only reason the Amish and Hutterite communities can exist is because they enjoy the protection of larger states of which they are a part, and which protect them from foreign aggressors. Despite the limited success of these groups, the ideal of harmony will always be elusive because there will always be unique aspects of reality that are scarce. Clark may be correct in asserting that “competition

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is an unnecessary evil” 33 and even counterproductive to a Daoist society, but a lack of competition does not mean that the natural world’s ability to provide for a society is boundless. Modern economic theory maintains that all resources can be weighed and measured in a monetary value, and so all bundles of resources are ultimately interchangeable, but this is a fiction that is accepted for the sake of the economy. This fiction enables insurance companies to compensate for the loss of a limb or even a life, and allows governments to expropriate land for the greater good while leaving the landowner compensated, supposedly in kind (even if the processes are biased toward governments and insurance companies). The problem for Daoism is that the unique aspects of many parts of the world mean that nature cannot be infinite. Many aboriginal groups fighting development on their territories cite spiritual ties to specific tracts of land that cannot be transplanted should they be offered other parcels of land, and anyone who has ever experienced unrequited love knows that some things we need are unique and something simply “in kind” may compensate to a degree, but will never satisfy (love is hardly an un-Daoist emotion, and is generally considered a human need as opposed to merely a want). Given the inevitability of internal and external sources of conflict, it is not surprising that despite Laozi’s general reluctance to resort to violence, several passages in the Daodejing show that its use is not condemned unconditionally. Laozi acknowledges that violence is sometimes necessary, but only when the state has become corrupt or is in danger from foreign aggressors. That the sage-ruler is to act as military leader is suggested in chapter 68, where the military leader is described in terms typically reserved for the sage-ruler: One who excels as a warrior does not appear formidable; One who excels in fighting is never aroused in anger; One who excels in defeating his enemy does not join issue; One who excels in employing others humbles himself before them. This is known as the virtue of non-contention; This is known as making use of the efforts of others; This is known as matching the sublimity of heaven. 34

There are numerous passages in the Daodejing that suggest not only that violent measures are permissible, but that the sage-ruler must be willing to use it when the situation calls for it. As well, Laozi also accepts the necessity of other actions one would think unbecoming to the sage-ruler, like deception and paternalism. Thus, in chapter 49, Laozi justifies deception and paternalism on the part of the sage-ruler, arguing that “[t]he sage in his attempt to

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distract the mind of the empire seeks urgently to muddle it. The people all have something to occupy their eyes and ears, and the sage treats them all like children.” 35 In chapter 5 Laozi, speaking in general terms, makes acts of violence obligatory for the sage-ruler, stating that “Heaven and earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs.” 36 Not only is violence at times permissible, but following the Dao will demand that violence be used in certain situations. Laozi acknowledges this, and advises action in such situations that is nakedly ruthless: “[a]fter they [the people] are transformed, should desire raise its head, / I shall press it down with the weight of the nameless uncarved block.” 37 The interconnectedness and interdependence of all things means gentleness must sometimes give way to harshness in the Daodejing, even if this reality is not emphasized in the text. When violent and invasive measures are called for by a situation, they should never be entered into eagerly, rather solemnly, for the sage-ruler has no bloodlust or cruelty. This is why in chapter 31 Laozi decries not the use of violence, but the glorification of violence: Arms are instruments of ill omen, not the instruments of the gentleman. When one is compelled to use them, it is best to do so without relish. There is no glory in victory, and to glorify it despite this is to exult in the killing of men. One who exults in the killing of men will never have his way in the empire. . . . When great numbers of people are killed, one should weep over them with sorrow. When victorious in war, one should observe the rites of mourning. 38

There should be no glorification of battle or exaltation of victory. The killing of others is always to be mourned as something unfortunate and unnecessary. War should always be avoided if at all possible, but when it is necessary, it should be conducted as quickly as possible and without pleasure or fanfare. Thus chapter 30 counsels: “One who is good aims only at bringing his campaign to a conclusion and dare not thereby intimidate. Bring it to a conclusion but do not boast; bring it to a conclusion but do not brag; bring it to a conclusion but do not be arrogant; bring it to a conclusion but only when there is no choice.” 39 Part of the rationale for Laozi’s aversion to war, his insistence on making it quick and clean, and counsel to be humble in the aftermath of the conflict, is that it is difficult to escape war unscathed, be this suffering material losses or becoming corrupted by greed and bloodlust. The presence of the ego is necessary for traits such as bloodlust and cruelty, and since the sage-ruler has rid himself of all sense of ego, his actions, no matter how they appear to outsiders, cannot be cruel or malicious. To the list of paradoxical phrases that inhabit the Daodejing, phrases such as empty, yet full, and the sage does nothing, and yet nothing is left undone, could easily be added: the sage-ruler kills, yet has no bloodlust and is not cruel. Of course the sage-ruler has achieved this super-human status in a typically Daoist

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way: he surpasses humanity not by transcending it in terms of rising above it, but by sinking below it. As Moeller says, the sage-ruler “dehumanizes” himself—he becomes a link between society and the natural world. 40 That violent measures are downplayed in the Daodejing can be explained by the level of violence in Warring States China; if LaFargue is correct in characterizing the Daodejing as a collection of polemic aphorisms, advocating violence in an age of bloodshed would be rather beside the point. As LaFargue explains, “[a]phorisms are essentially compensatory wisdom. They are always directed against some opposing human tendency, which they mean to correct or compensate for.” 41 Another consideration for the Daodejing’s downplaying of violence is that violence is indicative of the sageruler’s failure to maintain peace. Moeller argues this, claiming that, for the Daoist violence is never advisable, but when it comes, the role of the sageruler is to end the violence with the least amount of effort and loss to his side that is possible, “to win smoothly and swiftly,” 42 as Moeller puts it. When violence does become inevitable, it is still to be pursued as far as possible through a strategy of non-contention; and in military terms this could consist of strategic retreats designed to wear down the enemy and cause them to exhaust their energies and their resources. But once this has been accomplished, violent measures will still be required to achieve a decisive conclusion to the conflict. Moeller recounts the story of Cao Gui, who advises the generals of the Lu army to wait until the Qi army have beaten their drums three times and exhausted their courage, and only then to attack. 43 The Lu victory still depended on violent action, but it was violence designed to accomplish the most thorough defeat of the Qin army with the least expenditure of effort for the army of Lu. Slingerland’s analysis of the structure of the dyads employed in the Daodejing (male/female, strong/weak, action/inaction, and so on) offers yet another explanation of why violence is de-emphasized within the text: Laozi does not cling to the lower half of the dyad to the exclusion of the upper half, but embraces both. This suggests that the Daodejing’s emphasis on feminine imagery and strategies of non-contention does not rule out their opposites, but that their opposites are carried silently within them. That strategies of non-contention do not, in principle, exclude violence can be seen in the frequency with which Daoism resorts to or implies the image of water. Chapter 8 of the Daodejing praises water because of its propensity for non-contention, while chapter 36 maintains that the “submissive and weak will overcome the hard and strong,” 44 and chapter 43 maintains that the weak and submissive will triumph over the hard and strong, because they can penetrate even “that which has no crevices.” 45 The implication here is pretty clearly the power of water to erode the hardest rock by imperceptible but inexorable pressure. But the identification of water with non-contention can be unpacked in other ways. At times, water conquers through more dramatic

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means—it turns into ice. When water seeps into cracks and then freezes, it can split granite, and when it saturates other substances it can break them too. As a suggestion of the effectiveness of secret infiltration of the opposing force and destruction from within, the image is hard to beat. Ice can also form jams on a river and cause it to flood the surrounding land. And of course, ice can grow into the ultimate uncarved block: a glacier that crushes all in its slow-moving path. Regardless which metaphoric connections one chooses to take, it is clear that the imagery of water is very appropriate to the metaphysics of the Daodejing, insofar as it can imply not only barely perceptible pressure of the influence of the sage-ruler’s wu-wei upon the people, but also permission for the sage-ruler to resort to violent measures when that is what the situation requires. Categorically forbidding such measures would mean that the sage-ruler was not operating from a true emptiness and according to wu-wei, for if, instead of allowing the situation to unfold of its own accord and harmonizing his response with it in accordance to the Dao, the sage-ruler who automatically rules out harsh measures a priori is allowing his penchant for strategies of non-contention and love of peaceful means to direct his actions as opposed to following the Dao and doing what the situation requires. In the end, this is just as inflexible as the dictator who responds to every situation with harsh measures. The problem for the sage-ruler who uses the Daodejing as his guide is that there is little actual tactical advice as to how to enact violent measures when they do become necessary. MACHIAVELLI ON STRATEGICALLY EMPLOYED VIOLENCE A careful examination of the use of violence by the Daodejing’s sage-ruler and the restrictions Machiavelli places on the use of force reveal that the Florentine’s attitude to violence, while not Daoist in spirit, is certainly not inconsistent with the political program of the Daodejing. Machiavelli insists that acts of violence can only be justified when they are for the good of the state; they can never be arbitrarily executed, or for petty motives or out of self-interest. Far from encouraging violence, Machiavelli’s rationale is thoroughly pragmatic: acts of violence will always rebound on those who initiate them, and acts of violence that are not grounded in the good of the state easily multiply. Taking lives, in Machiavelli’s counsel, is one of the three things that will lead to being hated, the other two being taking the property or the women of one’s subjects. Machiavelli, in an uncharacteristic moment of naivety, claims that excessive violence is the least likely of these three to spiral out of control and do damage to the ruler because there is never a justification for sexual predation and “reasons for taking their property are never lacking, and he who begins to live by stealing always finds a reason for taking what belongs to others; reasons for spilling blood, on the

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other hand, are rarer and more fleeting.” 46 Even a superficial survey of those who have used violence excessively, most notably but by no means exclusively, tyrants and dictators, shows that Machiavelli is wrong here and that the logic which he applies to seizing wealth and women applies to the use of violence as well: once a ruler has gotten away with murder, the more inclined he will be to do it again, even if this means fabricating reasons to do so. Like Laozi, Machiavelli advocates using violence sparingly, and only when there are no other options. When violence is deemed necessary, Machiavelli recommends a number of tactics for the prince to follow, and thus avoid becoming the target of his people’s hatred. The first of these tactics is to ensure from the start that the execution of violence is concentrated, kept within tight bounds so as to minimize its impact beyond the intended target and purpose. 47 Further, if at all possible, the acts should be delegated to an expendable subordinate, who will draw the people’s fear and hatred away from the prince and upon himself. Laozi and Machiavelli arrive independently at the realization that, once harsh measures become commonplace, as they do in Legalist states or tyrannies, they lose their effectiveness. If death is meted out for small offenses, what will dissuade people from more serious crimes? But whereas Laozi sees the ineffectiveness of violence and the risk of blowback as sufficient reason to employ violent measures only in the most exigent circumstances, part of Machiavelli’s wisdom is his emphasis on the intelligent and strategic application of violence, so as to make it known that such consequences will be visited upon anyone who transgresses certain laws, or threatens the peace and security of the state in a significant manner. The measures, however, must be carried out in a way that will not traumatize the general population, nor must they be so extreme that the law is no longer respected. The goal is to make people fear violating the law, not to terrorize them. Where the Legalist remedy to breaches of the law is to hold everyone under the ruler’s microscope, Machiavelli’s prescription is simply to make an example of someone who has violated the law, and if no such person can be found, to trump up charges against someone. Rather than make the entire population suffer, all that is needed is that “not more than ten years should pass between one of these applications of the law and another” 48; otherwise individuals forget how serious violating the law is, and once this happens social disorder begins. Thus Machiavelli praises the rulers of Florence for the regular renewal of their internal security of the city-state from 1434 through 1494 by inspiring “the same terror and fear into the hearts of men that they had instilled upon first taking power.” 49 Periodic violence is enough to inculcate respect for the law, but it should be rare enough not to desensitize the people and make them blasé about incurring such punishments. In light of the restrictions that Machiavelli places on the use of violence, it is hard to see the difference between him and Laozi in terms of what degree

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of violence is acceptable. Machiavelli would be in complete agreement with chapter 74 of the Daodejing: “To kill on behalf of the executioner is what is described as chopping wood on behalf of the master carpenter. In chopping wood on behalf of the master carpenter, there are few who escape hurting their own hands instead.” 50 Violence rebounds on those who employ it, and this is why the Florentine places so many constraints on the use of violence, and always anchors it to the good of the state, never to personal ambition. The problem for those who follow Machiavelli’s prescriptions, of course, is that in corrupt times, when a solitary leader is needed to rise above others, unite factions, and stamp out corruption, princes will inevitably be lured by the promise of gaining glory for their deeds, and the competition will create no end of instances requiring violent solutions. Clearly, this blurs the line between personal self-interest and the good of the state. That said, the wouldbe prince who partakes of violence for petty reasons will never cease to find justification for further violence, and will quickly end up hated and subjected to the violence of his subjects as a result. The only significant discrepancy between the Daodejing and Machiavelli on the use of violence lies in the differing abilities of the sage-ruler and Machiavellian ruler. The sage-ruler possesses an immunity, which escapes his Machiavellian counterpart, which enables the sage-ruler to avoid becoming corrupted by the use of violence, falling prey to the temptation to use it again, be this from the laziness that relies on violence as a quick fix to all manner of problems or the bloodlust that use of violence can engender. As Laozi remarks in chapter 23: A man of the way conforms to the way; a man of virtue conforms to virtue; a man of loss conforms to loss. He who conforms to the way is gladly accepted by the way; he who conforms to virtue is gladly accepted by virtue; he who conforms to loss is gladly accepted by loss. 51

Those who live according to a principle will find that they attract the trappings of that principle; hence the old aphorism those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. In the context of political rulers, the message is clear: those who follow the Dao, who transcend ego and cultivate emptiness, practice wu-wei, and who engage others through strategies of non-contention will not attract conflict and will endure. Those who do not follow the Dao, who try to impose their perspective on the world, who interact with others on the level of ego and are quick to employ violence, will find quarrels everywhere they turn and will be a lightning rod for conflict. Chapter 23 also points to a key difference between Machiavelli and Laozi, for since, as I have demonstrated, Machiavelli’s conception of the ruler remains within the sphere of ego, he will thus be open to the assaults of temptation, sloth, and bloodlust, all parasites ready to feed off the ego. Only a principle equivalent to wu-wei can win the state, and only a ruler who has

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truly surmounted ego to achieve emptiness can endure. From the perspective of Laozi, any political philosophy that starts with the ego as a given and proceeds by means of purposeful action (as opposed to a wu-wei grounded in emptiness) is ultimately doomed. Thus, Laozi maintains that “to forsake compassion for courage, to forsake frugality for expansion, to forsake the rear for the lead, is sure to end in death,” 52 and further, he “who is fearless in being bold will meet with his death; / He who is fearless in being timid will stay alive.” 53 The sage-ruler, devoid of ego and in harmony with the Dao, stands a much better chance of resorting to violence while remaining uncorrupted than his Machiavellian counterpart. The latter may succeed, but he will need an extremely clear and capacious intelligence and a rigorously disciplined personality to do so. Such a person is hard to find, and even then there is always the risk that, over time, the ego will have its way. ON EMPIRES, CORRUPTION, AND RENEWAL Despite the fact that the Daodejing permits and even endorses the sparing use of violence, it offers little guidance for how to effectively employ such force. This is a crucial omission. Daoism could maintain a peaceful state, perhaps indefinitely, so long as the numbers of its inhabitants remained small and they were isolated from non-Daoist states, as described in chapter 80 of the Daodejing. Laozi also allows for dealing with foreign aggressors by means of strategies of non-contention and wu-wei. But how to implement Daoist rule on a large population or a corrupt one is another story, and it is a story not told by the Daodejing. Daoist political philosophy’s inability to deal with large states explains why it lost out to Confucianism as the dominant political and social philosophy in Chinese history. The large states that existed during and after the Warring States period required immense bureaucracies to run them, and the Confucian regimen of study designed to turn an average individual into a Confucian gentleman also produced an army of well-prepared civil servants. Even if an individual failed to cultivate benevolence and righteousness as Confucius had, the skills and discipline he would have acquired through years of study would make him a very able bureaucrat. In contrast, the ideal state described in the Daodejing has little to say about bureaucracies, because it needs none. Had the Daodejing been written with the goal of establishing a large state or of reforming a corrupted state (if it were advocating a program of reformative anarchism as Ames, Bender, and Zarrow suggest), there would be passages to address how the sage-ruler is to manage a bureaucracy. However, ending the Warring States period by means of unifying China into a huge empire was never part of the Daodejing’s political project.

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This is another point at which, in terms of its scope, the completeness of Machiavelli’s political philosophy becomes apparent. Certain aspects of the Daodejing can be adapted to modern conditions, but only at the expense of the core of the work. The political philosophy is built upon a Daoist foundation and intended for small, isolated agrarian entities, and there are precious few of these left anywhere. However, many aspects of Machiavelli’s political system could be, and have been, applied to very large, urbanized, and expanding populations, and his resort to principles reminiscent of both Daoism and Legalism, as well as his realistic appraisal of collective human experience as constant alternation between conditions of prosperity and scarcity, peace and conflict, qualifies his philosophy to endure and to serve states regardless of their size or level of corruption. The education of the ruler contained in The Prince and the organization of society contained in the Discourses are worthy of consideration by any person interested in understanding and/or pursuing political authority. The ups and downs of historical cycles are explained at the beginning of the third book of the Discourses, where Machiavelli argues that the best organized, and by implication the most enduring, states are those that periodically renew themselves, either through internal initiatives or through necessity, forced on them by external factors. This renewal Machiavelli describes as a cyclical return to the states’ roots, to the conditions of their origins and early years: “because the beginnings of religions, republics, and kingdoms must always contain in themselves some goodness through which they may regain their early prestige and their early expansion.” 54 If renewal arises from within, it will be through either the revision or tougher enforcement of the laws of the state or by means of the actions of good citizens. The legal path to renewal requires laws, which combat the ambitions and pride of the citizens, and iron-fisted enforcement of the legal code at least once every decade, as the Florentine government did from 1434 to 1494. The other internal option for renewal is the appearance of an exceptional citizen who will act as a nexus for the rejuvenation. This option relies less upon the wisdom of those who govern and more on the whims of Fortune; in this sense, it is no better than necessity imposed from without, for it is entirely beyond the control of the government. Machiavelli sketches the qualities of such individuals in broad strokes, but it is clear that they must be princely material, that they must possess virtù in such abundance and be held in such high esteem because of it, that “good men wish to imitate them and evil men are ashamed to lead a life contrary to theirs.” 55 The external route is the least preferable means of rejuvenation, because it delivers the state entirely into the hands of Fortune. Machiavelli discusses Rome’s series of losses to France as such an occurrence, one that finally brought the Roman people back to their beginnings, so that they were able to rise to the occasion, clamp down on corruption, and renew their commitment

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to justice and their religious institutions. But despite Rome’s eventual resurgence and ultimate victory, it is clear that Machiavelli’s attitude is that a victory like this, one granted at the whim of Fortune, is a second-rate victory. It would have been far better had the Romans reformed themselves without need of Fortune’s prompting, for Fortune is fickle and could just as easily have abandoned Rome to the French. Machiavelli’s preference is clearly for renewal through reform and/or severe enforcement of the laws, but there are two occasions when recourse to an extraordinary citizen is the only possibility. The first is the founding of a state, which will always require swift action and, Machiavelli expects, some degree of violence because of the precarious and vulnerable conditions in which new states are born. The second is when the state has been degraded both through the corruption of its citizen and the inadequacy or too lenient enforcement of the law. In such a case, the moral character of the population would militate against any kind of law enforcement needed to restore the state to health; partisan politics, factionalism, influence peddling, and all the nastiness that characterizes power struggles would doom the project to failure. Even if the law did come to be brutally enforced, it would be only to benefit the enforcers, not for the good of the state. Machiavelli reaffirms this point, albeit from a slightly different angle, when he judges that introducing a republic into the Kingdom of Naples, Rome, or the Papal states would be a fruitless exercise because of the widespread corruption of the people, for “where there exists so much corrupt material that the laws are insufficient to restrain it, it is necessary to institute there, together with these laws an even greater force, that is, a royal hand that with absolute and excessive power may impose a restraint on the excessive ambition and corruption of the mighty.” 56 Thus Machiavelli counsels that, to reform a state that has grown corrupt, the prince must gather all authority unto himself and act alone. A corrupt state will require sacrifices, if not of blood, certainly of the interests of many partisans, and the only way to ensure that these sacrifices are made is to be free of those factions. A senate or other ruling body simply has too many members to be effective, and will instead become a septic pond of divided loyalties and conflicting ambitions. A single individual has a better ability to be focused on the health of the state, and if he does so sincerely, without any thought of his own self-interests (beyond glory, which is the only element of self-interest Machiavelli permits a great leader), Machiavelli deems him praiseworthy no matter his actions, arguing that a prudent intellect would never reproach anyone for some illegal action that he might have undertaken to organize a kingdom or to constitute a republic. It is truly appropriate that while the act accuses him, the result excuses him, and when the result is good, like

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Machiavelli also acknowledges that the renewal of a republic performed by an individual must be the exception to the rule, otherwise tyranny is likely, if not inevitable. The authority that the prince assumed must be returned to the republic when the time of crisis is over, or if not then, at the end of the prince’s life. The odds of there being a sufficient pool of men talented and devoted to the public good when the moment arises are poor; nor is the virtù of the prince likely to be inheritable. Abuses will happen, and corruption will occur all the more rapidly because of the centralized authority. A well-ordered state under the control of one person can survive the incompetence of a leader for a limited time, as many examples from recent history show, but Machiavelli is pessimistic about the long-term prospects of such a state. He concedes that a state under the leadership of one person is a potent force if that individual is of exceptional virtù, and points out that Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great together in succession conquered almost the entire known world; 58 however, discussing the first three kings of Rome, the warlike Romulus, the peaceful and religious Numa, and Tullus who began like Numa but quickly turned to the ways of Romulus, Machiavelli cautions that rarely is a state fortunate enough to have successive rulers of great virtù. Often the lack of virtù in one who succeeds a great leader goes unnoticed, because the latter lives in the wake of the former and enjoys the benefits of the former’s wisdom and skill. However, the consequence of multiple rulers who lack virtù following one another is as dramatic as the outcome of two rulers who possess virtù leading in succession: [I]f it happens either that this successor has a long life or that after him no other arises who reclaims the ability of the first ruler, that kingdom must, by necessity, come to ruin. Thus, on the contrary, if two rulers, one after the other, possess extraordinary ability, it is often observed that they accomplish the greatest deeds and that their fame reaches as far as the heavens. 59

For Machiavelli, the best way to avoid these abuses is to have legal recourse to appoint such an individual, but to control by law the nature of his power and the disposition of it after he dies. His model for this is the office of the dictator, instituted by the Romans to deal with crisis situations. Machiavelli vehemently defends the office, arguing that it allows for swift action unencumbered by the ambitions and factionalism of committees, and if properly organized, can never do harm to a state. He follows the Roman model closely. The dictator is chosen by the Consuls and his term is not open-ended but is only called into being for the duration of the emergency. The power of the dictator is circumscribed: he may distribute punishments that cannot be

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appealed, but he cannot usurp the authority of either the people or the Senate. In addition, no institutions can be abolished and none created, thus neither the people nor the structure of the government can be perverted. 60 The most important aspect of these restrictions for Machiavelli is that they make the office of dictator a constitutionally sanctioned institution. Machiavelli is adamant about this requirement: When a republic lacks such a procedure, it must necessarily come to ruin by obeying its laws or break them in order to avoid its own ruin. But in a republic, it is not good for anything to happen which requires governing by extraordinary measures. Although extraordinary measures may be beneficial at a certain moment, the example nevertheless causes harm, because if one establishes the habit of breaking the laws for good reasons, later on, under the same pretext, one can break them for bad reasons. 61

That legality be observed is of the utmost importance for Machiavelli, for any violation of the laws undermines the credibility of the republic. This is why Machiavelli holds Cincinnatus in such high regard. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus was plowing his small farm when he was called upon by the Roman Senate to assume the office of dictator and save the Consul Minutius and his army from certain ruin at the hands of the Aequi. Cincinnatus raised an army of his own, rescued Minutius and his army, demoted Minutius for his incompetence, forbade the troops to plunder, and then promptly vacated the post of dictator to return to tilling his meager lands. 62 The focus of Machiavelli’s comments is on the modest economy of Cincinnatus’ needs and desires, and on the effect this had on the troops who followed his example. Part of this, and even more important, is that Cincinnatus’ honoring of poverty extended to the possession of power too—the relinquishing of power when the situation calls for it is the truest sign of greatness in Machiavelli’s philosophy, and is often what distinguishes legendary princes from tyrants. In principle, recourse to a dictator (or anyone capable of rejuvenating the state if provisions for a dictator are not in place or cannot be invoked) makes a republic both invincible and capable of earthly immortality, because should corruption manage to take root, someone with the wisdom and mettle to eradicate it would be at hand: “If a republic were so fortunate . . . that it could often have a man who, with his exemplary action, could renew its laws and who would not only prevent it from racing towards ruin but would pull it back, that republic would be everlasting.” 63 A republic is more likely to last in this respect than a kingdom, for the key to success according to Machiavelli is how one’s actions fit with the spirit of the times. Impetuous people, such as Pope Julius II, will thrive only so long as the times are amenable to such actions. Once a situation calls for caution or careful planning, the impetuous are doomed. 64 As with any other mode of action, rulers will only suc-

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ceed if they are in tune with the demands of the times in general and the specific situation in particular. The ability of one person to change sufficiently to meet the demands of the situation is limited, but a republic has a pool of individuals, with varied temperaments and skill sets, at their disposal. Thus a republic stands a much better chance of withstanding changing circumstances, especially if it has an office of dictator it can invoke during times of crisis. THE PRINCE AS POLITICAL SCIENTIST AND POLITICAL ARTIST Machiavelli calls on the prince to be both political artist and political scientist. The prince must be an artist in how he strategizes, consolidates his power, and reads his allies and enemies. The artistic countenance of the prince is perhaps best seen in his dealings with Fortune: his intuitive ability to discern the changing speed and direction of her wheels, or in secular terms, the changing nature of the times in general and of given situations in particular, as well as his talent for spotting opportunities before they pass and his gift for turning obstacles into opportunities. The prince is in one sense, and an important one at that, a showman, for his virtù is a quality that must be displayed to others and make an impact upon them, whether awe, fear, or envy. It is, however, a quality that is unlikely to be passed on hereditarily. In this respect, Machiavelli’s prince and the sage-ruler of the Daodejing are similar, for the sage-ruler, too, relies on his personal qualities, innate but cultivated, to rule others. The difference, of course, is that while the sageruler is self-effacing, seeking the lowest position, his de drawing people to him of their own accord, Machiavelli’s definition of princely virtù requires that the prince be, most of the time, center-stage. Still, in both cases, it is the personal skill of a solitary person that actualizes the political theory, and upon whom the stability and future of the society rest. Persons are mortal, however, and when the prince or the sage-ruler dies, his unique skills die with him. Laozi offers no remedy to this problem except the hope that the people, transformed under the rule of the sage-ruler, will have no need of him thereafter. Given human nature, this seems like wishful thinking of the first order, and not only because the metaphysics of the Daodejing dictate that order carries the seeds of its own opposite, disorder, within it. Beyond that is the cold, hard reality that foreigners, non-Daoist, corrupt, and numerous, will at some point or another seek to subdue the Daoist state by means of war or the threat of it. While Laozi is silent about these eventualities, even though they are implicit in Daoism, Machiavelli recognizes the inevitability of corruption, whether internal or external, infecting the state and he formulates a response. The prince must transform himself from political artist to political scientist, and since he cannot teach his skills

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to another with any reliability, he must design social institutions so that they mimic the skills he would use in keeping the state strong. As political scientist, Machiavelli’s ruler resonates with Han Feizi’s. To be sure, there are differences between the two. Specifically, the latter takes his cue from the Daodejing, adopting a simulacrum of the sage-ruler’s withdrawal from the political stage and employing strategies of non-contention. Machiavelli’s prince, by contrast, with very rare exceptions, is emphatically a hands-on chief executive. However, both seek to construct a state that will be strong and run smoothly on the basis of the legal order with minimal interference from a leader. Machiavelli sees such a government as a republic in which the social institutions, not the people they govern, effectively run the state, channeling the interests of the different classes into productive outlets that make the state healthy, and a formidable opponent to would-be conquerors. FLEXIBILITY AND EMPTINESS Machiavelli praises the republic for being more flexible than a prince could ever be, for instead of one nature, the republic has many upon which it can draw. 65 Any citizen, and thus a variety of temperaments, can be called upon to lead. While this does not allow for true flexibility, it is an improvement over that of the prince. But even so, the republic, a state in which the prince’s virtú is a shadowy presence guiding the social institutions he has crafted to rule in the wake of his death, is still rooted in ego, with all the attendant liabilities of that fact. Much of the advice that Machiavelli offers his princes, as we have seen, mirrors that offered by Laozi to his sage-ruler—do not be distracted by pleasures or personal interests, do not be a burden to one’s people, devote oneself to the good of the state, and above all, be flexible. In the end, however, Machiavelli’s rulers lack the advantage of egolessness and emptiness, and this will inevitably prevent them from achieving the success of the sageruler, for the prince’s virtù requires him to impress others, and Machiavelli’s methodology is thoroughly rooted in history, the collective ego of a culture. Thus, rulers who are true to Machiavelli’s teachings and methods (and certainly the self-styled Machiavellians) lack the emptiness and are unable to live in the moment sufficiently to see which way the wheel they are on is turning or how fast. Just as Laozi describes the sage-ruler as inconspicuous to the point of invisibility, and to act by seeming not to act, so Han Feizi proposes a state in which the ruler keeps a very low profile and does not act: “the ruler who follows the proper course of government, values emptiness and tranquility and takes the alteration of the law seriously.” 66 However, Han Feizi’s spin on

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this idea is markedly different from what Laozi had in mind. Specifically, Han Feizi’s ruler retires and does nothing because the supremacy of law and a smoothly running bureaucracy effectively eliminate the human element, both good and bad, from government. In the Daodejing, transcending the ego and achieving a mental state of emptiness is a reality, and therefore efficacious; in the Han Feizi emptiness has nothing to do with transcending the ego, it is merely a tactical maneuver. Consequently, the Han Feizi’s conception of emptiness is inefficacious and its comments on emptiness are useless information; unconcerned with achieving an experience of true emptiness, it contains no instruction as to how to reach this state of mind. The idea of ego-trancendence, selflessness or emptiness, and the idea of a retiring prince who is neither seen nor contends with anyone would be unfathomable to Machiavelli. Not only is he committed to the notion of virtù, which is thoroughly exhibitionist, as key to gaining the support of the people, but he also rejects even the shallow emptiness advocated by Han Feizi as utterly ineffective. Thus, Machiavelli chastises Maximilian I for his excessive secrecy, claiming that it leaves all around him in confusion and uncertain of how to proceed. 67 Of course, from the perspective of Han Feizi, the solution would be for Maximilian I to call upon his ministers to make their proposals and to reward and punish them on the basis of how their results tally with their proposals. But even in this rebuttal, the tactical nature of the Legalist conception of emptiness is reaffirmed, for the emptiness does not transform the ruler or his people the way it does the Daoist sage-ruler, but merely makes the Legalist ruler immune to manipulation by his ministers. What is absent in both Machiavelli and Han Feizi are the instructions in self-cultivation that can be found in the Daodejing. LaFargue observes that self-cultivation sayings are one of three main types of statements that constitute the Daodejing and Peerenboom notes that the Daodejing repeatedly instructs the sage-ruler to engage in apophatic meditation—the meditative process of emptying one’s mind of all thoughts—as a means of dissolving the ego and cultivating true emptiness. The sage-ruler professes to do this in chapter 16, and describes himself in commensurate terms as having a blank mind in chapter 20. Further, the Daodejing describes this state of mind in terms of being still (chapter 37), infinite (chapter 28), being like unto a babe (chapters 10 and 28), and as the uncarved block (chapter 19), and includes instructions on how to achieve this state of consciousness revolving around breathing exercises (chapter 10) and general ascetic practices (chapters 1, 46, 56, and 52). LaFargue’s characterization of this self-cultivation as it relates to Western attitudes sums up the difference between the emptiness of the Daodejing and the Han Feizi: “Self-cultivation,” LaFargue argues, “differs somewhat from the Western development of ‘virtuous character,’ in its strong emphasis on complete internalization, so that the personal qualities cultivated become part of one’s instinctive impulses (not ‘convictions’ one must hold

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oneself to).” 68 The apophatic meditation of Laozi, unknown to Machiavelli and beyond his experience, offers an approach that would have allowed Machiavelli’s prince to truly live in the moment and enter the contest with Fortune from the hub as opposed to the periphery of her wheel. Should the prince practice some apophatic meditation, he may be able to avoid the pitfalls of human nature that Machiavelli sees as inescapable—in short, he may gain the elusive control over “our natural inclinations” 69 and “the occult forces that rule us” 70 which Machiavelli saw no way around. NATURE VERSUS HABIT IN MACHIAVELLI’S PHILOSOPHY All is not lost for the prince, however, for in Machiavelli’s understanding of the human condition, the two most important determinants of human action are our basic nature, or character, and our habits. Within the cosmology of Renaissance Italy, the first means the theory of humors, which determine basic personality types. (If Machiavelli were writing today, he could make the same argument but in terms of genetic predispositions instead of occult forces or the humors.) The second is our habits, an extremely crude version of the self-cultivation of which LaFargue speaks, and which leaves the door open to options that can imitate the emptiness which Laozi advocates, even if it falls significantly short of that emptiness itself. The power of one’s innate humor or humors (they can be mixed) is a recurring theme throughout Machiavelli’s writing. As far as his own character is concerned, the letter he wrote to Francesco Vettori in 1513 is worth quoting again: “Fortune has determined that since I don’t know how to talk about the silk business or about profits and losses, I must talk about the government; I must either make a vow of silence or discuss that.” 71 He reiterates this sense of determinism in the Tercets on Fortune, maintaining “you cannot change your character nor give up the disposition that Heaven endows you with.” 72 The only recourse to the tyranny of character is habit, or the effect of education and discipline. In a letter to Piero Soderini, Machiavelli comments that this inflexibility essentially surrenders the terms of success to Fortune, for: [B]ecause times and affairs in general and individually change often, and men do not change their imaginings and their procedures, it happens that a man at one time has good fortune and at another time bad . . . since men in the first place are shortsighted and in the second place cannot command their natures, it follows that Fortune varies and commands men and holds them under her yoke. 73

However, while it is understandable that Machiavelli should be at a loss to advise how to change one’s nature, he is uncharacteristically resigned

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about the prospects for changing one’s habits. In The Golden Ass, he laments that “the mind of man, ever intent on what is natural to it, grants no protection against either habit or nature.” 74 In fact, habits are powerful enough that they can even render good laws impotent. In book 3 of The History of Florence Machiavelli decries the self-interest and immorality persistent in his beloved Florence, arguing, “Truly in the cities of Italy all is collected that can be depraved and that can deprave any man: the young are lazy, the old licentious, and both sexes and every age abound in vile habits. Good laws, because they are ruined by bad customs, do not remedy this condition.” 75 This very negative prognosis is especially odd, because habit can be changed through the sheer force of will, and the insight and determination to do so are part of Machiavelli’s conception of princely virtù. Despite his assertions to the contrary, in several places Machiavelli declares that habits can be affected either through one’s own mental energies or through externally imposed discipline. Regarding the latter, Machiavelli praises the benefits of carefully sculpted habit in The Art of War, claiming that habit can transform men because “[w]ithout doubt spirited but unorganized men are much weaker than the timid but well-organized, because organization expels men’s fear; disorder lessens their spirit.” 76 He further cites how discipline allowed the Greeks and Romans to wage war with small numbers “made strong with discipline and art.” 77 In Discourses 3.36 Machiavelli makes his most developed comment regarding the relationship between nature and discipline, where he maintains that “at the beginning of a battle the French are more than men, and then as the fighting continues, they turn out to be less than women . . . [however it is not] true that their nature, which makes them ferocious at the beginning, could not be regulated through some art in such a way that would keep them ferocious up to the end.” 78 Machiavelli’s analysis proceeds to distinguish between three types of armies: those that have fury and discipline, those that have fury but lack discipline, and those that possess neither. The causal relation in the first is clear to Machiavelli, because discipline and good order give rise to “fury and exceptional skill” 79 as exemplified by the Roman army, which should be emulated because of its legendary conquests. Discipline is necessary not just for an exceptional army, but for any fighting unit that is to be properly considered an army: “For armies that do otherwise are not true armies, and if they do make a showing of themselves in some way, they do so out of fury and impetuosity and not through exceptional skill.” 80 Such is the case of the French, who possess natural fury, but not discipline. Machiavelli notes how in combat the French typically faltered if their victory was not immediate, because “the fury in which they placed so much hope was not sustained by any well-organized skill, so that they had nothing other than fury upon which to rely, they failed as soon as that cooled.” 81 Those armies that have “neither natural fury nor acquired order,” such as the armies of

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Machiavelli’s Italy, “are completely useless, and if they do not happen to meet an army that for some reason runs away, they will never emerge victorious.” 82 The rationale for this assessment harkens back to two themes that run through Machiavelli’s writings: the dual dichotomies of humanity-nature and male-female, and the foolishness of leaving anything to Fortune which one could have controlled. The juxtaposition of humanity and nature resonates with the male-female dichotomy, for the nature aspect (female) must be accompanied and reinforced by the discipline aspect (male). When this happens the result is truly exceptional, as evidenced to Machiavelli by the exploits of the Roman army. When one only has fury, natural ability not reinforced by discipline, one is successful only so long as one is equal to whatever challenges lay ahead. Any significant hardship or resistance is enough to cause one’s resolve to crumble; hence Machiavelli’s characterization of the French armies of his day to be more than men at the start of the battle, but less than women (the female principle) when their natural fury fails. The armies of Italy were thus less than women from start to end for Machiavelli, possessing neither natural fury nor discipline. It is telling to note here (and this point resonates strongly with the Daodejing) that Machiavelli does not allow for discipline to replace natural fury, only to reinforce it. The masculine principle must support the feminine; it can never supplant it. The second theme behind this rationale is that relying on anything beyond one’s control leaves one at the mercy of Fortune, and therefore vulnerable and incapable of guaranteeing success. If an army relies on the natural fury of its troops, it is relying on Fortune, who controls the degree to which any given soldier is endowed with natural fury. Discipline, however, is a safeguard against Fortune, and can supplement whatever natural fury is present. If an army has both natural fury and discipline, the chances of success are greatly improved; if it has fury but lacks discipline, success is mostly a matter of luck; if it has discipline, that can compensate, but only so far; and if it has neither, failure is inevitable. Yet even for Machiavelli’s Florence, which he declares to be devoid of ancient virtù, the situation is not entirely hopeless for, as he says in the Tercets on Ambition: And when someone blames Nature if in Italy, so much afflicted and worn, men are not born so vigorous and hardy, I say that this does not excuse and justify our lack of worth, for discipline can make up where Nature is lacking. 83

Machiavelli’s reasoning here may be a patriotic faith that Fortune has great things in store for Florence, that they should not accept their wretched condition, for “without knowing her [Fortune’s] goals as she moves along paths

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both crossed and unknown, men always have to hope,” 84 but in all likelihood this passage is an expression of his commitment to the idea that humanity is not entirely the hapless plaything of Fortune. It is also an expression of his disgust for those who willingly surrender to Fortune what is within their control. Had Machiavelli had access to the Daodejing, he could have adapted the self-cultivation practices it contains to the use and benefit of the prince. But he did not, and the absence of any parallel techniques designed to foster an experience of emptiness akin to what is found in the Daodejing remains his philosophy’s greatest weakness. He talks of discipline, especially military discipline, and he offers much advice to the prince as to how to conduct his affairs, but Machiavelli never offers any counsel as to how to cultivate an emptiness that could not merely reinforce the prince’s natural fury, but allow for indefinite flexibility while rendering the prince immune to the parasites of fear, bloodlust, and cruelty as well as to the emotional highs and lows of success and failure. The closest Machiavelli comes to this is in Discourses 3.31, where he cites the discipline and education of Camillus, who claimed to have gained nothing more from dictatorship than he lost through exile, as an example to be emulated for not succumbing to the blows of Fortune: [G]reat men always remain the same in every kind of fortune, and if it varies, now by elevating them, now by oppressing them, they themselves never change but always keep a firm resolve, joined in such a manner to their way of life that anyone can easily recognize that fortune has no power over them. Weak men govern themselves differently: they become vain and intoxicated with good fortune, attributing all the good they receive to an exceptional ability they have never known. As a result, they become insufferable and hateful to all those around them. This situation then brings about some sudden change in their luck, and upon looking such a change in the face, they immediately fall into the opposite fault and become vile and abject. 85

The steadfastness Machiavelli sees in Camillus is such that it robs Fortune of all power over him. In one sense, this is a rhetorical flourish on Machiavelli’s part, as he notes elsewhere that Fortune can play her trump card, death, at any moment in order to further her plans. However, this may also be a case of Machiavelli glimpsing how a lack of ego can be a powerful antidote against the wide array of Fortune’s weapons. The value of this insight applies not only to the prince, but to the republic as well. Thus Machiavelli uses the Romans and Venetians to illustrate how entire peoples can be affected by such an education; whereas the Romans did not let victory make them arrogant, the Venetians did, and it led the latter to their ruin. Wisdom and discipline are necessary to keep the ego in check, for without them, one is easily swayed by the tides of Fortune. Unfortunately, the only means which Machiavelli can conceive of to cultivate such a dispo-

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sition are forms of education, discipline, and habit that are still firmly based in the ego and thus fall short of the radical solution proposed by the Daodejing: the dissolution of the ego through apophatic meditation. Machiavelli is still thinking in tactical terms, treating the symptoms of the ego, whereas Laozi offers a cure to the ego that transforms the ruler’s mode of being on a fundamental level such that there would be no symptoms to mitigate. In the end, Machiavelli is at a loss. He wants to see discipline overcome nature, but he has no idea how to make this fully happen. In one sense, Machiavelli conceives of something like the emptiness described in the Daodejing. It is not difficult to see how passages in the Daodejing such as “[t]he sage has no mind of his own. He takes as his own the mind of the people,” 86 and “[i]s it not because he is without thought of self that he is able to accomplish his private ends?” 87 can translate into Machiavelli’s dictum that one must devote oneself to the good of the state, and not one’s own personal gains. However, in grounding all his counsels in the perspective of the ego, Machiavelli takes the ego for granted, and therefore fails to recognize that inflexibility is rooted in the ego. Having failed to diagnose the problem, he is powerless to offer a cure; the most Machiavelli can do is treat the symptoms. EMPTINESS AND THE NATURAL WORLD Divergences can be seen between Machiavelli’s conception of emptiness, if it can be called that, and Laozi’s. Specifically, like Han Feizi’s use of emptiness, Machiavelli’s conception of emptiness is both much more shallow and limited than the radical version offered by his Daoist counterpart. Thus Laozi counsels the sage ruler to “[e]xhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncarved block, / Have little thought of self and as few desires as possible.” 88 The uncarved block, the state of almost primordial simplicity, is key to the most efficacious form of rule, namely where the sage-ruler becomes superfluous and the people rule themselves of their own accord as the sage-ruler would rule. Thus, in chapter 37 Laozi maintains: The nameless uncarved block Is but freedom from desire, And if I cease to desire and remain still, The empire will be at peace of its own accord. 89

Not only does this conception of emptiness exceed anything Machiavelli considered—for despite the simple and focused lifestyle he encourages the prince to lead, Machiavelli believes that successful rule requires being highly visible so that his abilities may be both admired and feared by his subjects— but it also extends beyond the rule which Machiavelli ascribes to the prince. Thus in chapter 16 of the Daodejing, the sage-ruler proclaims:

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Chapter 5 I do my utmost to attain emptiness; I hold firmly to stillness. The myriad creatures all rise together And I watch their return. The teeming creatures All return to their separate roots. Returning to one’s roots is known as stillness. 90

The domain of the sage-ruler thus does not stop at the people, as does the rule of the prince, but continues into the natural world. This key difference, as has been seen, permeates and separates Machiavelli and Laozi at crucial points throughout their philosophies. Part of the sage-ruler’s role is to mediate between the human and nonhuman dimensions of the world, whereas Machiavelli assigns no such task to the prince or republican ruler. For Machiavelli, nature is nothing more than the backdrop against which human activity occurs, even though he was aware of how heavily human activity—culture and civilization—was tied to and interconnected with the natural order. Machiavelli’s inability to conceive of a ruler without ego has serious consequences, not just for society, but for the natural world too. If the ego does not cause the prince or republican ruler to impose upon or oppress his people, become distracted, or otherwise make a tactical blunder, it will at the very least prevent him from sustaining flexibility for a prolonged period of time, and in the broadest picture creates an adversarial relationship with nature because it privileges human interests over nonhuman interests. Even with Machiavelli’s clumsy grasping at something akin to the profound emptiness advocated by the Daodejing, which if successful, would in principle endow the prince with sufficient flexibility to survive all his engagements with Fortune until she eventually claims him in death, the efficacy of Machiavelli’s counsel may be coming to an end. The assumption that underlies all of Machiavelli’s writings, the idea that culture is above nature, can no longer be taken for granted. Inherent in Daoism is an emphasis on ecology; the sage-ruler regulates not just society and culture, but that culture’s place in the nonhuman world. It remains to be seen if Machiavellian politics can continue to flourish if this assumption is exposed and discarded, 91 except in the shortsighted and banal way that prompts contemporary leaders to use environmental crises in a self-serving manner as election issues. Or perhaps the fate of our culture is to return to Circe in failure, and have our species, our roads and buildings, automobiles, and other consumer goods overrun and reclaimed by nature. 92 Machiavellian thought has endured on an institutional level longer than either the Daoism of the Daodejing or the Legalism of the Han Feizi because Machiavelli’s philosophy includes elements that resonate with the strengths of both philosophies, and this grants him a flexibility for dealing with times

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of peace and times of crisis that the other systems lack (the Han Feizi much more so than the Daodejing). Simply put, Machiavelli’s cyclical conception of history, an account that recognizes times of corruption are inevitable, requires him to formulate a political philosophy that is not only able to create or restore order in the face of chaos, when human beings are at their worst, but also able to rule during times of peace. The Legalism of Han Feizi is only capable of bringing order to troubled times, and it does so at such a high cost to the people in terms of what it means to be human, that when the chaos is no longer imminent, the people can no longer bear the burden. Laozi’s philosophy can maintain a state that is small and well ordered, but it becomes clear that the political philosophy of the Daodejing has logistical limits— large states, aggressive neighbors, and the ability to rejuvenate a state that has become corrupt are weaknesses the Daodejing does not really address. Strategies of non-contention are incredibly effective, but have their limits, and the Daodejing speaks of violence in sufficiently vague terms that it is unclear how a sage-ruler who had no experience leading an army into battle would benefit except in the most abstract ways from this text. This is why, with the exception of the brief reign of the Celestial Masters sect, Daoist states do not exist and Legalists states have been short-lived. However, the most successful states and empires, from Rome through to the major nationstates of the twenty-first century, can be seen to embrace many aspects of Machiavelli’s philosophy. These nations have carefully crafted constitutions, strong militaries and domestic police forces, republican-styled checks and balances designed to prevent oppression and channel the interest of the upper and lower classes in ways that make the state strong, and provisions for limited centralization of power during times of supreme emergency. Admittedly, their politicians often indulge in the shortsighted and tawdry corruptions which Machiavelli warns leaders against, but which his name has become associated with; yet successful states follow, in rough outline, Machiavelli’s political philosophy. Those that do not are consigned to the history books far sooner than those which acknowledge the wisdom of the Florentine civil servant. Machiavelli’s philosophy is complete in the sense that it embraces all aspects of the historical cycle, whereas the Daodejing and the Han Feizi are two half-solutions to the problem of permanently securing a strong, orderly state in the face of a hostile international scene and a corrupt domestic population. Yet even Machiavelli cannot secure order indefinitely; over the course of history, corruption is inevitable at the institutional level, and the prince himself is subject to his own limited human nature and mortality. Conceptualizing the problem and formulating his solution from within the sphere of the ego, Machiavelli could only see the human condition as a contest with Fortune in which human actors may win specific battles, but would always lose the war to Fortune. What persons could do to combat

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Fortune was limited to a struggle between nature and habit, one in which the inertia of the battle was always on the side of nature, rendering success or failure largely a matter of whether one’s nature coincided with Fortune’s ways at the moment. The role of habit, however, creates a space in which a significant beachhead can be established against Fortune. Machiavelli develops the idea piecemeal throughout his writings to the extent that it applies to the character of the prince, the army, and even of the people, but the effectiveness of habit to render a prince or a people sufficiently flexible to adapt to Fortune’s whims, or endure her wrath when the former is not possible, is limited because it never occurs to Machiavelli to ground habit in emptiness the way Laozi does. If Machiavelli had the perspective of emptiness and the self-cultivation techniques such as apophatic meditation as present in the Daodejing, a new primordial option from which to engage Fortune would emerge, one in which the prince adopts Fortune’s perspective (the flow of events) as his own (effectively living in the moment), and positions himself accordingly, as opposed to adapting his plans to hers or turning his back on her when he is no longer held in her favor. As Machiavelli says in the Tercets on Fortune: Not a thing in the world is eternal; Fortune wills it so and makes herself splendid by it, so that her power may be more clearly seen. Therefore a man should take her for his star and, as far as he can, should every hour adjust himself to her variation. 93

It is ironic that Machiavelli, the pragmatist, had his eyes so fixed on the starry sky that he never considered that the principle his prince needs to successfully align himself with was that of the profound emptiness that the Daodejing locates hidden beneath, and obscured by, the ego. NOTES 1. Ssu-ma Ch’ien, Records of the Historian, in D.C. Lau, “Introduction,” in Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1963), viii–ix. 2. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 30, 32–33. 3. Machiavelli, The Art of War, book 1, 580. 4. In chapter 3 of The Prince Machiavelli advises that the laws and customs of a newly conquered territory not be changed, and in Discourses 1.25 he insists that at least giving the appearance of continuity to the laws and customs of a newly acquired territory is the preferred way of maintaining it. Machiavelli discusses putting off dealing with problems grown large in Discourses 1.33. 5. Han Feizi uses the term “empty” and “emptiness” to describe the ruler’s disposition in chapters 5, 8, and 60. See Basic Writings, 16 and 35–37, and Complete Works, 185. 6. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1994), 466. 7. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 8, 31. 8. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 18, 61. 9. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 19, 63, and chapter 20, 75. 10. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapters 12–3, 42–50.

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11. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 82. 12. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 30–31. 13. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 104. 14. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 20. 15. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 32–33. 16. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 30. 17. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 111. 18. Machiavelli, The Art of War, book 1, 580. 19. Han Fei Tzu, Basic Writings, 99. 20. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 12, 42. 21. Machiavelli, Tercets on Ambition, 737. 22. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 46, line 104. 23. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 30, line 69a. 24. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.6, 35. 25. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.6, 36. 26. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 74, line 180. 27. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 38, line 82. 28. Peerenboom, 189. 29. Clark, 71. 30. Clark, 71–72. 31. Machiavelli, Tercets on Ambition, 737. 32. Clark, 72. 33. Clark, 77. 34. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 68, lines 166–166a. 35. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 49, line 112. 36. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 5, line 14. 37. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 37, line 81. 38. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 31, line 72. 39. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 30, line 69b. 40. Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 65. 41. LaFargue, 201. 42. Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 76. 43. Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing, 81–82. 44. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 36, line 79a. 45. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 43, line 98. 46. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 17, 58. 47. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 8, 34. 48. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.1, 248. 49. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.1, 248. 50. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 74, line 180. 51. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 23, line 52. Lau claims that the word translated as “loss” does not make sense, and may be “a graphic error for ‘heaven,’” 28; however, as I explain in the text, the passage does make sense. 52. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 67, line 164a. 53. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 73, line 177. 54. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.1, 246. 55. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.1, 248–49. 56. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.55, 136. 57. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.9, 45. 58. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.20, 73. 59. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.19, 71. 60. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.34, 94–95. 61. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 1.34, 95. 62. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.25, 317. 63. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.22, 311. 64. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.9, 282.

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65. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.9, 282. 66. Han Fei Tzu, Complete Works, 185. 67. Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 23, 81. 68. LaFargue, 194. 69. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.9, 282. 70. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 71. Machiavelli, Familiar Letter 120, April 9, 1513, to Francesco Vettori, 900–901. 72. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 747. 73. Machiavelli, Familiar Letter 116, January 1512–(1513), to Piero Soderini, trans. Allan Gilbert, in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, 897. 74. Machiavelli, The Golden Ass, 752. 75. Machiavelli, The History of Florence, 3.5, 1146. 76. Machiavelli, The Art of War, book 2, 608. 77. Machiavelli, The Art of War, book 6, 694. 78. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.36, 340. 79. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.36, 340. 80. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.36, 340–41. 81. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.36, 341. 82. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.36, 341. 83. Machiavelli, Tercets on Ambition, 737. 84. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 2.29, 236. 85. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, 3.31, 328. 86. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 49, line 110. 87. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter, 7, line 19a. 88. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 19, line 43a. 89. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 37, line 81. 90. Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching, chapter 16, line 37. 91. The call for such exposure has already been made by French philosopher Michel Serres in his The Natural Contract, trans. Elizabeth MacArthur and William Paulson (Ann Arbor [MI]: University of Michigan Press, 1995). 92. For a fascinating description of nature reclaiming the cultural accomplishments of our species, including the amazing speed with which this would happen, see Alan Weisman, The World Without Us (Toronto [ON]: HarperCollins, 2007). 93. Machiavelli, Tercets on Fortune, 748.

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Index

Abram, David, 173n36 abuse, 198 aesthetics, ethics and, 107 aggression, 90, 129 agriculture, 12, 127, 184 Albizzi, Rinaldo degli, 62, 63, 72 Alexander, VI (Pope), 33–34, 62–63, 63, 72, 117, 133, 160 Alexander the Great, 198 ambition, 185 Ames, Roger T., 9–11, 195 anarchy, Daodejing and, 9–10, 11–12, 24, 25n4, 187 animal world, 109–110 apophatic meditation, 98, 111, 138, 202–203, 206, 209 Arendt, Hannah, 181 aristocracy, corruption and, 80 The Art of War (Machiavelli), 17, 44n12, 49, 125, 177, 184, 204 assassination, rulers and, 38, 104, 182; of the Graachi, 85 Ausonius, 129–130 authority, of prince, 198 Balaban, Oded, 50 Basu, Sammy, 49, 91n5, 114 beginning, returning to, 5, 81, 83–84, 100, 102, 112, 118, 196–197 Behuniak, James, Jr., 19 Berlin, Isaiah, 14, 15, 25n5, 36

Boethius, Fortune and, 49 The Book of Lord Shang, 13, 181, 183 Borgia, Cesare, 33–34, 35, 62–63, 171, 182 bureaucracies, 8, 13, 87, 123, 159, 168, 195, 202 Camillus, 206 Cao Gui, 191 Celestial Masters, 2, 25n4, 185 centaur, 98, 135–141 Charles, VIII, 32–33, 35 China, as manuscript culture, 19. See also Warring States China Chiron, 37, 97, 109, 139. See also centaur Christianity, 20, 135; Fortuna and, 91n5; Machiavelli and, 31, 37, 45n18, 91n5, 91n7, 109, 160–161; virtue of, 160–162 Cincinnatus, Lucius Quintus, 199 Circe, 59, 71; Dao and, 72–76; description of, 74–75; domain of, 76; exile of, 75; masculinity and, 74; nurturing aspect of, 74; origins of, 73; water and, 74 civic liberty, 85 civic virtù, 99–101, 126, 165, 180 civilization, 7, 10, 60 civil war, 90 Clark, John P., 9–10, 187–189 cleverness, 54, 86, 87 Clizia (Machiavelli), 52–53 cloud ladders, 39 community, 173n36 219

220

Index

competition, 189 conflict, 2–3, 43, 85, 189. See also war Confucianism: Dao and, 53; Daodejing and, 1–2, 186–187; Daoism and, 195; government and, 159; Han Feizi and, 151, 155, 157; loyalty to state and, 159; Mohist thought and, 149 Confucius, 97; De and, 101; ego and, 187; Han Feizi and, 157, 158, 159, 173n38; Lao Dan and, 40; Laozi and, 39, 136; people and, 164 consciousness, 107, 110, 138 control, Fortune and, 51–52, 58, 205 corruption, 5–6, 43; aristocracy and, 80; conditions for, 84; Daodejing and, 29, 179, 209; desire and, 83–84; government and, 87; Han Feizi and, 12; inevitability of, 200; laws and, 87; Legalism and, 23; legal system and, 122–123; manipulation and, 123; papal, 132; prince and, 116; rule and, 98; sageruler and, 12, 124; state, 5–6, 98, 161, 197; transformation of, 179; violence and, 194; war and, 86, 184 crime, power and, 112 Crown Prince of Qin, 166, 182–183 culture, 50, 75, 81, 90, 109, 114, 208 cunning, 51, 110, 130, 139, 165, 178 customs, 132–133, 181, 184–185, 204, 210n4 Dao, 6, 20; characteristics of, 55; Circe and, 72–76; Confucianism and, 53; Daodejing and, 53–54; De and, 101; disconnect from, 89; emulation of, 83; existence and, 55; Fortune and, 22, 47, 73; Han Feizi and, 178; harmony and, 87; human action and, 60; human interests and, 66–68; humanity and, 48; inexhaustibility of, 59–60; language and, 48, 49, 54, 55–56; Mohists and, 53; peace and, 151; power of, 60; representation of, 47; sage-ruler and, 48; society and, 88; translation of, 53; as unknowable, 54, 55; as void, 56; water and, 64–66; as wheel, 58, 73, 77 Daodejing (Tao te Ching), 1; anarchy and, 9–10, 11–12, 24, 25n4, 187; authorship of, 40; circulation of, 19; civilization

and, 10; Confucianism and, 1–2, 186–187; contextual understanding of, 57; corruption and, 29, 179, 209; culture and, 109; Dao and, 53–54; De and, 101–103; desire in, 75, 105–106, 106, 107–108; dyads and, 56, 191; earliest known Western, 18; feminine imagery of, 187, 191; force and, 13; Han Feizi and, 12, 148, 168; harmony and, 187–189; highest good, 49; history and, 81–82, 149; humanity in, 6; ideal state in, 82, 83; inequality in, 11; interconnectedness in, 76–78, 79, 81–82, 189; interpretations of, 20; language and, 54, 56; Laozi and, 39; Machiavelli and, 6, 7, 23, 206; meditation in, 111, 202–203, 206; nature and, 108; nature of, 41; newly discovered versions of, 18; nothingness in, 76–77; oral tradition and, 41; origin of, 18, 39–41; pacifism and, 66, 187; peace and, 12, 23; power in, 120; regulation of time in, 126–127; revolution and, 42; rulers and, 113; selfcultivation in, 202; social decay in, 86–91; strength and, 66; violence and, 13, 178, 185–192, 195; water, 47, 61, 74, 191–192; weakness in, 47, 57, 66; Western culture and, 20; youth and, 70–71, 83 Daoism, 6, 40, 107; Confucianism and, 195; Han Feizi and, 23, 151, 171; opposing principles in, 178; peace and, 195; permanence and, 127 da Vinci, Leonardo, 61–62 De, 22, 97; Confucius and, 101; Dao and, 101; Daodejing and, 101–103; sageruler and, 101–102, 117, 118, 158, 180, 200; virtù and, 102; Warring States China and, 101 death, 88; Fortune and, 62–63, 64; people and, 186; rulers and, 198, 200; transcending, 81; virtù and, 166 de Orco, Remirro, 171, 182 desire: corruption and, 83–84; in Daodejing, 75, 105–106, 106, 107–108; ego and, 111; human nature and, 104; Laozi on, 111; longevity and, 113; Machiavelli and, 109; natural and

Index unnatural, 105–106, 108, 109; nature of, 105–110, 118; needs versus wants, 108; non-contention and, 134; overindulgence and, 108, 109; people and, 124; rulers and, 163–164; sage-ruler and, 103–105, 108, 111, 114–116, 118, 207 destiny, Fortune and, 62 Di, 37–38 dictators. See rulers dictator, office of, 5, 123, 183, 198–200 discipline, 204–207 Discourses (Machiavelli), 1, 16, 36, 44n12, 57, 80, 117 disease, 32 disorder, 12 divine authority, 38 dragon, 135–141 dyads of Daodejing, 56, 191 economy, 32, 84, 189 education, 101, 184, 196 ego, 23, 60, 67, 94n123; Confucius and, 187; desire and, 111; emptiness and, 181, 210; history and, 149; interconnectedness and, 180; limitations of, 179–180; Machiavelli and, 194; meditation and, 206; noncontention and, 136–137; rulers and, 134–135, 178, 179–180, 194–195; sage-ruler and, 187, 190, 195; selfinterest and, 154; social decay and, 90; transcending, 154, 179–180, 181, 187, 194, 202; virtù and, 201 emotions, 171 emptiness, 23; ego and, 181, 210; flexibility and, 201–203; habit and, 210; Han Feizi and, 202; Legalism and, 181; nature and, 207–210; sage-ruler and, 111, 115, 118, 136, 168, 179, 208; wu-wei and, 181 environmentalists, 106 ethics, 2, 86–91, 107, 112 evil, necessity and, 182 exhibitionism, 100, 133 existence, Dao and, 55 factionalism, 89, 112, 119, 197, 198 family size, 29

221

famine, 32 fear, 102–103, 134, 152, 171, 182, 193 feminine, 22, 24, 48, 53, 57–58, 59, 61, 68–69, 71, 73, 178, 187, 191, 205. See also women Ferdinand, II, 33 fighting, 97, 139 Flanagan, Thomas, 51 flexibility, 98, 178; centaur and, 139–140; dragon and, 140; emptiness and, 201–203; of sage-ruler, 127, 136, 179; wu-wei and, 137–138, 140–141 Florence, 34, 35, 61, 69, 160, 196, 204 force, 10, 13 foreigners, indigenous persons and, 79 Fortuna, 37, 48, 50, 50–51, 61, 71, 91n5 Fortune, 6; Boethius and, 49; complexity of, 58; conception of, 51; control and, 51–52, 58, 205; cyclical nature of, 81; Dao and, 22, 47, 73; death and, 62–63, 64; destiny and, 62; as entity, 50, 58; favoritism of, 68; femininity of, 57–58, 68–69; gender and, 48; God and, 49; as goddess, 71–72; human action and, 60; human affairs and, 81; human interests and, 66–68; inexhaustibility of, 59–60; as lady, 68–69, 70; language and, 48, 49; Machiavelli's depiction of, 49, 58; manifestation of, 51; morality and, 66; nature and, 61–64; palace of, 65–78; patience of, 62, 63–64; power and, 60, 72, 78, 206; prince and, 130–131, 139, 154; qualities of, 71–72; as river, 60–64, 72, 81, 129; in Roman times, 49; rulers and, 47; state and, 5, 196–197; as unknowable, 57–58; virtù and, 50; as wheel, 58, 64, 67, 80, 81, 135, 153; wuwei and, 138 Freccero, John, 68–69, 93n82 free government, 128 French Invasion, 31, 32–33 fury. See habit, nature and gambling, 116 garden of Eden, 135 gender, 24, 48, 68, 70 generosity, 84, 86, 122 glory, Machiavelli on, 134 God, 49, 135

222

Index

The Golden Ass (Machiavelli), 59, 72, 80; animal world in, 110; Circe's description in, 74–75; narrator of, 93n98; title of, 93n98 government, 87, 128, 159, 196 Graham, A. C., 40, 53, 56 Gramsci, Antonio, 15 Greek philosophy, 135 Guodian bamboo slips, 18–19 Guodian tomb, 19 habit, nature and, 203–207, 209–210 Hampshire, Stuart, 173n53 Han Feizi (Han Fei Tzu), 1, 26n27; background of, 42; Confucianism and, 151, 155, 157; Confucius and, 157, 158, 159, 173n38; Dao and, 178; Daoism and, 23, 151, 171; on happiness and misery, 152–153, 153; harshness of, 8; heritage of, 42; history and, 148–149, 149–150, 150–154, 155–156, 180; on Laozi, 157; on laws, 168; Li Si and, 43; Machiavelli and, 17, 23, 43, 147–148; morality and, 156; peace and, 184; poisoning of, 43; in prison, 43; on punishments, 177, 183–184; Qin and, 43; religion and, 156; self-interest and, 154; writings of, 42 Han Feizi, 1; corruption and, 12; Daodejing and, 12, 148, 168; disorder and, 12; emptiness and, 202; family size, 29; human nature in, 157–158; interpretations of, 13; Machiavelli and, 7–8; rulers and, 13; violence and, 183–185. See also Legalism Hansen, Chad, 20, 41, 53, 54, 108–109 happiness, misery and, 152–153, 153 Hardy, Julia M., 20 harmony, 87, 88, 114, 187–189 hatred, 102, 104, 167, 171, 182, 192–193 health, 85; of sage-ruler, 113; of state, 89, 100, 112, 113–114, 117, 133, 144n108, 197; war and, 32 Henricks, Robert G., 19–20 heroic virtù, 99–101, 102 highest good, 47 history: culture and, 81, 114; Daodejing and, 81–82, 149; ego and, 149; epistemological problems with,

149–151; Han Feizi and, 148–149, 149–150, 150–154, 155–156, 180; laws and, 150; Machiavelli and, 4, 7, 9, 22, 48, 79–81, 100, 133, 134, 149, 150, 152, 156, 209; social decay and, 150; time and, 128 The History of Florence (Machiavelli), 29, 61, 79–80, 143n56, 152 Holy League, 34 Huang-Lao movement, 17, 26n27 Hui, Victoria Tin-bor, 17, 166 human action, 50–51, 60 human affairs, 81 human condition, 177, 203 human interests, 66–68 humanity: animal world and, 109; Dao and, 48; in Daodejing, 6; Machiavelli and, 6–7, 110; nature and, 60, 97, 135, 205 human nature, 23; desire and, 104; in Han Feizi, 157–158; Laozi and, 154; Machiavelli and, 4, 15, 189; mortality and, 209; rulers and, 154, 169; selfinterest and, 155 Hundred Schools of Thought, 1, 37 hunger, 132 hunting, 116, 164 immortality, 81, 114, 133–134 indigenous persons, foreigners and, 79 inequality, 11, 85 innovation, 118–119 interconnectedness, 23, 179; in Daodejing, 76–78, 79, 81–82, 189; ego and, 180; in Machiavelli, 78–79; success and failure, 78, 94n123 Italian peninsula, 30, 31, 32–33, 44n4 Ivanhoe, Philip J., 53 Jean of Anjou, 143n56 jia (schools of thought), 6 Jove, 59, 73, 73–74 Jullien, François, 17, 135, 136, 140 Julius, II (Pope), 34, 139–140, 199 labor, specialization of, 84 LaFargue, Michael, 20–21, 38, 41, 54, 56–57, 191, 202, 203 land ownership, 189

Index language: Dao and, 48, 49, 54, 55–56; Daodejing and, 54, 56; Fortune and, 48, 49; primordiality and, 55–57; truth and, 54 Lao Dan, 40, 41 Laozi (Lao Tzu), 1; ambiguity of, 9; biography of, 39, 41; civilization and, 7; Confucius and, 39, 136; culture and, 75; Daodejing and, 39; departure from city, 42; on desire, 111; education and, 101; Han Feizi on, 157; human nature and, 154; Lao Dan and, 40, 41; literature concerning, 18; Machiavelli and, 6–7; on manipulating people, 123–124; as myth, 40, 41; on ranking of rulers, 131; religion and, 156; rulers and, 7; state and, 9; status and, 42; violence and, 190; virtue and, 177. See also Daodejing; Daoism; sage-ruler laws: animal world and, 110; appearance of, 182; authority of, 183; changing, 167; conquered territory and, 181, 210n4; continuity of, 181, 210n4; corruption and, 87; enforcement of, 172, 180, 197; exceptions to, 165, 166; fear and, 193; Han Feizi on, 168; history and, 150; impartial application of, 184; Machiavelli on, 85, 165; morality and, 181–182; nature and, 2; non-interference and, 168; people and, 182; punishments and, 165, 166, 167; rule by law, 23, 139, 167, 171, 178; rule of law, 23, 101, 124, 167, 182, 183; rulers and, 117, 165–167; simplicity of, 165; social decay and, 120; social structures and, 5; state and, 171, 199. See also rule of law laziness, 4, 54, 80, 84, 128, 153 leadership, 118–123, 131 Legalism, 2, 6, 7–8, 26n27; corruption and, 23; emptiness and, 181; war and, 184; Warring States China and, 149. See also Han Feizi; Warring States China legal system, corruption and, 122–123 legitimacy, rule and, 11 Leo, X (Pope), 35 Lewis, Mark Edward, 127 The Life of Castruccio Castraccani of Lucca (Machiavelli), 44n12, 48, 63, 72

223

lifestyle, 84, 105, 113 Li Si, 42–43, 43 Liu, Xiaogan, 20, 40, 53 longevity, 8, 42, 50, 63, 83, 89, 112, 113, 114, 119, 127, 131, 136, 154, 156, 165–166, 178, 185 Louis, XII, 33 loyalty to state, Confucianism and, 159 Lukes, Timothy J., 63–64 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 1; background of, 34; biography of, 34; Borgia and, 35; Christianity and, 31, 37, 45n18, 91n5, 91n7, 109, 160–161; on church, 31; church and, 109; civilization and, 7; corpus, 36; Daodejing and, 6, 7, 23, 206; dedications of, 44n12; depiction of Fortune, 49, 58; desire and, 109; ego and, 194; exile of, 36; Florence and, 34, 35, 69; gender and, 70; on glory, 134; Han Feizi and, 17, 23, 43, 147–148; Han Feizi and, 7–8; history and, 4, 7, 9, 22, 48, 79–81, 100, 133, 134, 149, 150, 152, 156, 209; human condition and, 203; humanity and, 6–7, 110; human nature and, 4, 15, 189; interconnectedness in, 78–79; interpretations of, 3–4, 14–15, 17; Italian peninsula and, 30, 44n4; Laozi and, 6–7; on laws, 85, 165; literature concerning, 14–18, 26n48; on manipulation of people, 124–126; Medici family and, 34–35; misogyny of, 68, 70; morality and, 36, 160, 162; natural philosophy, 114, 143n58; on nature, 50, 79; non-contention and, 132; other cultures and, 26n49; on peace, 29, 31; philosophy of, 36–37; plays of, 17, 44n12; poetry of, 17; political philosophy of, 4, 16, 34, 37, 70, 114, 196; political science of, 165–166; politics and, 36, 49; positions of, 35; in prison, 35; regulation of time and, 128–131; religion and, 50, 132, 144n108, 156–157, 160–162; Renaissance Florence and, 15; reputation of, 35; scholarship of, 14; sense of humor, 93n98; social decay and, 84–86; society and, 165; Soderini

224

Index

and, 35, 69, 203; on status, 41; torture of, 35; Vettori and, 36, 69, 93n85, 130, 203; violence and, 179, 192–195, 197; virtù and, 98–101; vision of rule, 3, 16; on war, 31, 184, 204; Warring States China and, 4; water and, 61; wu-wei and, 138; youth and, 70–71 Machiavellians, 2 Maginot Line, 68 manipulation, 123–126 Mansfield, Harvey C., 16, 50, 79, 93n82, 98 manuscript culture, 19 masculinity, 59, 74 Mawangdui silk manuscripts, 19 Maximilian, I, 33, 69, 202 medical science, 85 Medici family, 30, 33, 34, 34–35 medicine, 163 meditation, in Daodejing, 111, 202–203, 206. See also apophatic meditation mercenaries, 31, 32, 182 military, 12, 189. See also war militia, 182, 185 mind, 203–204 ministers, 123, 168–172, 183, 202 misery, happiness and, 152–153, 153 misogyny, 68, 70 moderation, self-sufficiency and, 104, 122 Moeller, Hans-Georg, 18, 20, 24, 40, 41, 58, 73, 126, 127, 135, 136, 191 Mohists, 53, 149 morality, 66, 99; Fortune and, 66; Han Feizi and, 156; laws and, 181–182; Machiavelli and, 36, 160, 162; rulers and, 117 moral perfection, 107 mortality, 63, 127, 209 Mozi (Mo Tzu), 149 natural philosophy, 114, 143n58 nature: adversarial relationship with, 208; civilization and, 60; consciousness and, 107; culture and, 50, 208; Daodejing and, 108; discipline and, 204, 207; emptiness and, 207–210; femininity and, 71; Fortune and, 61–64; habit and, 203–207, 209–210; humanity and, 60, 97, 135, 205; laws and, 2; Machiavelli

on, 50, 79; opposites and, 107; society and, 156, 173n36, 191 Nazis, 68 necessity, 80, 84, 123, 147, 153, 182, 189, 190 needs versus wants, 108 Nicomaco (fictional character), 52–53 non-action, 137, 145n154, 201 non-contention, 187, 189; desire and, 134; ego and, 136–137; Machiavelli and, 132; of sage-ruler, 67–68, 87, 120, 131–132; violence and, 194; water and, 191–192; wu-wei and, 137 non-interference, 119–120, 121, 148, 168, 169, 180–183 nothingness, 76–77, 136 Nozick, Robert, 122 Numa, 198 On Occasion (Machiavelli), 129–130 opportunities, 129 opposites, nature and, 107 oppression, 85, 86 oral tradition, Daodejing and, 41 Orr, Robert, 128 over-indulgence, desire and, 108, 109 pacifism, 66, 187 Pagan religion, 157, 161 Parel, Anthony, 14, 49, 91n5, 91n7 parenting, rule and, 157–158 paternalism, of sage-ruler, 123, 189–190 peace, 179; conflict and, 2–3; Dao and, 151; Daodejing and, 12, 23; Daoism and, 195; Han Feizi and, 184; Machiavelli on, 29, 31; politics and, 8; rulers and, 72; violence and, 191 peddling, 197 Peerenboom, R. P., 17, 26n27, 98, 111, 115, 187–189, 202 people: Confucius and, 164; death and, 186; desire and, 124; Laozi on manipulating, 123–124; laws and, 182; Machiavelli on manipulating, 124–126; necessities of life, 123; rulers and, 86, 121, 199; rulers and sins of, 116–118; sage-ruler and, 11, 104–105, 113, 121, 168. See also state permanence, Daoism and, 127

Index personality, 51 persuasion, 2 physicians, 163 Pien Ch’iao, 163 Pinyin system, 25 Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel, 15 Plamenatz, John, 99 political science, of Machiavelli, 165–166 politics: ethics and, 2; exhibitionism and, 100; internal, 90; Machiavelli and, 36, 49; peace and, 8; violence and, 185, 186; virtù and, 165; war and, 8 Polybius, 37, 80, 152 population, 83–84 poverty, 122, 132, 199 power: crime and, 112; of Dao, 60; in Daodejing, 120; Fortune and, 60, 72, 78, 206; of ministers, 183; of others, 171; of rulers, 198–199; of sage-ruler, 122–123; of water, 62, 66 present, 119, 127, 128, 138 Price, Russell, 93n82, 98 primitive collectivism, 9 primordiality, language and, 55–57 prince: aggression of, 129; authority of, 198; corruption and, 116; doing nothing, 130; first, 152; Fortune and, 130–131, 139, 154; as icon, 117; identification of opportunities, 129; as political scientist and artist, 200–201; prescribed behavior of, 114–116; republic and, 132; state and, 116; timing and, 128–129; vice of, 116; virtù of, 99–101; visibility of, 133. See also rulers The Prince (Machiavelli), 16, 26n49, 36, 41, 44n4 problems, rulers and, 77–78, 132 profit, 105 property, rulers and, 102, 103, 192 prophets, 160 prudence, 51, 72, 81, 128–129, 162–164, 178 punishments, 103; customs and, 184–185; Han Feizi on, 177, 183–184; laws and, 165, 166, 167; ministers and, 170; rewards and, 120, 147, 164, 170; severity of, 171

225

Qin dynasty, 2, 40, 43, 149, 166, 185 ranking of rulers, 100, 131–135, 166 The Records of the Grand Historian (Sima Qian), 40, 157, 177 religion: Han Feizi and, 156; Laozi and, 156; Machiavelli and, 50, 132, 144n108, 156–157, 160–162; Pagan, 157, 161; state and, 161, 162; superstition and, 161–162 Renaissance Italy, 1, 15, 16, 21, 30–33, 38, 68 republic, 132, 147 resources, 147, 189 revolution, 11, 42 rewards, punishment and, 120, 147, 164, 170 riding, 116 righteousness, 107 rivers, 60–64, 72, 81, 129, 163, 192 Robinet, Isabelle, 20–21, 113 Rome, 49, 129, 186, 196–197 Romulus, 198 Rowe, Robert T., 4, 150, 172n9 rule by law, 23, 139, 167, 171, 178 rule of law, 23, 101, 124, 167, 182, 183 rulers: assassination and, 182; characteristics of, 22; conduct of, 162–164; corruption and, 98; cunning of, 178; Daodejing and, 113; death and, 198, 200; desire and, 163–164; distractions of, 163, 164; divine authority and, 38; education of, 196; ego and, 134–135, 178, 179–180, 194–195; fear from, 102–103, 134; fear of, 182; Fortune and, 47; Han Feizi and, 13; human nature and, 154, 169; ideal, 11; impetuous, 199; Laozi and, 7; laws and, 117, 165–167; legitimacy and, 11; longevity of, 113; Machiavelli's vision of, 3, 16; metaphysical counterparts of, 47; morality and, 117; non-interference and, 169; parenting and, 157–158; peace and, 72; people and, 86, 121, 199; power of, 198–199; problems and, 77–78, 132; property and, 102, 103; prudence of, 162–164, 178; ranking of, 100, 131–135, 166; relations with ministers, 168–172, 183, 202; self-

226

Index

interest of, 5, 9; sins of people and, 116–118; state and, 64, 71, 112, 169; strength of, 178; success of, 199; three modes of, 178; trust and, 164; tyranny and, 199; virtù and, 5, 198; Warring States China and, 38; water and, 64–65; women and, 102, 103; worst type of, 134. See also prince; sage-ruler sage-ruler, 9, 10, 82; agenda of, 112, 113; attitude of, 120–121; consciousness of, 138; corruption and, 12, 124; Dao and, 48; De and, 101–102, 117, 118, 158, 180, 200; desire and, 103–105, 108, 111, 114–116, 118, 207; ego and, 187, 190, 195; emptiness and, 111, 115, 118, 136, 168, 179, 208; flexibility of, 127, 136, 179; gender and, 24; harmony and, 187; health of, 113; ideal style of leadership, 118–123; innovation of, 118–119; lifestyle of, 105, 113; longevity of, 136; military and, 189; mortality and, 127; non-contention of, 67–68, 87, 120, 131–132; non-human personae, 136; non-interference of, 119–120, 121; paternalism of, 123, 189–190; people and, 11, 104–105, 113, 121, 168; power of, 122–123; prescribed behavior of, 114–116; regulation of time by, 126–127; role of, 11; self-interest and, 112; shadowy presence of, 9, 12, 101, 117, 131, 132, 133, 180, 201; shamans and, 155; state and, 180; success of, 113; as uncarved block, 105, 118, 131, 207; violence and, 194; water and, 64–65, 119–120; wuwei and, 119, 192; youth and, 71. See also prince; rulers Savonarola, Girolamo, 151, 157, 160 scarcity, 189 Scharfstein, Ben-Ami, 17 Schwartz, Benjamin I., 4, 13, 17, 20, 53, 107, 110, 156, 165 schools of thought (jia), 6 self-cultivation, 202–203 self-interest, 84, 86; ego and, 154; Han Feizi and, 154; human nature and, 155; of rulers, 5, 9; sage-ruler and, 112; state and, 194

self-sufficiency, 84, 86, 104, 122 Serres, Michel, 212n91 shadowy presence, of sage-ruler, 9, 12, 101, 117, 131, 132, 133, 180, 201 shamans, 159, 173n36 Shang Dynasty, 37, 38 Shang Yang, 12, 13, 26n27 Shen Buhai, 14 Shen Dao, 13 siege warfare, 31, 32 Sima Qian, 40, 157, 177 Sima Tan, 6 sins of people, rulers and, 116–118 skills, resources and, 147 Slingerland, Edward, 56, 57, 191 Sober, Elliott, 106, 107, 108 social decay, 54, 64; in Daodejing, 86–91; ego and, 90; ethics and, 112; harmony and, 88; history and, 150; laws and, 120; laziness and, 84; Machiavelli and, 84–86; oppression and, 86 social institutions, 132 social rankings, 89 social structures, laws and, 5 society, 88, 152, 156, 165, 173n36, 191 Soderini, Piero, 34, 35, 69, 203 Sofronia (fictional character), 52–53 Sparta, 78, 166, 174n85, 185–186 speech, 89 spontaneity, 102, 138 See also wu-wei, spontaneity and spying, 183 Ssu-ma Ch’ien. See Sima Qian state: conflict in, 85; Confucianism and loyalty to, 159; corruption, 5–6, 98, 161, 197; in Daodejing, ideal, 82, 83; disorder of, 4–5; education and, 184; failure of, 90; Fortune and, 5, 196–197; harmony and, 114; health of, 89, 112, 113–114, 117, 133, 144n108, 197; immortality and, 81, 133–134; Laozi and, 9; laws and, 171, 199; longevity of, 83, 89; night-watchman, 122; population, 83–84; prince and, 116; religion and, 161, 162; renewal of, 196, 197–198; revolution and, 11; rulers and, 64, 71, 112, 169; sage-ruler and, 180; self-interest and, 194; survival of, 5, 114; violence and, 192

Index status, 41–42, 42 strength, 66, 178 subjects. See people success and failure, interconnectedness and, 78, 94n123 superstition, religion and, 161–162 survival, 84 Tacitus, 37 Tarquins, 84–85 taxation, 88, 122 technology, 84 Tercets on Ambition (Machiavelli), 44n12, 94n123, 185, 187, 205 Tercets on Fortune (Machiavelli), 51, 57, 58 theory of humors, 143n58, 203 thievery, 88 time, 126–131 torture, 35 totalitarianism, 181 transcending ego, 154, 179–180, 181, 194, 202 trust, rulers and, 164 truth, language and, 54 Tullus, 198 Tyche, 48 tyranny, 193, 199 uncarved block, sage-ruler as, 105, 118, 131, 207 Venice, 30, 31, 33, 129, 161, 185–186 Vernacci, Giovanni, 130 VerVoorn, Aat, 6 Vettori, Francesco, 36, 69, 93n85, 130, 203 vice, 104, 116 violence, 24, 139; corruption and, 194; Daodejing and, 13, 178, 185–192, 195; effect of, 194; glorification of, 190; Han Feizi and, 183–185; Laozi and, 190; Machiavelli and, 179, 192–195, 197; necessity and, 189, 190; noncontention and, 194; peace and, 191; politics and, 185, 186; sage-ruler and, 194; state and, 192; tyranny and, 193; in Warring States China, 191; wealth and, 193; women and, 193

227

Viorli, Maurizio, 14–15, 34, 45n18, 91n7, 93n85, 125, 161 virtù, 22, 68, 97; civic, 99–101, 126, 165, 180; contradictory traits of, 99; De and, 102; death and, 166; display of, 200; ego and, 201; exhibitionism and, 133; Fortune and, 50; heroic, 99–100, 102; Machiavelli and, 98–101; politics and, 165; of prince, 99–101; rulers and, 5, 198; types of, 99–101, 102 virtue, 87, 89, 102, 104, 177 void, Dao as, 56 Wade-Giles system, 25 waiting, wu-wei and, 140–141 Wang Bi, 18–20 wants versus needs, 108 war, 114; avoidance of, 190; civil, 90; corruption and, 86, 184; economy and, 32; ethics and, 86–91; glorification of violence in, 190; health and, 32; Legalism and, 184; Machiavelli on, 31, 184, 204; politics and, 8; Renaissance Italy and, 31–32; siege warfare, 31, 32; Warring States China and, 38–39, 127 Warring States China, 1–2; agriculture during, 127, 184; armour in, 38; De and, 101; Hundred Schools of Thought and, 1, 37; Legalism and, 149; Machiavelli and, 4; military states of, 38; political conditions of, 21; problems with, 37; Renaissance Italy and, 16, 30, 38; rulers and, 38; Shang Dynasty and, 38; social standing in, 38; violence in, 191; war and, 38–39, 127; weapons technology and, 39 water, 47; Chinese conception of, 64; Circe and, 74; Dao and, 64–66; Daodejing, 47, 61, 74, 191–192; flow of, 65; ice, 192; Machiavelli and, 61; noncontention and, 191–192; power of, 62, 66; qualities, 64–65, 66; rivers, 60–64, 72, 81, 129, 163, 192; rulers and, 64–65; sage-ruler and, 64–65, 119–120; yielding quality of, 62 way of life, 83 weakness, in Daodejing, 47, 57, 66 wealth, 84, 88, 89, 153, 193 weapons technology, 39

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Index

Weisman, Alan, 212n92 Western culture, Daodejing and, 20 wheel: Dao as, 58, 73, 77; Fortune as, 58, 64, 67, 80, 81, 135, 153 Whitfield, J. H., 99 women, 102, 103, 193; French less than, 204–205. See also feminine Wood, Neal, 99 World War II, 68 Wootton, David, 99 Wu, John C. H., 4, 155, 162 wu-wei, 67, 87, 103, 111; emptiness and, 181; flexibility and, 137–138, 140–141; Fortune and, 138; Machiavelli and, 138; non-action, 137, 145n154; non-

contention and, 67, 87, 103, 117, 137, 186, 194, 195; non-interference and, 119, 180–183; paradox of, 137; sageruler and, 119, 192; spontaneity and, 103, 111, 130, 138, 154, 191; waiting and, 140–141 Xiong Heng, 19 Xiong Wan, 19 Xunzi, 42 youth, 70–71, 83, 102 Zarrow, Peter, 9–10, 11, 195 Zhou Dynasty, 37–38

About the Author

Jason P. Blahuta is associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Lakehead University. His primary research interests include Machiavelli, Asian philosophy, and just war theory.

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