After the second presidential \u201ctown hall\u201d debate, more than one Republican commentator was upset with Mitt Romney for not having put the lie to the misconceptions embodied in some of the questions with which he and his opponent had to reckon.<\/p>\n
There was one fiction in particular that garnered its share of attention.\u00a0 It pertained to the issue of gender inequality.<\/p>\n
A young woman in the audience, exasperated by the idea that women get paid only 72 cents for every dollar paid to men, asked the incumbent and the challenger to account for how they planned on closing this \u201cgender gap\u201d in pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, Romney could have noted that this woman may as well be upset over witches and ghosts.\u00a0 He could have invoked plain old common sense by noting that if it was really true that employers could get this large of a discount on their labor force by simply hiring females, then men would be chronically unemployed.\u00a0 He could have observed that not only is it not <\/em>a fact that women are underpaid, but that, if nothing else, decades of gender-based discrimination in favor of women <\/em>has guaranteed them decisive workplace advantages over men.\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, Romney could have established, with the greatest of ease, that there is no gender gap. <\/em><\/p>\n But the Republican nominee didn\u2019t do any of this. Instead, he played along, and proceeded to pander to female voters with a gusto that may very well have made even his rival, the Panderer-in-Chief, blush.<\/p>\n Romney did not tell the truth.\u00a0 Neither, I am sure, did Obama speak honestly on this issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n And what is true of this issue is no less true for a number of issues to which neither Democrat nor Republican is willing to speak candidly.<\/p>\n Yet is there anything objectionable about this?<\/p>\n The famed Renaissance thinker, Nicolo Machiavelli, certainly didn\u2019t think so.\u00a0<\/p>\n Machiavelli\u2019s writings were intended to serve as a sort of instructional manual for rulers and aspiring rulers.\u00a0 Among the first things upon which he insists is that \u201chow we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his preservation.\u201d\u00a0 Machiavelli ridicules those who \u201chave imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality [.]\u201d<\/p>\n The successful politician is he who deals with reality as it is\u2014not <\/em>as he would prefer it to be.<\/p>\n Machiavelli\u2019s reality is no different from our reality: this is the reality with which we <\/em>must deal. That is, although we no longer refer to our \u201celected representatives\u201d as rulers\u2014we call them \u201cleaders\u201d\u2014the fact of the matter remains that their quest for \u201cdominion\u201d is qualified by the same kinds of considerations with which the princes of five centuries ago were preoccupied.<\/p>\n What are these considerations?<\/p>\n First, the masses\u2014we would call them \u201cthe people\u201d\u2014believe that \u201call the qualities that are reputed good\u201d should be possessed by office holders.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Machiavelli remarks that, \u201chuman conditions not permitting of it,\u201d this is simply not possible. Nor, importantly, is it desirable. <\/em><\/p>\n Even if it was possible for a prince to possess those traits that are thought to be character excellences, Machiavelli says that \u201cto possess them and always to observe them is dangerous,\u201d for if observed, they promise to \u201clead to one\u2019s ruin [.]\u201d\u00a0 On the other hand, it is \u201cuseful\u201d for a ruler or aspiring ruler to appear <\/em>to possess them.\u00a0 He should \u201cseem\u201d to be \u201cmerciful, faithful, humane, sincere,\u201d and \u201creligious [.]\u201d<\/p>\n Machiavelli states that \u201cit is well\u201d for a ruler to have these qualities and, more significantly, to seem to have them. Yet he is also quick to remind such a ruler that \u201cyou must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.\u201d\u00a0 Rulers, especially new rulers, must recognize that they \u201ccannot observe all those things which are considered good in men,\u201d for they will be \u201coften obliged, in order to maintain the state, to act against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Thus, a ruler \u201cmust have a mind disposed to adapt itself according to the wind, and as the variations of fortune dictate [.]\u201d\u00a0 He must \u201cnot deviate from what is good, if possible, but be able to do evil if constrained.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The most successful ruler is he who knows how to be like both \u201cthe lion\u201d and \u201cthe fox.\u201d\u00a0 Being powerful, the lion knows how to ward off wolves.\u00a0 But he does not know how to escape traps.\u00a0 The fox, in contrast, is powerless against the force of a wolf, even though he most certainly is adept at evading traps.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the best ruler is both fox and lion, \u201cit is necessary\u201d that he \u201cbe able to disguise this character well, and to be a great feigner and dissembler [.]\u201d\u00a0 Since \u201cmen are so simple and so ready to obey present necessities,\u201d he \u201cwho deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.\u201d<\/p>\n This last point is especially telling, for what it demonstrates is that the situation of the ruler hasn\u2019t changed in the least from Machiavelli\u2019s day to our own precisely because we\u2014<\/em>the populace\u2014haven\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n Granted, we live under a representative theory of government\u2014\u201cDemocracy!\u201d\u2014under which we \u201cchoose\u201d our rulers (our \u201cleaders\u201d).\u00a0 Yet as theorists from Gaetano Mosca to Joseph Schumpeter long ago observed, the citizenry in such a system is no more immune to the manipulative machinations of rulers and aspiring rulers than were the masses under kingship (or any other constitutional arrangements).\u00a0<\/p>\n Actually, the citizens of a democracy are much more susceptible to being manipulated precisely because they are democrats.\u00a0 Those who would rule need the votes of those over whom they wish to preside.<\/p>\n As Schumpeter said, the voter\u2019s will, far from being \u201cdeterminate\u201d and \u201crational,\u201d is actually \u201can indeterminate bundle of vague impulses loosely playing about given slogans and mistaken impressions\u201d thrust upon him by \u201cpressure groups and propaganda[.]\u201d\u00a0 For the average voter, \u201cmere assertion, often repeated\u201d is much weightier than \u201crational argument\u201d could ever hope to be.<\/p>\n \u201cThe will\u201d of \u201cthe people\u201d that politicians claim to champion is an \u201cartifact.\u201d\u00a0 Along with the issues themselves, it is \u201cmanufactured\u201d similarly to the ways in which the desires and wants of consumers are manufactured by \u201ccommercial advertising.\u201d\u00a0 As Schumpeter explains, in politics:<\/p>\n \u201cWe find the same attempts to contact the subconscious.\u00a0 We find the same technique of creating favorable and unfavorable associations which are the more effective the less rational they are.\u00a0 We find the same evasions and reticences [sic] and the same trick of producing opinion by reiterated assertion that is successful precisely to the extent to which it avoids rational argument and the danger of awakening the critical faculties of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon reading the great political theorists of the past, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the more things change, the more they stay the same.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the second presidential \u201ctown hall\u201d debate, more than one Republican commentator was upset with Mitt Romney for not having put the lie to the misconceptions embodied in some of the questions with which he and his opponent had to reckon. There was one fiction in particular that garnered its share of attention.\u00a0 It pertained…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n