Start Date
4-26-2023 12:30 PM
Disciplines
History
Subjects
Niccolo Machiavelli, Leszek Kolakowski, Antonio Gramsci, Utopia, Dystopian Literature
Abstract
Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince is regarded as one of the first works of political realism, a text that put power and pragmatism before all else. I speculate that Machiavelli took absolutism as a point of departure because he was attempting to regain Medici favor. However, his commitment to a prince and its corresponding praxis exemplifies the power of utopia. Along the lines of Lezsek Kolakowski, “utopia” here refers to a state of social consciousness that is an inevitable product of developing historical conditions. Without utopias, there could be no social subject which processes and shapes the world. Antonio Gramsci would later identify this in The Prince and apply it to early 20th century socialist aims. However, as our society has continued to lose its subjective quality, politics have become increasingly capitulatory and utopias have become obsolete. It is now the dystopia, a social consciousness with no real subjectivity, that dominates ideology. An analysis of The Prince and its subsequent interpretations shed light on this phenomenon.
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Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/39817
Included in
Machiavelli's The Prince: Utopia and Dystopia
Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince is regarded as one of the first works of political realism, a text that put power and pragmatism before all else. I speculate that Machiavelli took absolutism as a point of departure because he was attempting to regain Medici favor. However, his commitment to a prince and its corresponding praxis exemplifies the power of utopia. Along the lines of Lezsek Kolakowski, “utopia” here refers to a state of social consciousness that is an inevitable product of developing historical conditions. Without utopias, there could be no social subject which processes and shapes the world. Antonio Gramsci would later identify this in The Prince and apply it to early 20th century socialist aims. However, as our society has continued to lose its subjective quality, politics have become increasingly capitulatory and utopias have become obsolete. It is now the dystopia, a social consciousness with no real subjectivity, that dominates ideology. An analysis of The Prince and its subsequent interpretations shed light on this phenomenon.