Each person can make their call as to whether or not you think Machiavelli’s thought, or those of modern realists make more sense than others. But Machiavelli’s relevance cannot be denied.
Gandhi denies Machiavelli’s distinction between the ends and the means (Kant did this as well, as did thinkers/activists such as Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau) and instead focus the unity of ends and means. This argument claims that the means create the kind of end that ultimately is achieved; violence and unjust action as means will simply reinforce those kinds of behavior in whatever end is accomplished. For Gandhi the oneness of humanity (and the self) was the truth, and violence and denial of this caused separation from that truth, and human suffering. Gandhi would not be surprised that the century of realism was also the century of mass killing and violence: our attitudes on human nature and power are reflected in our political outcomes. Gandhi would consider himself more realistic than the realist, whom he would think fooled by the temptation of
petty power, and the illusion of short-term expediency.
although we may admire Gandhi more than Machiavelli, the world does often seem to comport to Machiavelli’s expectations. From Darfur to Bosnia and Rwanda, we see that disorder and anarchy can breed immense evil. From Cesare Borgia to perhaps Dick Cheney (or if you want to be bi-partisan here, some might add Hillary Clinton) we can see that
Yet Machiavelli’s world was one of tumult and change; Italy was a state in crisis, it was an era of anarchy and violence. It would be wrong, I think, to take the pragmatic reflections of someone from that context and apply them universally.Ea ...