Machiavelli and Stoicism on Leadership
On awe.
“Toward subjects, one should strive to be regarded with awe rather than with fear. Reverence attends the one, bitterness the other.” — Musonius Rufus
“A question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.” — Niccolò Machiavelli
Power asserts itself and crushes any obstacles to its expression. It has to — if not, then it’s not powerful enough is it? That’s the presumption.
It’s why Thomas Shelby of the show Peaky Blinders refuses to apologize to his enemies after one of his brothers, John Shelby, ambushes a Mob-star by the name Angel Changretta, beats him up along with his henchman and cuts his eye with the razor blades in his cap.
Even if Tommy had promised his family peace at the start of the season, begging for pardon shows weakness and puts his family in grave danger. He tells his brother,
“the only way to guarantee peace is by making the prospect of war seem hopeless. If you apologize once, you do it again and again and again, like taking bricks out of the wall of your fucking house. Do you want to bring the house down, Arthur? … if we lift our heels off their necks now, they’ll just come at us.”
This is a tricky situation. You can’t help but empathize with the protagonist.
Machiavelli was right.
It’s difficult to…