Machiavelli and Living In the World As It Is, Not as You Wish It Would Be

One of my all-time favorite philosophers is Machiavelli, who gets a bum rap from people that hate the fact that he dealt with the world as it was, not as people wished it to be. That was one of the themes of his writing. For example, this is classic Machiavelli:

“And many writers have imagined for themselves republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.”

This is the essence of modern politics in the United States. It’s a bunch of spoiled brats going, “The world should be like this instead of how it is!” There’s very little reason involved, no attempt to understand why the world is this way now and almost no consideration of consequences. Just babies laying on the floor, stomping their feet and holding their breath until they get the candy they want.

Americans tend to increasingly be like this as well and they’ve taken their own personal failings and tried to transfer them to the world. For the most part, feminists are women who aren’t pretty enough to play the traditional game, so they want to rewrite the rules. We need to have 14 million genders that people can change between at will because it makes weirdos sad when we tell them that they need therapy. Traditional masculinity has to be “rewritten” because it’s hard for “men” raised by single mothers who wet themselves at the idea of shooting a gun or getting punched in the face.