Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism is not a topic you have felt much need to learn about, but that is only because you believe what you’ve been
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It says that all things in your life are relative to you. How you should behave in a situation depends totally on what you want to get out of that situation. The ends usually justify the means, and only you can say whether one method is better than another in a particular situation.
Just don’t mention any of this to your boss or your mentor. There is no reason to trouble their little minds with these big thoughts.
What Is This Web Site About?
This web site is about modern Machiavellianism. It is an outgrowth of my book, The Modern Prince: Better Living Through Machiavellianism. I wanted to expand and explore the concepts presented in the book for the enlightenment and entertainment of my readers - and for my own personal satisfaction.
Those who are reading the book may wish to check out the companion readings on this site. There is a page on this web site associated with each of the 26 short chapters of the book. There you will find ...
- Machiavellian Parables and Nursery Tales
- Machiavellian Proverbs and Sayings
- Movie Reviews for the Popcorn-Loving Machiavellian
- Inspirational Posters with Machiavellian Themes (Like the one above)
- Machiavellian Poetry
- Reviews of Books with Machiavellian Themes
- Examples from History Illustrating Machiavellian Ideas
- Charming Little Anecdotes that Make a Machiavellian Point
- and more...
Check out the Readers’ Pages, Preview a couple of chapters,
While I would love to make a few bucks selling my book and see my face on the cover of Time, greed and vanity are only two of my primary motivations for producing this site. I earnestly believe that modern Machiavellianism offers the modern reader a powerful perspective on the world. I am serious in recommending it to you as a way of understanding your mind, your world, and the people in it. I have put my very best efforts into the construction of modern Machiavellianism - my version of it at least - and I offer it to you as a gift, to use as you please.
Modern Machiavellianism is not a philosophy of life. It is certainly not a religion. I am certainly not an evangelist who is trying to convert the world to a new belief. I am not a scientist who has surveyed thousands of people to learn how their minds work. I am just a guy who likes ideas and who likes to read about them. I read Machiavelli’s delightful little book, and I wondered what Machiavelli - fully aware of the history and scientific developments of the past 500 years but still true to his original vision - would write to us today. Machiavelli’s Prince was written exclusively to the ruler of the City of Florence in the early 1500’s, but what advice might the ghost of Machiavelli give to the ordinary 21st century man or woman? This led me to create the advice columns (referred to in an article below this one). I also created Opinion columns (right) in which I used modern Machiavellianism to analyze modern politics, religion, and corporations - the three most powerful forces in modern life.
I think you will find the web site to be provocative and challenging. It questions all of our assumptions about life and living. We only get one ride on life’s carousel. Make it a good one. (View this inspirational poster.)
Have fun browsing this site. There is nothing for sale here except my book. If you decide to buy the book, then I thank you for the income and I hope you’ll send me e-mail telling me what you thought of it. If you don’t buy the book, then I hope you enjoy this web site.
Opinion
Our nation’s leadership has no vision of the society they are trying to build. They continue to say the same things over and over about the problems that they have been unable to solve for decades. Every Liberal achievement is undone by the succeeding Conservative Congress and Administration and vice versa. The result is that we are paying the bills for both both agendas but receiving none of the benefits of either.
Read a Machiavellian perspective on topics in the news. You will find it enlightening to think about the Liberal-Conservative debate from a perspective that is neither Liberal nor Conservative. You won’t read these opinions anywhere but here.
Read Midas’s new columns on:
Coming Soon:
On University Education
Evil in America
The Politics of Self-interest
Promoting Better Living Through Machiavellianism
Welcome. This web site explores the modern Machiavellian perspective on human nature and human affairs. I recently wrote a little book on the subject: The Modern Prince. In this web site, I have expanded and extended the concepts of the book. I have also found some novel ways to express those concepts, which I think you will enjoy. In August, about 3,126 different visitors came to this web site. The most visited pages during August deal with modern Machiavellianism, Good and Evil, Conservatism, Religion, The Parable of the Wise Little Girl, When and How to Lie, the Nature of Wisdom, a Preview of My Book, and Fading Liberalism. I personally recommend The Twelve Virtues of Modern Machiavellianism to all readers even if it’s not in the top ten.
This web site is divided into articles on the topics you see immediately below the “Welcome” banner. There are additional pages associated with the twenty-six chapters of my brilliant, future best-selling book, The Modern Prince. Even if you haven’t read my book, I predict you will still enjoy the Readers’ Pages. If you are a student working on a term paper, my Advice to Students page might be helpful in your quest for a good grade. Book sales remain unsatisfactorily low, but that only makes my future success all the sweeter. Like any other author, I’d like to make some money from my efforts, but I also believe that the book will benefit almost anyone who reads it. - Midas Jones
A Machiavellian Poem:
“On Luck”
Luck is the shuffle of the cards.
Luck is bird shit in your hair.
Luck is the Lotto machine
picking the numbers that you have been playing every week for five years
– making you a millionaire.
Luck is the Lotto machine
picking your numbers
– on the only day in five years that you forgot to buy your ticket.
Luck is inadvertently running
a stop sign at sixty miles per hour
– when there is no cop around.
Luck is inadvertently running
a stop sign at sixty miles per hour
– hitting a school bus
filled with fourth-graders broadside.
Luck is the difference between dropping a glass and seeing it shatter into a million splinters
– or catching it intact and unharmed on the first bounce.
Free Advice
Dear Midas Jones - 
Throw away your horoscopes and your self-help books. Tell your psychotherapist to find another sucker. Midas Jones answers your questions and solves your dilemmas with sound advice based on solid Machiavellian principles
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Midas’ latest letters:
A woman saw a coworker stealing from the cash box...
A computer programmer misused some of her boyfriend’s money...
and much more. Need free advice from Midas Jones? Write to
Trust in Human Nature: Expect those around you to lie, sue, cheat, deceive, double-deal, blackmail, equivocate, loaf, procrastinate, pay late, conceal, delude, exaggerate, deny, steal, squabble, betray, ridicule, pontificate, and forget. Click the image above to open a full-sized version. Right-click and save the image. Use it as your desktop or frame it. Enjoy.
Note to Students
If you are a student writing a paper on Machiavellianism, you might be wondering if this is “really” Machiavellianism or if I am just using the word to link my thought to Machiavelli’s popular name. I have named the concepts presented here “modern” Machiavellianism. I believe that I have taken Machiavelli’s original concepts and updated them. I have incorporated modern concepts like the evolution of species (Darwin lived three centuries after Machiavelli) into (what I call) Machiavellianism. I have created a page for the authors of term papers with some advice on possible approaches to your paper. If you are an eager scholar in search of a good grade, take a minute and look at my page of Advice to Students.
www.MidasJones.com
The Modern Prince:
Better Living Through Machiavellianism
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Download PDF - $4.95
Order the Book - $14.95
Amazon Kindle - $4.95
This little book is a short, fun read, but it is not for everyone.
- It will teach you how to get what you want out of life.
- It will teach you how to deal with those who oppose you or compete with you.
- It will teach you the ultimate nature of good and evil (and that is not a small claim).
- It will remind you that it is the people who love you who cause you the most pain in life. (Preview my chapter on love, if you dare.)
- It will challenge your ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, truth and lies.
- It will teach you how to lie skillfully, but it will also teach you that honesty is (usually) the best policy.
- It will teach you when to be selfish and when to sacrifice for the good of others.
- It will help you see when others are exploiting you for their own benefit and how to deal with them.
- It will teach you to evaluate your own strengths and weaknesses in a new way.
- It will teach you to think of your own well-being first and others second.
- It will teach you that the meaning of your life is your own personal decision.
Warning: Don’t buy my book unless you are willing to pay the price for success. To become a more successful person, you must become a stronger, more capable person. This is easier to say than to do, as we all know. My book contains no magical formulas or simplistic rules of life. It challenges you to meet life on its own terms and achieve your most cherished goals, whatever they may be.
The Modern Prince is based on The Prince, a little book of advice written by Nicolo Machiavelli to the Prince of Renaissance Florence five hundred years ago. I have rewritten Machiavelli’s classic work for the modern reader. I used the same lively, readable style that you find in these web pages. Machiavelli’s ideas have been used by the movers and shakers of the world for five centuries.
This is your one and only life. Live it by your own rules and on your own terms.
Why live any other way?
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