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
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.
--- Midas Jones
Topics on this site include:
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Special Recession Sale!
Book Price Cut 50%: The recession is hard on many of us. I believe my book will help those who are having a hard time right now by helping them think more clearly about their problems and how to solve them. The Modern Prince is not a magic solution to your problems. It contains no simple, cookbook formulas for success. It does not contain the “Seven Secrets of Having a Good Life” because there are no secrets to having a good life. Instead, it describes methods by which you can make yourself into a more capable person, set realistic goals, and set about achieving them. It will help the more thoughtful readers who seek a life that is profoundly more satisfying.
It will not help those who are looking for another quick-fix self-help book. If that’s what you want, save your money and just re-read the last quick-fix self-help book you bought. They are all the same.
You can obtain my book from four sources. They are:
- Amazon: a printed copy for $9.99. My royalty is $3.20 per copy sold through Amazon
- CreateSpace a printed copy for $9.99. My royalty is $5.20 per copy sold through CreateSpace.
- Download a .pdf file from Lulu.com for $5.00. My royalty is $2.81 per download from Lulu. If cash is a problem, the download is cheapest for you and I still get enough for dinner and a drink (at Taco Bell).
- Me: Write me (MidasJones@MidasJones.com) and tell me you’re too broke to buy the book. I’ll e-mail you a .pdf file (limited time offer) for free. When you are back on your feet (and if you think the book helped you), then buy a copy from CreateSpace as a gift for an intelligent friend.
A Note On My Marketing Techniques: The marketing of products has become an evil science. Marketing is based on lies 
and deception. It is designed to circumvent your rational decision making process. No matter what product you buy, you have probably been hornswaggled by manipulative advertising techniques. (Recommended reading on marketing)
Therefore, you should know that my book sale and price cut are designed to make my book more affordable to those who might be short of cash. My book has never been a best seller, to put it mildly. It is more important to me, as a fledgling author, to have more copies of my book out there than it is to make a few more dollars.
My policy is full disclosure of my business practices and marketing strategy. My marketing strategy has two key components.
- First, I do not accept advertising on my web site. I do not wish to compromise my obligation to my reader in a case where the reader’s interest and the advertiser’s interest diverge - as the usually do.
- Second, I am totally honest with my readers. I do want to sell books, but I don’t want to con my readers. There is only plain language and no fine print in my marketing.
On Truth: It may seem like a contradiction, but a Modern Machiavellian should be more trustworthy and honest than the ordinary person. The Machiavellian realizes how valuable trust is and how fragile it is. If you lie to a person once - and are caught - then he or she will never trust you again. In most cases, the truth is best. As the great philosopher Mark Twain commented, “When in doubt, tell the truth.” On the other hand, our mentor Machiavelli observed that he had known many great and powerful men: kings. popes, princes, generals, bishops, and so forth. He observed that all of them, at one time or another, lied, cheated, stole, or murdered to achieve success. If you want to be successful, he commented, then you must be prepared to lie, cheat, or steal to get what you want or keep what you’ve got. Otherwise, you may have to give up your dreams.
Is it better to lose honestly or win by cheating? How would you answer that question if asked by your child? The old saying in pro-sports, I have heard, is “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying!” Many of our most intense competitors cheat as a way of doing business. Large corporations (not all of them but most, I think) routinely use accounting flummery, deceptive marketing, bribery (both campaign contributions and outright bribes) to make the sale or get the contract. Professional athletes use banned substances all the time. In the highly competitive business of politics, the lie is just a way of doing business. “I did not sleep with that woman.” “I am not a crook.” Henry Kissinger said, “Too bad ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.” Priests lie about sleeping with parishioners and altar boys. Students lie to professors about why their homework is not ready. Citizens lie to policemen about why they are speeding. Think about it.
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.
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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$7.50
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Download PDF - $5.00
Order the Book - $9.99
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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