Machiavelli in America / / Thomas Block

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910792161003321
• Autore: Block Thomas
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New York : , : Algora Publishing, , 2014; ©2014
• ISBN: 1-62894-068-9
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (218 p.)
• Disciplina: 320.973
• Soggetti: Political culture - United States; United States Politics and government Philosophy
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Introduction; Le Plus Ça Change; The Immutability of Human Nature and Today's America; Machiavelli: Because It Works; Human Constancy: The Amygdala; It Is Better to Be Feared than Loved; Machiavelli on the Brain; A Fundamental Problem; Machiavellian Politics; Chaos and Control; Chaos and Control II; Emotional Maturity: Elusive and Rare; Truth; A Response to Machiavelli; Chapter One: Niccolò Machiavelli; The Works; The Prince; The Prince and the Church; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius; Other Important Writing; Machiavellian Thought; The Tutor of Princes; Moses: The Tutor of Princes Virtù; War and Religion; The Language of Politics; Machiavelli's Influence on Later Thinkers; Chapter Two: Machiavelli in America; George Washington; Thomas Jefferson; John Adams; James Madison; Alexander Hamilton; Machiavelli in America Today; Machiavellian American Leadership; War and the Language of Politics; Propaganda; Patriotism and Religion; The Ends Justify the Means; Political Parties; Freedom and Violence; America, Machiavelli and Fraud; Fraud and the American Voter; Machiavelli: Because It Works; George W. Bush: An American Prince; The Ends Justifies the Means Appearance v. Reality; Religious, but No Mystic; God and War; Fear; America's Dark Artists: Other Politicians; President Obama's Machiavellian Foreign Policy; America's Dark Artists: Political Operatives; Karl Rove; Rove's Wisdom; Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; Rove's Brain; Ledeen, God and the USA; An American Oligarchy; ; American Oligarchy: The Super PAC; Working Against the Common Good; The Media; The Media and Reality; All Things Not Being Equal; Media Fragmentation; The Media and the Language of War; The Media and Real War; The Role of the Media; Chapter Three: The Threshold of a New Era? Sanity v. Spirituality; Things May Be Getting Worse; Hidden in Plain Sight; Things are Getting Worse: Advertising; A Spiritually Desiccated Age; Where Can We Turn?; Power Corrupts Completely; Why Try; A Story; We Try Because We Must; Is There Hope?; Why We Can Hope; Reclaiming Spirituality; Chapter Four: The Call for a Moral Ombudsman; The Problem; _GoBack; The Amygdala: Redux; Practical Mysticism - what can we do?; Machiavellian Democracy; A Response to Machiavelli; The Call for a Moral Ombudsman; Finding the Moral Center; An Agreed-Upon Moral Code; How Would It Work? Inserting the Moral Center; A Response to Machiavelli - Using Machiavellian Methods; Heuristic Proposals and Successful Activism; Reality: As Seen on TV; Freedom of Information; Machiavelli for the Machiavellians; Co-option: Advertising; Co-option: Language; Co-Option: Leveraging Power; Co-option: History; The Media; It's a War; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Machiavelli in America traces the influence of the Florentine thinker on American politics, from the Founders (c. 1770's) through today's rough-and-tumble political panorama. Machiavelli's ideas have been re-interpreted internationally as 'real-politik.' He proposed that the 'ends justify the means,' and that any manner of fraud, violence or corruption must be utilized in attaining and retaining power. People, he assured us, are so mean, small and selfish that they will only act under necessity, so the successful prince must force the population, through whatever means necessary, to follow his