I confess I’m not following every last thing Titus is saying below, some of which goes into ideas Michael Anton doesn’t, but I agree with the main points of his post. What I offer here is more slap-dash and reactive. 13 points.
1.) While presented as one the American Mind’s “salvos,” this piece is a major contribution by Anton. Filled with citations to the Discourses on Livy, I know I’ll be revisiting it, alongside key works on Machiavelli by Strauss, Mansfield, Manent, Rahe, and Catherine Zuckert.
2.) What an unfortunate and ugly title, though: The Art of Spiritual War.
I’m an Anglican of evangelical background, and I would take offense at this tweak of the evangelical phrase “spiritual warfare” if I were certain Anton was aware of the connotations. And insofar as the title means to additionally point to how the essay shows our current elites oppose spiritedness—as in thumos—it simply misfires. Sorry, but Christians are always sensitive about use of the word “spiritual,” and anybody these days ought to be sensitive about loose use of the word “war.”
3.) Anton’s essay is chock-full, especially in its latter parts, of specific insights from Machiavelli on political dynamics that we might apply to our post-2020 situation. He shows how the populist-conservative turn to more combative discourse, as a necessary response to a good decade or so of progressivist success at weaponizing conservatives’ and moderates’ decency against them, might be less simply reactive, if guided by a number of quite specific strategic points laid out by Machiavelli.
4.) Anton was decisively wiser than I about the 2016 situation. I wrongly concluded, after extended back-and-forth weighing of the case, that Trump was the greater of the two evils. I regret that piece, and won’t bore you with the details my (quick!) journey from the Never Trump camp into the one of qualified Trump-support; but it matters that Anton was right on this key call. Maybe, his kind of Machiavellianism was necessary for that call. I will also report that like Titus, I find most of his work admirable, as I hope was evident from my effort here to defend him from the slander of R. Shep Melnick. One recent example of his intellectual leadership is the way he held his own on wanting more investigation of November’s election against a very sharp (and yet ultimately monomaniacal) attack by Andrew Sullivan.
5.) Anton quotes a Leo Strauss letter where he says “I can’t help loving him [Machiavelli], despite all his errors.” Well, I can’t help hating him, despite all his insights, and despite Strauss’s insistence on the need to study him deeply.
I of course hate his anti-Christian polemic (and the readings of Moses and Jesus it rests upon), but at a certain point I also hate his endless rabbit-holes. Just about every esoteric style is different, but I don’t experience the same revulsion against textual complexity, trickery, and writing between the lines when it comes to, say, Plato, Xenophon, or Shakespeare. There is a dialectical character to the Discourses on Livy, wherein the reader learns to revisit and reevaluate certain apparently dogmatically-pronounced Teachings of Machiavelli, and also to apply some of them to non-political subjects; but there is also a point wherein trying to wrestle with the three or four possible interpretive levels of any particular chapter and its relation to others begins to make one sick. The one time I studied the Discourses intensely as a whole, back in grad school, and guided by the sage Michael Davis, I was a dutifully close reader about 80% of the way through, but by the end, I was fed-up with that house of mirrors.
6.) Further, this fascination with Machiavelli is the aspect of Straussianism that I’ve long been the most wary of.
At the more immediate and personal level, I think the warnings the 20-year old Jane Austen voiced in her unpublished novella Lady Susan against the allure of “captivating deceit,” especially the allure of detecting artful deceit, should be taken seriously by our Straussians. See my explanation in the relevant section of my NRO piece on Whit Stillman’s stellar film adaptation, Love & Friendship. Anton also quotes Strauss where he says
…some of the most outrageous statements of the Prince are not meant seriously but serve a merely pedagogic function: as soon as one understands them, one sees that they are amusing and meant to amuse.
But reflecting on what the young Austen observed, can we be so sure that developing a taste for such amusement—and particularly in the case of Machiavelli’s most ornate sort of deceits—will not incline one toward vice?
The most obvious objection must also be voiced. Even if Strauss is right about the pedagogic purpose of the outrageous statements, does the potential benefit of getting through to the future followers outweigh the great risk, indeed the certainty, that not a few of those would take the “teaching of evil” as the final teaching? That is, was it not appropriate, when Jacques Maritain and Raymond Aron had their little debate about Machiavellianism in the 1940s, with the latter standing up for the inevitability of what might be called “moderated Machiavellianism” in politics, that both of them emphasized the way in which Hitler had made a kind of Machiavellianism a basic aspect of the Nazi regime? And that this reflected the tendency of the original Machiavellianism to destroy itself, primarily by corrupting entire societies whose elites adopted it, in dumb confidence that they could keep doing so without the same practices trickling down to the populace?
For a more subtle version of this fundamental objection, consider the possibility, raised by Jacob Howland, that Plato meant his Republic’s presentation of Socrates’s baiting of Glaucon with utopianism and reductively-mathematic philosophizing, as something of a critique of Socrates’s recklessness. That thesis depends, of course, on Howland’s fascinating case for the idea that Glaucon was not successfully converted to philosophy, such that Plato’s original readers knew that Glaucon had died amid the ranks of the notorious Thirty Tyrants.
If Anton is right about Machiavelli’s ultimate purpose/project, wasn’t he guilty of recklessly baiting a whole host of Glaucons and worse types into his (supposed) project of political prudence with much more dangerous bait, indeed, with the thrill of getting to live like a Callicles-in-power? Oh, but Machiavelli sacrificed his name’s reputation, as Anton several times gushes? That will suffice to excuse what was risked by using such bait? Sorry, but I’m going to need more than a single quote from Strauss, or even one-hundred quotes from him, before I can set this most obvious of objections aside. And if that means I’m objecting to Strauss himself, so be it.
7.) At the deepest level, I worry about the blurring of the line between philosophy and rhetoric potentially present in the Straussian love of Machiavelli. One can never foresee how this kind of thing will happen, but one can observe that some of the most satanic moments of human history are directly traceable to Karl Marx’s erasure of that line, with some help from Fichtean and Hegelian thought. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world…; the point, however is to change it.”1 When some Straussians speak of Machiavelli as obviously belonging to that super-select set, the capital-P Philosophers, I hear an echo of that shameful maxim, as well as the footsteps of Critias (again, see the Howland book).
8.) Anton does provide a workable scheme for how he sees Machiavelli’s pedagogy and rhetoric at play, at different levels and for different roles persons are meant to play in his project. That alone makes his essay worth studying.
9.) An awful lot is riding on Anton’s interpretation of “propaganda” (in his special sense) as the key to the correct Straussian understanding Machiavelli’s project.
10.) I will also say—likely to the detriment of my own reputation—that I sometimes suspect that Machiavelli is overrated (esp. by Straussians) as an analyst of actual political history. That he rates very high is clear. I hasten to note that I understand that some of his teachings on such history do no serious work on the exoteric level—Machiavelli’s chapter on the value of artillery, for example, was never made mandatory reading in any military academy, whereas, as Anton shows, a number of other his little “rules” derived from incidents in ancient politics do seem rather applicable today, and maybe are in all times. In any case, the overall pitch of both the Prince and the Discourses is that he has understood actual politics in Modern Italy/Europe better than anyone, and that that is linked to his having best understood the politics of the Roman republic.
But is this so? Pierre Manent’s quick take in his Intellectual History of Liberalism revealed some serious shortcomings, for example, in Machiavelli’s analysis of the plebeians when compared to Aristotle’s of the demos.
Or compare Montesquieu on Roman things.
Or consider this. I would love to read a book by a master scholar of Plutarch, one who at the least had sympathies with Christianity, and who was Strauss-influenced enough to have grappled with Xenophon also, who sought to evaluate Machiavelli’s political-history judgments. First, this scholar would collect the forty-or-so most serious-on-their-face analyses of ancient political history offered by Machiavelli, second, compare each with the judgment Plutarch most likely would have made, or in fact did make, about the incident, character, or choice in question, and third, judge which sage got it more right. This imagined Plutarchan Reader of Machiavelli’s Reading of Rome would represent the best in retrospective pagan thought about the ancient republican era. My suspicion, my hesitant hunch, is that on a decisive majority of the political topics, the judgments of this PRMRM would be superior to Machiavelli’s. Like Manent, he would arrange Aristotle against Machiavelli, but also many others that the real Plutarch was familiar with: Plato, Xenophon, Thucydides, perhaps Sallust and sometimes Cicero. And in a number of instances, he might bring Livy to bear against Machiavelli’s use of him.
11.) My fantasy-book made even more fantastical would become a dialogue, like one of those Peter Kreeft Socrates Meets Jesus things, but with Plutarch himself, and Augustine himself, discussing the Discourses. That way I could have, as interludes to the presumed sessions of Niccolo-correction, Plutarch accusing Augustine of being too un-political, Augustine going after Plutarch’s Varro-ist paganism, etc. A book like Pierre Manent’s Metamorphoses of the City can help you see why the Augustinian perspective on Rome is a necessary one for evaluating these kinds of issues, but I also mention this because just the other day we saw the publication (at Law & Liberty) of Paul Seaton’s review of a new book on the City of God, by one Veronica Roberts Ogle. Seaton’s review is titled “The Fighting Spirit of St. Augustine’s City of God,” and in it, he claims that
Augustine is the opposite of the milquetoast versions of Christianity that are so much with us these days. To a searching mind, he joined a fighting spirit. A heartfelt disciple of the Prince of Peace, he engaged in countless polemics.
His fighting spirit was also ready to recommend actual fighting, as this passage from his very rich Letter 138, to Marcellinus, illustrates:
For if the Christian religion condemned wars of every kind, the command given in the gospel to soldiers asking counsel as to salvation would rather be to cast away their arms, and withdraw themselves wholly from military service; whereas the word spoken to such was, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages, Luke 3:14 — the command to be content with their wages manifestly implying no prohibition to continue in the service. Wherefore, let those who say that the doctrine of Christ is incompatible with the State's well-being, give us an army composed of soldiers such as the doctrine of Christ requires them to be; let them give us such subjects, such husbands and wives, such parents and children, such masters and servants, such kings, such judges — in fine, even such taxpayers and tax-gatherers, as the Christian religion has taught that men should be, and then let them dare to say that it is adverse to the republic; yea, rather, let them no longer hesitate to confess that this doctrine, if it were obeyed, would be the salvation of the republic. 2
I quote Seaton and Augustine to remind readers not to accept Machiavelli’s account of Christianity’s bad impact on politics too readily or in bulk, and also to pose the objection that Titus’s essay hints at: what is the practical political sense in calling for a coalition tasked with defending America’s constitutional democracy from its now-formidable internal enemies, a coalition that must, as Anton admits, be in significant part made up of those who regard themselves as Christians, but then also suggesting that this coalition be built according to the wisdom of the openly anti-Christian Machiavelli? Simply mentioning the place where Machiavelli insists his objection is not to Christianity itself, but only to Christianity interpreted in a cowardly and vicious spirit, will not solve the basic problem.
Anton senses the problem, though, and is fairly open about it. As for his own view, he presents himself as friendly to Christians. In thinking about the public political creed needed for our time, he approvingly quotes a recent J.D. Vance speech. He even says “Our task is therefore to combine loyalty to our particular people with our obligations to God.” And that
Access to God and the Good must be restored via serious intellectual effort, with serious intellectual underpinnings, and not merely as an exoteric fig-leaf concealing the alleged “truth” of nihilism.
So Anton departs from that kind of “high” or “orthodox” Straussianism. Well and good, and I also appreciate his sober but all-too-necessary rebuke to anti-Christian admirers of Machiavelli that history has shown, and particularly in America, that what he spoke of as a “Christianity interpreted according to virtue” is by no means impossible. But the tension Titus pointed to remains: Anton is holding up as prudence a political approach that both does, and does not, want to fight atheism.
12.) Another practical problem for his recommended project and coalition is Anton’s assumption, visible in several places, that “no Machiavelli, no America.” He’s our true founder, that self-sacrificial guy who let his reputation get smeared for the sake of making a long, long, centuries long, “Hail Mary” pass, that the Americans would make the touchdown with. Even if you’ve read scholars like Michael Zuckert, Lee Ward, and Forrest McDonald, and thus have a sense of how a significant number of our revolutionary Fathers owed a thing or two to Machiavelli, via Sydney, and more convolutedly but importantly, via Locke, this is still one of those “things that makes you go hmmm….” And regardless of whether the idea is true or not, would it not be a potentially coalition-ruining move were a populist-conservative candidate to embrace it? I would even say that Anton’s own intellectual leadership of the populist-conservative movement, a role he has certainly earned, could eventually become damaged by his enthusiasm for the Florentine.
13.) A last nit-pick. Many will find Anton’s analogy of the monasteries were to the church in Machiavelli’s day, as the universities are to the legacy media in our day to be brilliant, pregnant with all kinds of applications, etc. I’m among them. I will remind us, however, that it’s just an analogy, and we should be wary of getting too taken in by striking analogies. Compare, for example the analogy that the excellent journalist Lee Smith recently made about between our “oligarchs” and their dependent relation upon Chinese economic might, with the oligarchic tyranny of the Thirty in Athens (them again!), and their dependent relation upon Spartan military might. Brilliant, thought-provoking, etc., but at the end of the day, we have to know that we have hard theoretical and analytic work to do to really understand the phenomena involved in what we are rhetorically calling “oligarchy” in 2021. Ditto with understanding China’s grand strategy. There is no reason to expect, in either case, that the episode of the Thirty will wind up being important to that work.
Similarly, Anton must know that his own analogy can only take us so far in understanding the dynamics that maintain and tie-together our corrupt universities and media. He probably also understands that his analogy is pretty unfair to the pre-Reformation church, even more unfair than Machiavelli could be accused of being to it. For example, a corrupt and too-politically-influential pope rightly scandalizes all of us, even the non-Christians, to a degree that a corrupt and too-politically-influential Jeff Zucker cannot. That’s because we all sense that the Church is supposed to be about something fundamentally more serious. Just intellectual treatment of any religion at any time requires much work, and to his credit, we see Anton resisting elsewhere his essay the pull of the idea that woke-ism is an actual religion. He brings at least that much seriousness about things spiritual to the table.
It is also notable that he backs away from the most politically serious implication of his analogy, the idea that as in Machiavelli’s time, things have gotten so dysfunctional in ours that we have to grasp towards radically new institutions and political forms. Like any good Claremonter, Anton can’t forget that there’s this thing called the Constitution, and that it rightly binds us in ways that Machiavelli felt the Renaissance Europeans could not be by the barely-functional political traditions of his day.
Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach.” P. 145 of The Marx-Engels Reader.
Text from New Advent. I’ve changed “commonwealth” to “republic.” See also the Hackett book, Augustine, Political Writings, intro. by Ernest Fortin, which excerpts about 40% of the City of God, and provides little summaries of the rest.
Carl, this is a fine post! Your sentiments do you credit & I concur in most of your judgments.
I especially agree that decent people who nevertheless involve themselves in politics in our times have an almost desperate need to study Xenophon, who uniquely puts together the claims of philosophy & politics--without all the nastiness one finds in Machiavelli. Here, I'm forced to make a concession to Machiavelli & Anton: Almost no one studies Xenophon, my academic friends assured me that working on him would be a good way of ruining my own academic prospects (they were not wrong), & his reputation is being revived in a secret guarded rather strictly by a blind indifference. Yet Machiavelli is on everyone's lips, including the decent people's who are outraged by him, but wouldn't lower themselves to the study of the Socratics...
A confrontation between Machiavelli & Xenophon on the issue of ancient politics--as you say, this might mean looking to Plutarch or Cicero, & others--is very necessary to the orientation of political thought, but if no one believes we can have a polis again, it would not be practical.
A somewhat similar problem faces the analysis of medieval Christendom. If no one can love it very much, well, the Great Schism, Crusades, Protestant Reformation, & religious civil wars are enough to damn it. Christian politics were spectacular, but tragic at the best of times...
Finally, I do take issue with the reductio ad Hitlerum, as Strauss called it. Aside from the rhetorical problem--everyone is being called Hitler these days, so we should beware, there is the problem of propaganda. Europe fell to Hitler because liberalism & democracy produced cowards & idiots among the politicians after the Great War. Hiding this ugly truth behind blame of Machiavelli is only a way of revealing that Machiavelli from beyond the grave was far more important than all the living persons at the time. This may be in some sense true, but I suggest that would be in the sense of theory, not practice. As for practice, if ordinary, decent people cannot learn hard things, they will suffer them. Machivelli gave ample examples of the horrors of his time to remind people of the reality Christianity concealed. What is one supposed to do about lawlessness?