Machiavelli Against The Bullies

Machiavellian has become a byword for scheming, calculating, sinister, and manipulative. But that is exactly what Machiavelli is not. Let me explain. Machiavelli, the anti-bully? Bullies are not Machiavellian. Bullies are weak-minded, appetitive, brutish individuals who think they can impose their will by force on particular people — not to achieve any particular end, but … Continue reading Machiavelli Against The Bullies →

Why the physical world is a lie

There’s a lot of paranoia going around about ‘fraud’, ‘lying’, and ‘deception’, encapsulated by the term ‘abuse’. These are certainly ugly, often evil, realities — but not for the reason we usually imagine. In David Runciman’s seminal Political Hypocrisy, the Cambridge Professor of Politics draws a distinction between first- and second-order hypocrisy. The first-order hypocrite … Continue reading Why the physical world is a lie →