Western Civilization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Western Civilization - Essay ExampleThis brief outline will consider the similarities as well as the divergence that is debunked by these two authors as a function of the books they wrote and the views they espoused. Although a great many situationors can be said to distinguishableiate the understandings of Erasmus and Machiavelli, perhaps the great one revolves around the root grave that each of the authors is hoping their leadership will effect. Machiavelli puts antecedent that the ultimate good is to achieve and maintain power. As a means to this end, the nature of moral choices that atomic number 18 undertaken become of a secondary nature. What this means is that to Machiavelli, the ultimate goal is the expansion and retention of the leaders power. This can be effected through a variety of means that Machiavelli discusses. However, for the purposes of brevity, these means can be broken guttle into the nature of being feared versus being loved. To Machiavelli, humanity is duplicitous and untrustworthy. As such, Machiavelli believes that it is necessary for a leader to exhibit fearful attributes so that the prevail overs will seek to honor his will to power based on a healthy amount of fear for the different types of punitive actions the leader susceptibility effect. Although Machiavelli states that the leader should be feared and loved, this is much not entirely possible to exist at the same time for the same leader. In this office Machiavelli upholds to the reader that the most important concept to uphold would be that of overall fear due to the fact that of these two mechanisms, only fear has the ability to increase power of the ruler of the notions of fealty that love might induce. Conversely, Erasmus approaches the issue from a different perspective entirely. Rather than choosing to argue with Machiavelli over which of the two functions most dramatically increase the power of the leader in interrogative, Erasmus chooses to focus instead on which approach entails the higher masking of morality or the greater good with reference to the Christian virtue. Obviously, with respect to Erasmus Christian humanism, the answer to this question is concentric around the love of the leader. In this way, Erasmus seeks to maximize the good while minimizing the evil. In a contrasting way to Machiavelli, Erasmus even out of view is concentric upon the ways in which the leader can exploit to improve their kingdom both morally and spiritually. In this way, it is morally reprehensible for Erasmus to consider a show of view that employs devious or evil means to satisfy a given end. Although it is not the point of this analysis to break down Machiavellis approach into one that can be described by the simple ends justifies the means cliche, it does help the reader to gain a firm handle on the subject matter and attempt to understand the nuances of how Erasmus and Machiavelli both approach the same subject matter with widely different int erpretations of how the leader can maximize his ultimate utility based upon these. Says Erasmus of the moral imperative that he attempts to denote to the reader, If you cannot defend your realm without violating justice, without wanton loss of human life, without great loss to religion, give up and recall to the importunities of the age (Erasmus 17) Such a view is of course contradicted by the very realistic utilitarian methods that Machiavelli puts forward in his own treatise. Says Machiavelli, Whenever you have to kill someone, make sure you have a suitable warrant and an obvious reason but, above all else, keep your hands off other peoples property for men are quicker to forget the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance. Moreover, there are always reasons why you might