A Machiavellian Beauty—Ruling by Either Love or Fear

7/27/2019 A Machiavellian Beauty—Ruling by Either Love or Fear

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A Machiavellian Beauty: Ruling by Love and Fear

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emotional connotations of the spectacle of beauty may manifest as the source and

justification of ruling authority and awe-inducing power. To illustrate thisargument, I consider the historical effects of the aestheticisation of power as found,

for example, in the elaborate aesthetic investments of both Louis XIII and LouisXIV’s 17

thcentury French Courts. I will finish by contrasting this spectacular

beauty to another conception of beauty which, in our contemporary context of

political populism, is used to invoke adoration and reinforce the status quo.

1. Machiavellian Appearances

On first reading, Machiavelli’s observations in ‘ The Prince’ may appear relevant

only to a context of amoral autocratic dictatorship rather than transparent western

liberal democracy. But ‘The Prince’ , as an amoral analysis of how political power may be obtained and maintained, also considers the mechanism of a Civic

Principality that, I suggest, provides insight into problems and political tactics

evident today. In Machiavelli’s Civil Principality, power is obtained through the

favour of citizens or nobles.1

In that context, a Prince must maintain the favour of

his supporters, since the loss of support means ‘[The Prince] will have no resource

in adversity.’2

Acknowledging this, Machiavelli considers how through history the people’s favour has been gained and maintained by those in power. This leads

Machiavelli to note the primary importance of appearances, as a political tactic to

secure power.

Machiavelli acknowledges that those civil populations that are accustomed to

liberty cannot be manipulated simply by appearances, but also seek results such assecurity and the protection of liberty and property. However, he highlights that it

is more important to be reputed liberal than to actually secure liberty, and that the

inverse situation can be harmful to rulership.3

To this end, Machiavelli urges that a

Prince never miss an opportunity to demonstrate or give proofs of his capacity4.

Yet the question arises, what kind of spectacle best affirms the capacities of the

Prince and thus affirms his power? Grand public executions and wars on

neighbouring countries are recognised tactics for leaders to give proofs of their

might, but Machiavelli suggests it is not sufficient only to demonstrate might and

induce fear. He emphasises the balance that must be found in the image projected

by a ruler, who must oscillate between being at times cruel and inciting fear, yet

also appearing kind in order to avoid hate and secure favour.

Machiavelli acknowledges the difficulties that arise in this need to oscillate

between two apparently contradictory qualities, which make a Civil Principality a

less secure political structure than a Republic. The source of this problematic is

perhaps found in Machiavelli’s maintenance of the binar ies between



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cruelty/kindness, and fear/love, without considering to the capacity of political

spectacles to mitigate such oppositions. That is to say, Machiavelli does notconsider the aesthetic spectacle of beauty that throughout history has been utilised

by rulers to inspire awe and adoration in their public, whilst also reinforcing the public’s fear and inferiority.

I will compare this Machiavellian5

type of beauty to a particular Platonic

conception of beauty, as being an experience with an awesome and rapturous

vision that leaves the spectator in awe. I shall consider how this first kind of

spectacular beauty was utilised historically, aligning it to Plato’s discussion of

beauty in the text ‘Phaedrus’.

2. Plato, 17th

Century French Kings and The Spectacular Power of Beauty

Plato may be best known for identifying the arts, in his text ‘The Republic’, as

potentially disruptive influences on political order. However, there are certain

aesthetic experiences which Plato identifies in his other texts as reinforcing the

hierarchy of both the soul and the political state. Plato describes our worldly

existence as a constant struggle and competition between the opposing forces of desire and reason, represented by the image of a charioteer led by two opposing

horses. But in ‘Phaedrus’ Plato argues that an encounter with Beauty allows the

human soul to be jolted into a state of harmony and order. Describing theinfluence of a vision of beauty upon the three elements of the soul, Plato suggests

that ‘[the horses] draw near, and the vision of the beloved dazzles their eyes.

When the driver beholds it the sight awakens in him the memory of absolute beauty; he sees her again enthroned in her holy place attended by chastity. At the

thought he falls upon his back in fear and awe.’ 6

Through this bedazzling and

overwhelming encounter with the image of beauty, the soul is returned to a state of

stillness and harmony, through which the aggressive and desirous elements of the

soul are calmed, allowing for just order to prevail.

He continues to describe the penetrating power of this spectacle of beauty as

follows:

The newly initiated, who has full sight of the celestial vision, when he

beholds a god-like face or a physical form which truly reflects ideal

beauty, first of all shivers and experiences something of the dread

which the vision itself inspired; next he gazes upon it and worships it

as if it were a god, and, if he were not afraid of being thought an utter

madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a

divinity.7




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While suggesting almost a helpless or irrational response from the spectator, Plato

argues in ‘Phaedrus’ that this sensible encounter with the spectacle of beauty infact orientates the spectator on their righteous path towards knowledge of the

abstract form of beauty and the abstract realm in general.8

The encounter with beauty is a seductive force which invokes adoration but also an initial sense of

incapacitation on the part of the spectator overwhelmed by its power.

We should note that this Platonic righteous path towards the idea of beauty, whilst

in philosophical terms is guided by knowledge, when understood in the political

context outlined in Plato’s ‘Republic’ implies the citizen accepting to be guided by

philosopher-statesmen who are born with the potential to comprehend the abstract

realm.9

Thus this power of beauty confirms the established political order, since

society requires a supreme class to enlighten our path toward the heavenly plane of abstract forms.

This use of aesthetic power and beauty to confirm the rightful place of an

aristocratic elite has been used through history to associate those in power with

divine grace. The symbolism of the nobility as representatives of God’s will and

beauty on earth was economically maintained through their patronage of artists and purveyors of aesthetic finery. The relation between the spectacle of beauty the

platonic and Machiavellian reflections on fear, love and beauty, may be illustrated

in the case of two particular royal aesthetes – King Louis XIII and King Louis XIVof France.

The latter of these two kings, Louis XIV, ‘The Sun King’ is famous for his patronage and participation in the arts of the late 17th century French court. His

reign saw the establishment academies dedicated to the protection and support of

culture and the arts, which while establishing the King’s public persona as a grea t

lover of the art, also ‘served as quasi-governmental organs fulfilling the

propaganda needs of the crown through the composition of panegyrics, the design

of commemorative medals, and the suggestion of architectural monuments – all to

the glory of the Sun King.’10

Mark Franko explores both Louis XIII and Louis

XIV’s political tactics of harnessing the arts, and in particular spectacular

performance, which were interpreted by thinkers such as Etienne Thuau as an

avenue for public persuasion, as: ‘…royal performances enabled the public to

visualise the religious aspect of monarchy, whereas the philosophical and

theoretical underpinnings of the raison d’etat occurred only in writing.’11

That is to

say, through the utilisation of spectacle these 17th

century French kings would

communicate their absolute and divinely given power to an audience that was

broader than the reading public, appealing to their religious convictions rather than

philosophical or political reasoning, and thus invoking adoration and awe from the

spectators.



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In ‘Double Bodies: Androgyny and Power in the Performances of Louis XIV’Franko explores the effect that Louis XIV’s particular participation in beautiful and

spectacular court ballets would have upon the reinforcement of his status as adivinely appointed absolute monarch. Firstly, the geometric choreography would

frame the spectator ’s attention and manipulate the space of the stage to establish

and communicate reverence for the King and overwhelm the spectator.12

However,

one might argue that the power of the Sun King was communicated most

effectively not through these explicit formations establishing hierarchy, but rather

the brilliant spectacle of the refracted light produced by the King’s mirrored

costuming combined with the fractured quality of the seductive, gender-ambiguous

characters, such as Apollo, that he would play. While this aesthetic tactic is most

readily associated with the performances of le roi soleil Louis XIV, in ‘MajesticDrag: Monarchical Performativity and the King's Body Theatrical’ Franko

describes how it can be found in an earlier determination in the ambivalent

characters, performances and spectacles of Louis XIII’s French court. Louis XIII

seemed to avoid the more obvious political tactic of playing the most powerful,

masculine or authoritative characters in the ballets he performed in. Rather, in

order to reinforce his political status, Louis XIII would characterise personagessuch as the fire demon, as a means to persuade the public of his absolute power.

This persuasion was executed through the bedazzling magic of the character, rather

than just the demonstration of its brutal might. Franko states: ‘The King as a figureof enchantment and as an enchanted figure is, like the character of Armide, highly

seductive and ambivalent. Tasso depicted Armide to be, not unlike the French

monarch, a theatre of attractions.’13

This image of the monarch as an attractivesource of rapturous encounters with beauty was fostered by Louis XIII, in order to

accentuate the underlying power of his reign. The king’s bejeweled and mirrored

costume as the fire demon accentuated his image as a ruler:

The costume intensifies firelight by refracting it back at the audience. The

king’s body irradiates the bedazzling light of which it appears constituted.

Durand relates the allegorical meanings of flame, which include the

King’s passion for his wife, his good intentions towards his subjects, and

his majesty to foreigners, but also his power to destroy his enemies…..14

Note here the parallel between this description of the blinding brilliance of Louis

XIII as the fire demon, and the Platonic description of the dazzling power of the

‘godlike’ image of beauty in ‘Phaedrus’. The audience’s encounter with the image

of the monarch as the fire demon is simultaneously ecstatic, charmed,

overwhelming, incapacitating and awe inducing, invoking the dualistic meanings

of fire or the flame. The power of this spectacle is attributed not to the coherence

of the King’s message, but to this oscillation and ambiguity between stillness and




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movement, the fearful and the seductive. This image of the French King thus

answers Machiavelli’s dilemma of princely rulership as it embodies bothintimidation and adoration in the public perception of the monarch. In his

spectacular beauty, the king is both loved and feared, the public being seduced anddazzled by the ‘god-like’ brilliance of his beauty. The overwhelming seduction of

the spectator by the theatre of attractions that is their monarch incapacitates them,

like the platonic citizen confronted with spectacular beauty, who becoming aware

of humble inferiority in comparison to a divine image, can only hope to be led on

the glorious path identified and exemplified by their ruler.

3. Beauty, Perfection and Contemporary Political Populism

So what is the pertinence to contemporary society of Louis XIII and Louis XIV’s

reinforcing the adoration of their subjects by the seductive power of spectacles? Iwould now suggest that those in power today court the adoration of the public

through the aesthetic influence of a different kind of beauty.

Moving away from Plato’s spiritual interest in rapturous or sublime encounters

with superior forces, I would argue that the contemporary exploitation of spectacle

within politics relates to a more modern understanding of beauty as formal perfection. The association between beauty and the exemplification of perfection is

found in the Kantian concept of adherent beauty15

, as an object producing

reflective pleasure in being a perfect exemplar of an object for which we have adeterminate concept: for example, a perfect example of a teacup. This concept of

beauty imbues classicist approaches to aesthetic endeavour, as preserved through

institutions such as l’Academie Francaise. However, when we observe theaestheticisation of political figures and couples, we may see how this meta-image

of perfection, of beautiful couples and lives, plays a role in the maintenance of the

status quo. One might say that to some extent, this idea of the beautiful ruler,

maintains the validity of aristocratic power, as a perfect exemplar of human kind.

This is amplified by a market-driven media industry which bombards the citizen

with images of how we can be the perfect version of ourselves, especially by

purchase of goods and services. French theorist Jacques Rancière in his text ‘le

Partage du Sensible’ explores the manner in which the distribution of images in

society determines what and who in society is visible16

, and who and what remains

invisible. The media and political fascination with beauty as an indicator of

perfection reinforces a particular ethos17

that dictates perceptions of happiness that

can, in turn, sustain the status quo, socially and economically. For example, as we

marvelled at the recent royal wedding, where aesthetically everything was

‘perfect’, we forget the manner in which the media obsession with Kate

Middleton’s ‘perfect fairytale’ reinforces feminine stereotypes of success and

happiness achieved through the hetero-normative institute of marriage and



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preoccupations with class hierarchy, that on a philosophical level we might

otherwise consciously dispute.

Whilst one might not consider this royal spectacle to be a cynical example of Machiavelli’s recommended manipulation of public love and fear, it undeniably

evokes the power of awe that involves the spectator in adoration of the powerful,

thus playing upon a historically inherited class consciousness of inferiority.

Citizens might take comfort or marvel at the perfect glory of their Prince and

Princess’s exemplary life together, but one must be wary that this comfort does not

amount to their manipulation and the maintenance of social and economic

inequalities that perpetuate the injustices of the status quo, when those same

citizens may simultaneously be suffering anxieties surrounding job security, access

to education and healthcare or racial and sexual discrimination stemming fromgovernment decisions that effectively reinforce the social and economic hierarchies

of days gone by.

Conclusion

Thus while we are inclined to accept traditional binaries between fear and love,

associating the former with brutality and the later with populism, in this paper Ihave attempted to demonstrate a complex interrelation between these as political

tactics. Tactics of aesthetic seduction and intimidation may be generally preferable

to extortion of power via brutality and force. Nonetheless, I argue that one must beconscious of the element of aesthetic seduction present in contemporary politics, so

that we might not allow it to overwhelm or detract from real political issues.




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Notes

1Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, (New York: Dover Publications Inc, 1992), 24

2Machiavelli, The Prince, 25



5By describing this concept of beauty as Machiavellian I do not suggest that one

can identify this concept within Machiavelli’s texts, but rather that this concept of

beauty responds to the problem identified by Machiavelli of oscillating between

fear and love.6 Plato, ‘Phaedrus’, Phaedrus and the Seventh and Eighth Letters, Trans. Walter Hamilton, (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1973), 627

Plato, ‘Phaedrus’, 588 This arises through the ‘repluming’ or nourishing of the wings of the soul, which

allows the soul to return to its rightful place amongst the abstract forms. See Plato,

‘Phaedrus’, 58 9

While the constraints of this paper do not allow me to elaborate upon this point,

see Plato’s ‘Myth of the Metals’ in ‘Republic’ in order to identify the link he draws

between class structure, justice and knowledge of the abstract forms.

10 Joseph Klaits, ‘Men of Letters and Political Reform in France at the End of theReign of Louis XIV: The Founding of the Academie Politique’, The Journal of

Modern History, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec 1971), The University of Chicago Press, 577-

57811

Mark Franko, ‘Majestic Drag: Monarchical Performativity and the King’s Body

Theatrical’, TDR (1988-), Vol. 47, No. 2 (Summer, 2003), The MIT Press, 7212

Franko, ‘Double Bodies: Androgyny and Power in the Performances of Louis

XIV’, TDR (1988-), Vol 38, No. 4 (Winter, 1994), The MIT Press, 7213

Franko, ‘Majestic Drag: Monarchical Performativity and the King’s Body

Theatrical’, 7914Franko, ’Majestic Drag: Monarchical Performativity and the King’s Body

Theatrical’, 79-8015

See Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment , Trans. P. Guyer,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 11416

See Jacques Rancière, Le partage du sensible: esthétique et politique, La

fabrique éditions, Paris, 2000, 13 -1417

While Jacques Rancière suggests that the ethical regime of images that typifiedPlato’s era has been surpassed by an aesthetic era, I argue that his remarks pertain

more closely to changes in the way in which Art has come to be seen. I suggest thatthe place of images of beauty in society, on the contrary, still reinforces the public



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ethos, in the manner in which Rancière describes. See, Le partage du sensible:

esthétique et politique, La fabrique éditions, Paris, 2000, 28

A Machiavellian Beauty—Ruling by Either Love or Fear

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