MACHIAVELLIANISM

 INTRODUCTION

Machiavellianism is "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct". 

 

The word comes from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolo Machiavelli, born in 1469, who wrote Il Principe( The Prince).

 

Soon after its publication in the 16th century, it saw infecting Northern European politics. Having originated in Italy, it soon spread to France and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572 in Paris is seen as the product of Machiavellianism. The concept was greatly influenced by the Huguenot Innocent Gentillet, who published his DiscourscontreMachievel in 1576. 

 

 

DEPICTION OF MACHIAVELLIANISM IN ART

 

The concept of Machiavellianism was seized upon by many contemporaries. The English Playwrights William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe were enthusiastic proponents. 

 

Shakespeare's Gloucester, later Richard the Third, refers to Machiavelli in Henry the Sixth Part Three.

 

In The Jew of Malta (1589-90) Machiavel in person speaks the Prologue.

 

Marlowe's last play, The Massacre at Paris (1593) takes the massacre as its subject with the Duke of Guise and Catherine de' Medici.

 

 

IN PSYCHOLOGY

 

Machiavellianism is one of the three personality traits referred to as the dark triad, along with narcissism and psychopathy. Some social scientists describe it as a person's ability to be unemotional leading to the detachment from conventional morality and hence to deceive and manipulate others.

 Machiavellianism is the use of cunning and duplicity. It is an increasingly studied phenomenon and has recently been adapted and applied to the context of the workplace and organizations by many writers and academics.

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