Mores utopia echoes platos noble lie

Regardless of the determined focus between the two thinkers, Machiavelli finally reaches a similar conclusion to Plato’s noble lie, that the myth is useful for controlling the masses. The decisive difference is outlined from the fact that Plato’s analysis begins with an ordered psyche that is open to the experience of world-transcendent basis and then goes down to the psychology of demos. While, on the other hand, Machiavelli starts with the psychology of the demos and goes up to the ordered psyche of the heroic person possessed of virtue. The ascent being only virtual, Machiavelli’s analysis moves within the sphere of the distributive existence of man’s relation problem to Being, enclosed in favor of acknowledging his unstable foothold in the stream of becoming (Wright, pg.

Despite the focus difference, Machiavelli finally concedes that the myth as grounded on the exercise and concentration of power by individuals in the government on the attempts of controlling the masses. Based on Machiavelli’s analysis of on political individuals who legitimize themselves as born to command, he suggests that the process of achieving efficiency as well as perfection by the political leaders is bound to many lies. In this process, the political man can bound the masses to any slavery through lies, based on the approach that the lies assure fidelity to the subordinates. The critical point of Plato’s noble lie is really expressly declared in the myth, that it works by getting masses to forfeiture their lives for others in defense of the polity.

According to Plato, the powerful politicians as described by Machiavelli grab masses’ property by legitimizing themselves as born to command, and that’s how they defend the polity by also enforcing citizens to do whatever for them. Through the public representation defined by Plato’s Republic promotes a sublimed cognitive content of reason (Ingram, pg. Machiavelli’s interpretation and analysis of Plato’s noble lie also signify the text’s use in controlling masses, through power legitimization, subjecting people to slavery as well as abusing the public’s resources. Works Cited Greene, Thomas M. “The End of Discourse in Machiavelli’s Prince. ” Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800, Volume 140, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. 31, no. 1, 2005, pp.  EBSCOhost, bryant. idm. oclc.