EDITOR’S NOTE
HOW MACHIAVELLI CAN HELP YOU EMBRACE THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF YOUR SWING It was 1513 in the Florence, Italy and it was the worst of times for Niccolò Machiavelli. In a swift and malicious reversal of fortune, he was dismissed from his position as a high-ranking diplomat in the Florentine Republic then unjustly imprisoned and tortured for his alleged role in a failed conspiracy to assassinate Cardinal Giuliano de’Medici and overthrow and seize the government by force. Upon his release, things only got worse for Machiavelli. Not only had the republic he had faithfully served for fourteen years fallen under the rule of tyrants, he was now barred from government service (the only career he had ever known), banished from his beloved Florence (a city, he once confessed, that he “loved more than his own soul”), and exiled to the Tuscan countryside with his wife and six young kids. Accustomed to matching wits with cardinals and dukes and other powerful rulers who swayed the destinies of Europe, his life now resembled that of a peasant and he found himself wasting his days engaging in petty quarrels with his neighbors, slumming in local taverns and bars, and playing drunken card games that “sparked a thousand squabbles and angry words.” But even as he wallowed in self-pity, Machiavelli began plotting his return to public life. Facing financial ruin, burning with unfulfilled ambition, and totally bored out of his gourd, he resolved to swallow his pride and write “a little primer on politics” in hopes of gaining favor among the Medicis and obtaining a new government job. And so it was that out of Machiavelli’s intense moment of crisis came The Prince, the most revolutionary if widely-maligned political tract of all time. Some five hundred years after he wrote The Prince, critics still condemn Machiavelli for his political realism, for advocating the preservation of power at all costs, and for being the founding father of modern power politics. His name itself is synonymous with mendacity and treachery. Yet regardless of where the cold, hard logic of his pragmatic realism may lead, most close readers of Machiavelli know that for five hundred years this guy has gotten a bad rap. For one thing, Machiavelli never wrote that infamous phrase, “the ends justify the means.” What he wrote was: “In considering the actions of men, one must consider the final result.” For another, at the height of the Italian Renaissance, when most of Europe was torn by war, Machiavelli claimed that he wasn’t interested in talking about ideal republics or imaginary utopias, as many
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of his predecessors had done. “Many men have imagined republics and principalities that never really existed at all,” he writes, “yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation.” This tough-minded realism, as well as the casual, matter-of-fact way in which he presents it, is at the heart of Machiavelli’s political philosophy, and is also what has caused so much vitriol to spill from the lips of his critics. But the larger purpose of his realism is to simply warn men of the dangers of living as fuzzy-minded idealists. Instead, he urges men to live in the real world, where rulers like Cesare Borgia became great through their cunning and ruthless use of power. But let’s go back to Machiavelli’s infamous phrase, “the ends justify the means”—which, as mentioned, was originally written as “in considering the actions of men, one must consider the final result”—and this is where golf comes in when considering the ends, the means, and “the final result” of your swing! Consider Jim Furyk whose extraordinarily idiosyncratic swing is never-theless extraordinarily successful. “Jim Furyk doesn’t have a textbook golf swing, by any stretch of the imagination,”Erik Matuszewski writes in his article, How Jim Furyk Shot A Record 58 With A Golf Swing Like An Octopus Falling Out Of A Tree. “[G]olf analyst David Feherty perfectly captured its essence by describing Furyk’s swing as looking like ‘an octopus falling out of a tree.’ No matter. It’s all about the results.” Yes, it IS all about the results! And with 17 PGA Tour wins, including the 2003 U.S. Open title, Furyk is the first tour player to record multiple rounds in the 50’s and he’s done it with an unconventional swing that drives home the point: “not everybody has to hit the ball the same way. There’s something to be said for trusting your swing, even if it does look like an octopus falling out of a tree.” And there’s something to be said for coming in at #3 at the all-time PGA Tour money leaders with $75,000,000 and counting. How’s THAT for “the ends justifying the means” and embracing the idiosyncrasies of your swing? Ka-ching! Or as Arnold Palmer famously said, “Swing your swing.” And there you have it! On “the Ends Justifying the Means” and How Machiavelli Can Help You Embrace the Idiosyncrasies of Your Swing!! Enjoy your walk, Suzy Evans, J.D., Ph.D.
