Society and Political Theory

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, born into a time when self-serving aspirations in the name of the public welfare were the norm of public life, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote his two discourses on public government as a means of demonstrating the difference between moral and immoral governments. The author points out Erasmus taught that the moral being, which is the key to the understanding of a man's character, is the same measure that should be applied to the measure of a political leader. The paper relates that, writing in the middle 20th century, Cohn's work holds the skeptical perspective, which typifies his period by focusing on how prejudices and hatreds among the poor, especially against the Jews, the clergy, and the wealthy, were used by religious leaders in conjunction with the cultural apocalyptic expectations in order to give rise to mass movements that resulted in much mayhem and bloodshed.

Table of Contents
Niccolo Machiavelli
Erasmus
Norman Cohn
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"At the heart of the struggle across Europe was class struggle between rich and poor, between landowners and farmers who worked the land, or between poor and clergy. These ongoing struggles developed frequently into all out wars. Cohn follows the misapplied beliefs of the church, but fails to move beyond the tragic examples of those who would lead in the name of religion for their own purposed, to build a philosophy regarding how religious ethic can, and should form the mind of man in order to teach him how to lead for the benefit of others. Cohn does an excellent job of describing this process in detail and deals with much of the mysticism and religious beliefs surrounding it."

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