Letters

When distances still were distances

It is the function of a letter that it preserves the feelings of sympathy that people that are far away from each other feel for each other. It also repairs the damage caused by a long time. It bridges even the greatest distances. It summarizes on a small piece of paper everything we have done in many days, yes, in many years. And with those who are very far away from us, we share all our prosperity and adversity with a confidence and warmth as if they were with us.

From a letter to a friend by the Dutch humanist Rodolphus Agricola, 5 February 1471

Politics according to Machiavelli

In view of the present world situation, it may be a good idea to pay attention to Machiavelli’s famous book The Prince. Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat, philosopher and political scientist. He wrote The Prince as a kind of guide for the princes of his time. Although there are hardly any ruling princes anymore in the present world, I think that this “guide” still gives insight into how politics works. Many commentators consider the idea that immoral acts are sometimes necessary to achieve political glory as one of the main themes of The Prince. And indeed, my feeling is that many political leaders in the present world are guided by the idea to get glory for themselves; if necessary at all costs. Probably, The Prince was already being written in 1513, but it hasn’t been published before 1532, after Machiavelli's death. I bought my copy of the book 40 years ago, read it then, and put it in my bookcase. It stayed there until a few days ago when I took it from its place and began to read interesting passages. The time was too short to read it completely for this blog, but fortunately, the chapters stand more or less on their own. Here are some quotations and comments.
Judging from the contents of The Prince, the first part of the book is about princedoms as such, though certainly not exclusively, while the second part discusses the desired character and behaviour of the prince. The tendency of the whole book is about what the ruler should do to achieve glory. The idea behind the book seems to be that glory is important in life. Anyway for the ruler it is; glory in the present and after his death. That it is allowed to seek this glory at all costs becomes especially clear in chapter 18: “A ruler and his promises”. Machiavelli tells us here that “there are two ways of doing battle: using the law and using force. Typically, humans use laws and animals force. But since playing by the law often proves inadequate, it makes sense to resort to force as well. Hence a ruler must be able to exploit both the man and the beast in himself to the full.” (p. 69) The latter can be done in two ways: by behaving like a fox or like a lion. The lion uses violence and the fox is smart and achieves its purposes through cunning and guile. In other words, so Machiavelli, “a sensible leader cannot and must not keep his word if by doing so he puts the prince himself at risk, and if the reasons that made him give his word in the first place are no longer valid.” The others deceive you, so it’s not a problem to deceive them. “Anyway, a ruler will never be short of good reasons to explain away a broken promise.” If it is useful to you, don’t keep your word. “Those best at playing the fox have done better than the others. But you have to know how to disguise your slyness, how to pretend one thing and cover up another. People are so gullible and so caught up with immediate concerns that a con man will always find someone ready to be conned.” (70)
However, a prince must keep up the appearance that he is a virtuous person, though he must not behave too much like a virtuous person. “[I]f he had those qualities and observed them all the time, he’d be putting himself at risk. It’s seeming to be virtuous that helps... And you can even be [virtuous], so long as you’re always mentally prepared to change as soon as your interests are threatened.” In the end nobody cares if a ruler has used cunning means, once he has won, for “people look at the end result. So if a leader does what it takes to win power and keep it, his methods will always be reckoned honourable and widely praised. The crowd is won over by appearances and final results.” Cunning and guile are praised if you win.
So, a ruler will fail if he wants to be honest and hesitates to deceive. According to Machiavelli, there is also another big mistake a ruler can commit, as he explains in chapter 23: Being open to flattery.
When you are at the top, many people around you will overload you with advice, not for helping you but for their own advantage. Such people will tell you things and give you advice, not because it is correct and useful, but because you’ll like what they say. If you accept what these people tell you, you’ll make mistakes. If you ignore them “you run the risk of having people despise you.” (93)
What to do against it? “[T]he only way to guard against flattery”, so Machiavelli, “is to have people understand that you don’t mind them telling you the truth. But when anyone and everyone can tell you the truth, you lose respect.” Therefore, he says, “the sensible ruler must find a middle way, choosing intelligent men for ministers and giving them and only them the right to tell him the truth, and only on the issues he asks about, not in general. … [Moreover], he should make it clear that the more openly they speak, the more welcome their advice will be. After which, he shouldn’t take advice from anyone else…” (93) After the consultation it is the ruler himself who takes the decisions, and he must stand firm on them. That a ruler sticks to his decisions once taken, is important: “Try a different approach and you’ll either be ruined by flatterers or change your mind so often listening to everyone’s opinions that people will lose their respect for you”, so Machiavelli. (93-94) It’s not difficult to find such rulers, but, as we have seen, if you are whimsy, everyone will come to you, and try to manipulate you by buttering you up. Though you may think that it will bring you greatness, finally it will undermine your glory and bring you down.

Random quote
It is the nature of extreme self-lovers that they will set a house on fire if only to cook their eggs.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Travelling with Bacon

To the trains

Travelling is of all time. Only the means to travel have changed, and even these haven’t changed as much as we might think. Travelling by air is new, indeed, but you can see a car or train as an updated version of a coach. A car, so an automobile, actually is nothing but a cart with a motor, and a train actually is a number of carts coupled together pulled by a cart with a motor. Also the reasons for travelling haven’t fundamentally changed such as business, family visits, tourism, pilgrimage, study and exploration, and nomadic travels. What has changed over the years is the timescale of travelling. Today travelling goes faster. Moreover, it has become cheaper. The result has been mass tourism, a new phenomenon, indeed.
Humans have always travelled, even if the circumstances were difficult and dangerous. I have often been surprised how much, for instance, medieval people have travelled. Erasmus (c. 1467-1536), the great Dutch humanist, was born in Rotterdam and went to school in Deventer. He got his doctorate in Bologna in Italy, after having studied in Paris for some time, and he died in Basel, after having lived in several towns and cities in Western and Southern Europe. Erasmus rarely stayed at the same place for a long time. Also his Dutch predecessor Rodolphus Agricola (1444-1485) is a case in point. He was born in Baflo, a village in the north of the Netherlands near Groningen; he studied in Erfurt and Cologne (Germany), Leuven (Belgium), Pavia and Ferrara (Italy); and over the years he travelled often between these places. After having worked in Groningen for some years, he moved to Heidelberg (Germany), where he died, after having become ill on a trip to Rome. Or take Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425), Ibn Batutta (1304-1368/9), and Zheng He (1371-1433/5), who were also avid travellers, not to forget all those prehistoric travellers whose names we’ll never know. Travelling is in our genes.
Montaigne (1533-1592) loved travelling, too, though he did it mainly in France. However, once Montaigne made a trip through Switzerland, Southern Germany, Austria and Italy. His travel journal has become famous, although he had written it only for himself; not for publication. Also Francis Bacon (1561-1626) has travelled quite a lot. He has travelled around in France and has been to Italy and Spain as well. He travelled mainly for educational reasons and for performing diplomatic tasks. He was about 20 years old then. In his days the habit arose that young men of good breeding made a “grand tour”, an educational trip through Europe and especially to Italy. We see this reflected in Bacon’s essay “Travel”, an essay full of advice. Just this makes the essay interesting for the modern reader, for many modern tourists travel not only to relax (like lying on the beach) but, if possible, they also want to learn something.
One of the first of Bacon’s advices for travellers is to learn the language of the country to be visited. I think he is right and during many trips I tried to learn a bit of the local language (not counting the fact that I know the main languages of Europe and have a basic knowledge of some other languages). But makes it still sense? How often doesn’t it happen to me now that I begin to speak, say, French or German and I get an answer in English! How annoying if you want to use the local language. Anyway, if you don’t speak the local language (and if the locals don’t speak English, I want to add), it’s good that you are accompanied by a teacher or a servant who does and who also knows what to see there, so Bacon. Nowadays, there is hardly any traveller who can afford this, but in modern terms we can say: Travel in a group with a tour guide or take part in local tours with a guide, and use the internet in order to find out what there is to see where you stay.
What then are the things you must see on your trip, anyway? Bacon gives a list of some fifty “things to be seen and observed”, too many to list here, but – in modern terms – he recommends to go to all those things that, indeed, modern tourists usually visit, too: Churches, monasteries, old buildings, ruins, museums, old cities, libraries, gardens, etc. and he advises us – again translated in modern terms – to go to shows, theatre performances, etc. Actually, it’s nothing new. However, what is quite remarkable for a modern tourist, Bacon tells us also that “… weddings, funerals, capital executions, and such shows … are not to be neglected.” The killing of a human was apparently seen as a show in those days. But would it be different today if there were still public executions? Even more, here and there in the world capital executions taking place in front of a large crowd still happen.
Then a list with travel advice follows. In short:
- keep a diary
- don’t stay too long at the same place; also when you’ll stay in the same city for some time, change your accommodation now and then
- avoid your compatriots, deal with the locals, and go to local restaurants
- take advantage of the advice and recommendations of the locals and others known with the region where you stay
- avoid quarrels and problems during your trip and avoid the company of people who might bring you in trouble

- after your return home, keep contact with some people in the region you visited
- and last but not least: “let [your] travel appear rather in [your] discourse than in [your] apparel or gesture; and in [your] discourse let [you] be advised in [your] answers rather than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that [you do] not change [your] own country’s manners for those of foreign parts, but only plant some flowers of what [you have] learned abroad into the customs of [your] own country.”

But for how many modern travellers is their trip nothing but living in an enclave and how many have stories to tell, anyway, let alone that they can give answers about the trip?

Random quote
In taking revenge, a man is merely even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is his superior; for it is a prince’s part to pardon.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Note
Pass over: To forgo. If you wrong me and I pass over revenge, that means that I don’t try to harm you in return.
Prince: A ‘prince’ is a supreme leader. Any king may be called a prince.
Source: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bacon1597.pdf

At the top

Some time after Montaigne, also Francis Bacon (1561-1626) has written a book with essays. Some say that he has been inspired to do so by Montaigne’s Essays, but this is not certain. Anyway, like Montaigne’s essays, they are still widely read. Insiders say that they have been written in beautiful English, but this is difficult to judge by me as a non-native speaker. What I know is that they have been written in a clear style. They are much easier to read and understand than Montaigne’s essays. On average, they are also much shorter. Like Montaigne Bacon treats a wide range of subjects, like truth, death, revenge, love, atheism, travel, prophecies, ambition, etc., but no military subjects (which you find among Montaigne’s earlier essays, though not among the later ones). Much of what Bacon writes is still worth consideration for the modern reader and applicable to the present world.
Take, for example, the eleventh essay, titled “Greatness of place”. With “place” Bacon means “a position with power and responsibility in some enterprise which may be governmental, military or commercial”, as the Glossary to the edition of Bacon’s essays used here explains, and the place is “great”, because it “is famous or conspicuous or the like.” We could think here of the position of political leaders, CEOs and the like. Such leaders should be [my words, for Bacon writes “are”] “servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business”. I write “should be”, for I often have the impression that they are servants of themselves, but that’s another matter, which I don’t want to discuss now. Anyway, being servants, these leaders, so Bacon, “have no freedom in their persons, in their actions, or in their times”, which makes it strange that someone wants to become a leader, also because the way to the top is laborious and takes much pains. However, once there, many high placed people refuse to give up their positions when the time to do so would be there: “[T]hey don’t want to retire when there is reason for them to do so … in old age and sickness…” Indeed, especially in authoritarian states (but not only there), we see that leaders often stick to their place, “although they thereby offer age to scorn.” Not always, wisdom grows with the years. However, and that is a related problem Bacon points to, people at the top tend to lose self-knowledge and become “strangers to themselves”. They depend for their “self”-knowledge on how others see them, and, I want to add, then they are vulnerable to flattery and emotional manipulation.
After this “description” of those at the top, Bacon goes on to a series of advices for them. I think this is the part of the essay leaders can learn the most from. Learn from others that had the same position as you have now, from what they did well and wrong, and be an example to others, so Bacon. And then – and I think that this is especially presently important, as it is often ignored – “Try to make your course regular, so that men may know beforehand what they can expect from you;·… don’t noisily raise questions of jurisdiction. … Preserve … the rights of inferior places; and think it more honour to direct them from above than to be busy in all of them. Embrace and invite helps and advice concerning the carrying out of the duties of your place; and when folk bring you information, do not drive them away as meddlers, but hear in good part what they have to say.” I have added italics in my quotation, and I think I don’t need to explain which world leader I have in mind…
And so the essay goes on. It’s not very long, and I advise you to read it yourself, since it helps you better understand the behaviour of some world leaders today and what they do wrong. However, I want yet to pick out a few passages and remarks by Bacon that I find highly relevant in the present world situation. Bacon mentions four vices of authority: delays, corruption, roughness, and facility [being too flexible]. I think that the problem of delays and corruption needs no comment. By mentioning facility, Bacon is afraid that it makes the leader vulnerable to trickery and favouritism. About roughness, he says: “[S]everity breeds fear, but roughness breeds hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting.”
Some leaders think that it is necessary to comment on what their predecessors did. Bacon does not advise against doing so, but he says: “Use the memory of your predecessor fairly and tenderly; for if you do not, that is a debt that will surely be paid when you are gone.”

Bacon’s essay “Greatness of place” ends here and so here I should end my blog, too. However, I can’t resist adding yet two quotations from Bacon’s next essay “Boldness”:
“Just as there are mountebanks—itinerant quacks—for the natural body, so are there mountebanks for the politic body; men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but have no grounding in science, and therefore cannot hold out.”
Then follows a warning by Bacon against people who cannot keep their promises: “So these bold men, when they have promised great matters and failed most shamefully, if they have the perfection of boldness they will slight it over, and change course with no more ado.” As if nothing happened and nothing went wrong, they go on.

Think before you act and be considerate, but those at the top think that they are almighty.

Random quote
A lot of people are gullible, who in their approval are not guided by the argument itself, but by the person who speaks, no matter how much he says implausible and contradictory things.

Rodolphus Agricola (1444-1485)

Cultural misunderstanding

I think that all of you know about them, but nevertheless again and again we fall into the trap: cultural misunderstandings. I got the idea to write about it when I was reading about the question whether people do or don’t line up, when they wait somewhere, like at a bus stop, for a counter, etc. There appears to be much variation. For example, David Fagundes (pp. 1187) writes: “Within some cultures, the practice of queueing … is taken for granted. Americans, for example, tend to take the norms of the queue very seriously, and treat them as having independent moral force… Sweden also ranks among the world’s highest-queuing societies... And at the height of the Nigerian oil shortage in the late 1970s, patrons at petrol stations waited in well-organized lines despite the pressure of a resource crisis... But not all nations take the queue this seriously. For example, concern for queue priority in Switzerland is low, and lining up is not standard practice when waiting for service.” Then a footnote follows: “One observer wrote, ‘[f]or such a polite society, the Swiss can’t queue. At bus stops, train platforms, and cable car stations, it’s a free for all. Scrum down, elbows out, and every man woman and child for themselves.’ ” (my italics; see Fagundes for the sources)
Is it true that the Swiss don’t queue? Physically maybe not as much as the Americans or British do, but as someone objects: “People complain that Swiss have no ‘queueing etiquette’ ... instead of standing in a line (like other cultures think is normal) we’ll just all stand around randomly. But each person waiting knows that ‘those people’ were before them when they arrived ... doesn’t matter what order ... and this guy came after me ... as long as he doesn’t cut in front then all is ok ... and similarly that guy is watching the woman who came after him... This seems like an efficient way of queueing...” And in fact it is, though it is not queueing physically but mentally. To my mind, thinking that the Swiss don’t queue is a clear case of a cultural misunderstanding: A failure to understand someone, a custom, habit, institution, situation, etc. properly because of a lack of knowledge of their society and ideas, values, norms and the like. It is setting your own stamp on other manners of doing without understanding them and their backgrounds well. It often makes that those other ways of doing are seen as weird, rude or in another negative way, and so as inferior to yours. And even if not seen as inferior, cultural misunderstandings can lead to awkward situations, avoidance behaviour if not to conflict.

Although the example of a cultural misunderstanding just mentioned is a bit surprising – since one could expect an investigator of a social phenomenon to have an open eye for possible variations in the phenomenon studied (and indeed, elsewhere in the literature on waiting in line I have found descriptions of such mental queueing) – it is understandable that in daily life many people fall in the cultural misunderstanding trap. Daily interactions are often complicated and to “reduce” miscommunications and “weird behaviour” to cultural misunderstanding in the first place would be a kind of objectivation of your communication partner and not taking him or him seriously as a person (in a sense!) and seeing that person as “a case” and not as an individual. Moreover, what is not permitted in one situation may be permitted in another context. For example, somewhere on the internet I found this example: “One Canadian woman with a Pakistani background told … she was always annoyed by the question ‘Where are you from?’ when living in a Canadian suburb. To her, it sounded like, ‘You’re obviously not from here.’ But when she moved to Dubai, she welcomed the question. Given that 90% of the people in Dubai are not from Dubai, it was a natural way to get acquainted.” Besides this, doesn’t mutual understanding need to come from two sides? Often it is reasonable to expect that your communication partner also has a feeling for the possibility of a cultural misunderstanding.
Some think that cultural misunderstandings have something to do with a language barrier. Of course, a language barrier can be a source of confusion and misunderstanding, but as the Sustainability Directory website makes clear, cultural misunderstanding is “a deeper issue that touches on how we perceive the world and interact with those whose perspectives differ from our own” and ignoring or not recognizing them can have many negative personal and social consequences, as said. One such a consequence is that “[c]ultural misunderstandings often give rise to stereotypes, which are oversimplified and often negative generalizations about a particular group of people. These stereotypes can then lead to prejudice, which is a preconceived judgement or bias against individuals based on their cultural background. When people hold stereotypes, they tend to interpret the actions of others through a distorted lens, further reinforcing their biases. This can result in discriminatory behavior and unfair treatment, creating a cycle of misunderstanding and conflict.” And once there, prejudices and stereotypes are by far more difficult to overcome and remove than by simply explaining and clarifying the misunderstanding, which initially would have been enough, before the prejudice or stereotype had established. In the end the effects of prejudices and stereotypes can be devastating for the victims.

I’ll end with a few examples of cultural misunderstandings, some serious, some less serious:
- Greetings: While cheek-kissing is common in some countries, including in case one meets someone for the first time, it may be unfamiliar to others from cultures where handshakes or bows are the norm.
- Business encounters: In the Netherlands, for example, meetings and negotiations must be kept short and to the point. Other cultures take their time before coming to the point and see this even as necessary because they place more emphasis on building relationships.
- Appointments: In some cultures, arriving at the time appointed is strictly observed, while in others punctuality is flexible.
- Communication: In countries like the US, UK and the Netherlands, speaking directly, openly, and concisely is normal and valued, while in other cultures it is seen as rude, and more indirect ways to approach your communication partner are the norm.
- Personal questions: What are considered personal questions and so not asked, certainly not in first contacts but often also not among people who go along very well, differs from culture to culture.

The consequences of cultural misunderstandings can be quite annoying to say the least and can have far reaching negative consequences, but who would like to have everything the same? And is your way really the best?

Random quote
Dissimulation is only a faint kind of policy or wisdom; for one needs a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell the truth and to act on it; therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians who are the great dissemblers.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Note
Policy: Skill or thoughtfulness in the handling of practical matters.
Politician: When Bacon speaks of someone’s quality as a politician, he means that person’s ability in the management of people, not necessarily of large numbers of people.

Source: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bacon1597.pdf