Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian known by the popular writing of The Prince. I personally think that we have judged this book with a prejudiced and biased mind, we’ve judge him harshly. The truth is that before this time, I had only read some passages of it, and because of this I had never realized that, as crude as it may sound, it is full of truths. I’ve found that this book contains teachings that go further than “the end justifies the means”. Here I share some of the phrases/ideas that struck me while I was reading it.

“Any harm you do to a man should be done in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.”

“You have to keep an eye, not only on present trouble, but on those of the future, and make every effort to avoid them.”

“The man who makes another powerful ruins himself.”

“A prudent man should always follow the footsteps of the great and imitate those who have been supreme.”

“For men injured others either through fear or hate.”

“For there is no way to protect yourself from flattery except by letting men know that you will not be offended at being told the truth.”

But the one that had the greater impact on me reads as follows:

“Here the question arises: is it better to be loved than feared, or vice versa? I don’t doubt that every prince would like to be both; but since it is hard to accommodate these qualities, if you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved.”

From my point of view, Machiavelli was right. He was right in this very situation; we need to consider that he is talking about politics and that he is backing up every idea that he presents. It is well known that history tents to repeat, either we learn from the past or we suffer in the future. Also, I really want to point out that he says that being feared is safer, not better, than to be loved.

Even though this was true at some point, I would consider it as invalid for today’s politics. The world has changed and so the people. Nowadays we have more power than people back in those days had. Fear is still used to govern over a lot of countries around the world, and politics are corrupted almost everywhere; however we do not live under a regimen of fear.

We can learn a lot about Machiavelli’s good advices and wisdom. His teachings may be out of context, but we can always find a way to apply them to our lives. 

Several years ago, BYU exhibited “The Hands of Rodin” art exposition. The BYU Administration had a hard time deciding which sculptures they should exhibit. After a long debate they decided to keep crated ‘The Kiss’, ‘Saint John the Baptist Preaching’, ‘The Prodigal Son’, among others sculptures; they said that this pieces did not fit the theme of the exhibition.

Dante in his Canto V of the Inferno tells the story of Francesca and Paolo. They were in Hell because Francesca cheated on her husband Giovanni, with her brother-in-law Paolo. One day Francesca and Paolo kissed while reading Lancelot’s book, after they got intimate they were killed by Giovanni. Francesca firmly blamed “the book, and he who wrote it” for his misfortunes.

Dante exhorts the reader to analyze the influence that art, literature and other media have on us. He emphasizes the question of how choice and accountability influences both parties in the author-reader and artist-audience relationships. This is what I’m going to discuss in this post, and specifically I will try to give some possible arguments that might have been discussed by the BYU Administration Department in the debate regarding The Kiss sculpture display. I want to clarify, beforehand, that I may or may not agree with the arguments given in this post. This is not my personal opinion about this topic.

First of all, Rodin is considered as the progenitor of modern sculpture. This is a big deal considering his significant contribution to art. Even to think of excluding this famous piece of art in an art exhibition is a huge mistake. When talking about an art exhibition all that matters is the art; The kiss should have been exhibit for art’s sake.

President Bateman, president of BYU at the time, said that they had to take into account that this exhibition’s public was larger than the BYU community. They were concerned that these pieces could offend the visitors; however this argument may have been invalid. LDS members all over the world are surrounded by worldly things; they are usually a minority in their communities. I attended schools were I was the only member of the church, and trust me when I say that we are exposed to worse things than this.

The scriptures say that we should study from the best books, however we do not live in a bubble; sooner or later we will face things that will require our good judgment. We need to be prepared to discern good from evil. The gospel principles will protect our lives; however, they cannot keep us from worldly things. Our judgment is to be guided by the gospel principles; LDS members will be exposed to art, literature and other media that will call for their best judgment.

I think that we can’t blame the author of any art work for creating it; it is a shared responsibility. The author is as free as anybody to create as he wants. As an audience we are responsible and accountable of how we use our knowledge in judging a work of art. We should just take the best out of the art and the media that surround us. We should live under the thought that if something inspires us to be closer to God, then it is something worthy to keep, otherwise we should not.