Relection on Machiavelli class exercise on September 9th

For today’s class we had to have read Machiavelli’s book The Prince. So, when we got in to class we were told to split into two groups:those who agreed with Machiavelli and those who didn’t. I went into the group that did agree with him. After we were split into the groups, Jacquelyn, the PA, told us that we had to argue the opposite point. So, the group arguing for was now against and the group against was now for. After we had come up with points for the new argument, we had a debate. Each member from each group either had to bring up a new point or rebut a point that the other group made. My point was that today we need political alliances due to the fact that countries have shared societal values that countries cannot be isolationists trying to dominate other countries, like Machiavelli suggests. An example I used was terrorism. We the United States cannot defeat terrorism alone but we need alliances with other countries. That doesn’t necessarily have to be military alliance but could be the act of any group of the alliance of countries putting a group or terrorist-harboring-country under economic sanctions. Whereas Machiavelli said that one needs to be militarily stronger than another country. Then the stronger country will be respected, but if it is weaker, then it will be indebted. So, my point was trying to negate Machiavelli’s reasoning that there can’t be alliances in the world. I thought that this was a really good exercise to do in class for many reasons. First, it got everybody talking. Second, it got each group to talk about and find specific points to defend the point of view they had to debate. Third, since it wasn’t a lecture it wasn’t boring but engaging and hopefully people will remember the main points and will retain something about the book. I personally found The Prince I very dense read. I didn’t really like it, but I can see how its applicable to world politics. Even though I had to defend against Machiavelli’s statements in principle, I still agree with most of his points. I believe that having to argue the other side of an issue, the one you don’t agree with, makes you really understand it from all points of view. Although this was an interesting way to learn about the book, I hope this is not how we debate all debatable books because I felt that I was so focused on the groups next point that I wasn’t able to take any notes of my own.