Rise—majestically, if possible—and shout “Machiavellian” with all the “stridency” (this will be his word for it) which you can muster. The outraged Liberal will feel offended. He has been very proper; he has used concepts and terms (word for word) which are sanctioned by all the fashionable authorities on political science. He has not suggested the use of poison or masks; how, then, can we call him a Machiavellian? Is not politics the study of power-relations?
“Science” means, today, the physical sciences, and it is true that Machiavelli made “pure method” possible in modern politics. He did this not by any positive contribution to politics as it had been founded by Hellenic philosophers, but by attacking the view that human relations are a moral and spiritual concern, rather than a neutral material for experiment and exploitation. The machinery of bureaucracy, the techniques of 1984, are the outgrowth of this Machiavellian methodology—the first of our modern “social sciences.”
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