Machiavelli is the most misunderstood thinker of all time – Ada Palmer
Okay, I'm back with Ada Palmer, who is a science fiction author, composer, and historian at the University of Chicago.
好的，我再次邀请到 Ada Palmer，她是芝加哥大学的科幻作家、作曲家和历史学家。
Today, I want to talk to you about Machiavelli.
今天，我想和你聊聊马基雅维利。
He writes The Prince.
他写了《君主论》。
He dedicates it to Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici and gives it to him in 1513.
他将书献给洛伦佐·皮耶罗·德·美第奇，并于1513年呈送给他。
He says in the final chapter,“You're the only person who can bring Italy from its current place of ruin and ravage.”
他在最后一章写道：「你是唯一能将意大利从当前的废墟与蹂躏中拯救出来的人。」
Why were things so bad?
为什么当时的局势如此糟糕？
What is the historical context in which he's writing The Prince?
他写《君主论》时所处的历史背景是什么？
I'm going to give a two-part answer to that, although of course with any granular history there can be many parts.
我将从两个方面来回答，当然，任何具体的历史都可以从更多角度展开。
The papacy is part of it, and then the city-state structure of Italy is another part of it.
教廷是其中一部分，而意大利的城邦结构是另一部分。
I'll start with the city-state structure.
我先从城邦结构说起。
There's a principle in politics that when there's long continuity of a government, and the government has been in power a long time, that government has a lot of legitimacy.
政治学中有一条原则：当一个政府长期延续、长期执政时，该政府便拥有很强的合法性。
People believe in its institutions.
民众信任其制度。
People are used to it.
民众习惯于它的存在。
Even if you complain about it, it's the government.
即便抱怨，它依然是政府。
When you break that—when you overthrow the ruler, when you dissolve the republic, when you put in a new thing—it doesn't have that same staying power.
一旦打破这一切——推翻统治者、解散共和国、建立新政权——新政权就不具备同等的生命力。
So it's very common when there's one regime change for there to then be five regime changes, rapid fire, over and over.
因此极为常见的是，发生一次政权更迭后，接连又会爆发五次，一轮接一轮，循环往复。
We see this with how many iterations the French Republic goes through: the French Republic, and then restored monarchy, and then republic, and then monarchy.
看看法兰西共和国经历了多少次轮替就明白了：共和国，然后是复辟君主制，然后又是共和国，然后又是君主制。
When a long thing cracks—boom, boom, boom, boom, boom—you get chaos.
当一个延续已久的体制崩裂——砰、砰、砰、砰、砰——混乱随之而来。
England's Wars of the Roses are similar.
英格兰的玫瑰战争也是如此。
There was one stable dynasty for a long time.
曾有一个稳定的王朝延续了很长时间。
The moment that a king is overthrown, then you have overthrow, overthrow, overthrow, overthrow for a long time, because the thread of continuity was cut.
一旦国王被推翻，随之而来的便是推翻、推翻、推翻、推翻，绵延许久，因为传承的脉络已经断裂。
In Machiavelli's lifetime, that thread of continuity is cut for the majority of cities in Italy.
在马基雅维利的一生中，意大利大多数城市的传承脉络都已断裂。
And that guarantees, from his perspective, that there are going to be more, and more, and more overthrows in those governments.
在他看来，这就注定了这些政府还会不断地、一再地被推翻。
When Machiavelli was born, there were six or seven city-states in Italy that had had their governments uprooted recently.
马基雅维利出生时，意大利已有六七个城邦的政权近期遭到了根本性的颠覆。
By the time he's writing The Prince, it's dozens, in fact, the majority of these places.
到他写《君主论》时，这样的城邦已有数十个，实际上占了大多数。
So it's volatile.
所以局势极不稳定。
Almost no government has staying power.
几乎没有任何政权能够长久维持。
Almost every government is ripe for yet another replacement, yet another replacement, yet another replacement.
几乎每一个政权都随时面临被再度取代、再度取代、再度取代的命运。
That's half the answer of why he perceives there to be this urgency and this guarantee that there cannot be stability.
这就是他为何感到如此紧迫、并确信稳定根本无从实现的一半原因。
The other half is the papacy.
另一半原因在于教廷。
The papacy, of course, is a long and evolving organism.
教廷当然是一个历史悠久、持续演变的机体。
The papacy is one of the oldest institutions in the world now.
教廷是当今世界最古老的机构之一。
It was one of the oldest institutions in the world even then, even though this is 500 years ago.
即便在那个年代，尽管那已是500年前，它也是世界上最古老的机构之一。
As we all know, when you have power centralized in an authority, especially an executive, there can be changes in how that executive uses that power.
众所周知，当权力集中于某一权威、尤其是某位执政者手中时，这位执政者运用权力的方式就可能发生变化。
Each one sets norms for the next one.
每一任都为下一任树立先例。
Over the course of Machiavelli's lifetime and just before, a bunch of consecutive popes expanded executive power, especially in the military side, and launched more wars, or did more arbitrary overthrow of governments.
在马基雅维利的有生之年及其之前，一批连续的教皇扩大了行政权力，尤其是在军事领域，发动了更多战争，或更随意地颠覆各地政权。
You have a number of city-states that are directly ruled by the papacy, and in theory, the pope can appoint anybody to be ruler of that city.
有许多城邦直接受教廷统治，理论上教皇可以任命任何人出任某座城市的统治者。
Here is a pope.
设想有这样一位教皇。
He has an illegitimate son.
他有一个私生子。
He wants his illegitimate son to be ruler of something, so he overthrows the government of a city and puts in his son.
他想让这个私生子成为某地的统治者，于是推翻了一座城市的政权，将儿子扶植上去。
The next pope does it to three cities.
下一任教皇对三座城市如法炮制。
The next pope does it to five.
再下一任对五座城市如法炮制。
Soon we have a precedent that every new pope feels he has the authority to knock down every pawn upon the chessboard if he feels like it.
很快便形成了一种惯例：每位新教皇都觉得自己有权随意推倒棋盘上的每一枚棋子。
Once that is the norm, even a fairly nice pope still inherits the idea that the pope is going to overthrow and replace governments.
一旦这成为惯例，即便是一位相对温和的教皇，也会继承这样的观念：教皇有权颠覆并更换政权。
This creates a unique instability within Italy that no other part of Europe is subject to, because there is no predictability to who's going to be pope next.
这在意大利境内造就了一种独特的动荡，欧洲其他地区无须承受，原因在于下一任教皇是谁根本无法预测。
It isn't hereditary.
教位不能世袭。
You can't plan for it.
无从事先谋划。
The next pope is elected.
下一任教皇由选举产生。
As is often the case with elections, very frequently the next pope will be elected by a coalition of all the people who hate the current pope.
正如选举政治中常见的情形，下一任教皇往往由所有厌恶现任教皇的人组成的联合阵营推选出来。
One of the things that electoral politics does is that it tends to swing, in which those outside of power work hard to get into power with the next regime.
选举政治的规律之一是摆动效应：局外人竭力借助下一届政权进入权力核心。
Let's assume the average length of a papacy is ten years in this period.
假设这一时期每任教皇的平均在位时长为10年。
So every ten years, you suddenly have a completely unpredictable new monarch who's almost guaranteed to be one of the enemies of the old monarch, and will therefore rip up and replace all of the things that that monarch tried to do with new things.
于是每隔10年，就会突然出现一位完全不可预测的新君主，而此人几乎注定是旧君主的政敌，会将前任竭力推行的一切撕毁推翻，另起炉灶。
So Machiavelli, when he's writing the last chapter of The Prince, is looking around and saying,“Okay, we have a perfect storm.
所以马基雅维利在撰写《君主论》最后一章时，环顾四周，说道：「好，我们面临一场完美风暴。
Practically every polity in this region has just had the thread of legitimacy cut.
这片地区几乎每个政治体的合法性之线都刚刚被斩断。
Its institutions have no traditions.
各地制度毫无传统积淀。
Its people have no investment in its current rulers.
民众对当权者毫无归属感。
These are all pawns that have been knocked over before and barely stood up again.
这些棋子都曾被推倒，好不容易才重新站起来。
They're ready to fall.”
随时都会再次倒下。」
Meanwhile, nothing will stop the turnover of popes.
与此同时，教皇的更迭无人能够阻止。
The only thing that could stop the turnover of popes would be one person gaining enough power and ascendancy near this region, who has staying power, who has sons and heredity, that he can do what Cesare Borgia tried to do: have enough power near the papacy to strongly influence the next pope to create a kind of stability that's otherwise impossible.
唯一能遏制教皇频繁更迭的，是某个人在这一地区积累足够的权力与威望，具备持久力，拥有子嗣与世袭传承，足以效仿切萨雷·博尔贾的尝试：在教廷周边掌握足够的权力，强力左右下一任教皇的产生，从而创造出一种否则根本不可能实现的稳定局面。
So he wants the Medicis to not unify Italy, but stabilize Italy at the very least.
所以他希望美第奇即便不能统一意大利，至少也能稳定意大利。
Exactly, by having conquered enough of a chunk that the papacy fears them and must negotiate with them, as opposed to the papacy being surrounded by small, weakened powers that will constantly be turned over and turned over and turned over.
正是。通过征服足够大的地盘，让教廷对他们心存忌惮、不得不与他们谈判，而不是让教廷被一群弱小、残破的势力所包围，不断地轮替、再轮替、再轮替。
Right, and the pope now is a Medici, right?
对，而此时的教皇就是美第奇家族的人，对吧？
At that moment, yes.
在那一刻，是的。
So it makes it even more plausible.
所以这让它更加可信。
Let's lay down a little more historical context.
我们再多铺垫一些历史背景。
Before Machiavelli writes The Prince, he's a bureaucratic diplomat.
在马基雅维利写《君主论》之前，他是一名官僚型外交官。
He meets through his career a lot of these famous figures.
他在职业生涯中结识了许多这些历史名人。
I want to know what he makes, for example, of King Louis of France, Maximilian of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire.
我想了解他对法国国王路易、德意志的马克西米利安以及神圣罗马帝国有何看法。
I want to know what he made of Cesare Borgia.
我想了解他对切萨雷·博尔贾的评价。
He spends a lot of The Prince, in fact, trying to veil how much more he cares about Cesare Borgia than everyone else.
他在《君主论》中花了大量笔墨，竭力掩饰自己对切萨雷·博尔贾的在意程度远超其他所有人。
It's so interesting.
实在太有意思了。
He tries to be balanced.
他力求保持平衡。
He tries to talk about this example, and this example, and this example, and Valentino, and this example.
他想要谈这个例子、这个例子、这个例子，还有瓦伦蒂诺，还有这个例子。
Sometimes he just can't.
但有时他就是忍不住。
There's that incredible, magical moment when he's discussing Valentino's fall.
有一个令人难以置信的神奇时刻，就在他谈论瓦伦蒂诺的覆败之时。
It's the moment when he has amassed all this power, he's successfully conquered almost everything within Italy.
那是他积聚了全部权力、几乎成功征服意大利境内一切的时刻。
Suddenly both his father, the Pope, and him fall ill at once.
突然，他的父亲，也就是教皇，与他同时病倒。
When Machiavelli describes this, he's saying,“Everything Cesare Borgia did, he did right.
马基雅维利在描述这段历史时说道：「切萨雷·博尔贾所做的一切，他都做对了。
He conquered this kingdom.
他征服了这个王国。
He would've kept it.
他本可以守住它。
The only reason he lost it was fortune.”
他失去它的唯一原因是命运。」
What Machiavelli should say is,“Valentino had planned for every contingency at his father's death, except the possibility that he would also be on death's door.”
马基雅维利本该说：「瓦伦蒂诺为父亲去世后的每一种变局都做好了准备，唯独没有料到自己也会在那一刻身处死亡边缘。」
But that's not what Machiavelli says.
但马基雅维利并不是这样说的。
What Machiavelli says is,“He told me that he had planned.”
马基雅维利说的是：「他告诉我，他曾有所谋划。」
The first person breaks in.
第一人称在此闯入。
Our historian cannot veil himself anymore.
我们的这位史学家再也无法掩饰自己了。
He cares too much.
他太在乎了。
“He told me”, first person, that he had prepared for everything in the event of his father's death, except the possibility that he himself would also be incapacitated at the moment.
「他告诉我」，第一人称，他为父亲死后的一切都做好了准备，唯独没有预料到他自己也会在那一刻丧失行动能力。
It's such a magical moment where the veil between the author and the reader breaks for just that moment.
这是如此神奇的一刻，作者与读者之间的帷幕，就在那一瞬间撕开了。
We realize that all of these others, he observed from a distance.
我们意识到，其他那些人，他都只是远远观察而已。
But Machiavelli was in the room next to Valentino, at Valentino's side through this.
但马基雅维利就在瓦伦蒂诺隔壁的房间里，全程陪伴在瓦伦蒂诺身侧。
He had the most incredible, life-changing, first-person view of this man so unique, and charismatic, and terrifying, that when you read accounts of him, they range from“This was the most incredible, charismatic leader I've ever met,” to“This man was supernaturally charismatic to the degree that he must be literally the Antichrist or an incarnation of the angel of death on Earth, because I have no other explanation of how he could be so persuasive and charismatic.”
他得以以第一视角近距离目睹这个人，如此独特、如此富有感召力又令人胆寒，这段经历彻底改变了他的一生。当你读到关于此人的各种记述时，它们从「这是我见过的最令人叹服、最具感召力的领袖」，一直延伸到「此人的感召力已近超自然，他必定就是字面意义上的反基督者，或是死亡天使降临人间的化身，否则我实在无法解释他何以能有如此惊人的说服力与魅力」。
Machiavelli was in the room.
马基雅维利就在那个房间里。
And every so often you just feel that he's still in the spell of this incredible figure at whose side he had the scariest job in the world.
而且时不时地，你就会感受到，他仍然被这位非凡人物的魔力所笼罩，正是在此人身侧，他承担着世界上最令人胆战心惊的职务。
Machiavelli's job dealing with Cesare Borgia
马基雅维利与切萨雷·博尔贾打交道时的职责
It's very clear that the Borgia plan is to conquer the Papal States in the middle of Italy.
博尔贾的计划昭然若揭：征服意大利中部的教皇国。
Tuscany, Florence's dominion, is this little notch, like a puzzle piece out of the side of the Papal States.
托斯卡纳是佛罗伦萨的领地，就像从教皇国侧面凿出的一个缺口，宛如拼图上缺失的那一块。
Anybody with a map looking at it is like,“You've got to conquer that.
任何拿着地图看的人都会说：「你必须把那块地方拿下。
You just have to conquer this.
你非征服它不可。