{"id":689,"date":"2017-12-03T12:22:37","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T17:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/?p=689"},"modified":"2017-12-03T12:22:37","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T17:22:37","slug":"luo-lei-a-machiavellian-prince","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/uncategorized\/luo-lei-a-machiavellian-prince\/","title":{"rendered":"Luo Lei–A Machiavellian Prince?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Harvey Mansfield\u2019s introduction to The Prince<\/em>, he writes \u201cThe essence of politics is that \u2018you can get away with murder\u2019: that no divine sanction, or degradation of soul, or twinge of conscience will come to punish you.\u201d Such views are extremely apt to the 2007 documentary \u201cPlease Vote for Me\u201d. In fact, Machiavelli would agree with Luo Lei\u2019s coming to power–is Luo Lei a Machiavellian prince? Luo Lei\u2019s successful election rests upon his (or more so, his parent\u2019s) ability to understanding his opponents and the “political atmosphere” of the primary school. In the middle of the documentary, Cheng Cheng manages to swerve the voters\u2019 opinions on his opponents (Xiaofei and Luo Lei), resulting in his being a frontrunner for the class monitor position.\u00a0 When Luo Lei wants to quit, his parents suggest that he take the entire class on the monorail to \u201cshow off\u201d and \u201cimprove [his] relationship with [his] classmates.\u201d The classes trip to the monorail places Luo Lei in a popular standing, one above Cheng Cheng. Machiavelli would agree with this \u201cvirtuous\u201d act. Machiavelli views the ordinary people as simple beings, individuals that will either like or dislike the Prince. Luo Lei manages to find himself in the good graces of his voters while simultaneously asserting his dominance as the son of the director of the police department. In bringing his classmates to the monorail, Luo Lei also diminishes Cheng Cheng\u2019s criticisms of him. Through this small, seemingly innocent act, Luo Lei manages to gain popularity, assert dominance, and fight the threat of foreign power\u2014all aspect Machiavelli would condone. To counter this act, Cheng Cheng and Xiaofei join forces to “expose” Luo Lei’s tyrannical acts. Does it work? Although Luo Lei seems to be a violent tyrants, he still manages to receive the most votes. As the teacher in the documentary says, \u201c[the students] are the master of [their] own choice.\u201d But, why did Luo Lei win after his opponents expose his amoral behavior? Something about Luo Lei\u2019s leadership style was appealing enough for the students to vote for him as class monitor for the third year in a row. It would be hard to argue that voter-fraud occurred in this elementary school class. Luo Lei won because democracy took place. Luo Lei won the majority of the vote despite Cheng Cheng\u2019s and Xiaofei\u2019s attempts to poison the public against him. The majority of his classmates saw him as the best possible option. Did you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Harvey Mansfield\u2019s introduction to The Prince, he writes \u201cThe essence of politics is that \u2018you can get away with murder\u2019: that no divine sanction, or degradation of soul, or twinge of conscience will come to punish you.\u201d Such views … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1720,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,13],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-please-vote-for-me","tag-fifth-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1720"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":690,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions\/690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}