When an issue creates intense social debate, it may be helpful to consider it from other perspectives. More exactly, it is difficult for those within a society at a specific time to objectively view the controversies dividing that society. The gun control debate is a case in point. On one side, millions insist on increased legislation restricting access to guns, and many are motivated by the virtual epidemic of school massacres. On another, there is an equally strong insistence on the Second Amendment’s securing the right of all Americans to bear arms. When the ideas of Machiavelli and Lao-Tzu are applied to the issue, then, a remarkable reality emerges from the context. As the following supports, and for very different reasons, both the fiercely pragmatic thinking of Machiavelli and Lao-Tzu’s Eastern, humanist philosophy would argue fir gun control as necessary for what each considers a stable, sound society.
Discussion
It is reasonable to believe that Machiavelli would be opposed to gun control, and simply because power relations define much of his thinking. As The Prince makes clear, he believes that authority, no matter how it is achieved, has the responsibility to protect itself and maintain its dominance. This would then seem to apply to all citizens, and particularly as those with property should be empowered to secure it. Machiavelli is, as noted, relentlessly pragmatic, and largely unconcerned with issues of morality beyond how they relate to power. It is also rational to believe that he would support gun access for citizens if this is what the society wished, and the leader’s interests were served by accommodating the people in this way. Conversely, however, any such view ignores the most fundamental belief of Machiavelli, which is that the Prince must exercise absolute control. An armed citizenry would strike him, not as merely a gratification of the people, but a threat to the state. Machiavelli, in plain terms, does not trust the common man.
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The successful state is only successful when a wiser force directs it, and he sees this as the correct order of human existence. He also has no patience for petty and minor acts of violence, as were so common in Florence, and mainly because such violence is a dangerous expression of the public will (Hulliung 220). For Machiavelli, control is the key to both the ordered state and the power of the Prince. Armed, the people are then a threat, and one that cannot be encouraged or permitted. If Machiavelli were to interpret the U.S. Second Amendment, then, he would emphatically insist on the militia as regulated beyond any other consideration, and because a successful civic life must be based on a strong military. He understands one reality: “Between an armed man and an unarmed man, no proportion holds” (Machiavelli 23). Since the Prince must have the greatest power for the good of all, then the Prince must be the only armed man.
Turning to Lao-Tzu, there is then agreement with Machiavelli, but agreement so based on different perspectives, it has a different meaning. With Lao-Tzu, there is an interesting duality regarding gun control, or how he would have felt about it. On one level, he insists that the Tao transcends human ideas of what is good and bad. Lao-Tzu states: “Heaven and earth are not sentimental” (Sit 92). This may relate to gun control, as indicating that the minor transgressions of humanity are all part of a larger reality unconcerned with such matters. On another level, however, there remains the fundamental difference between the two thinkers, which brings Lao-Tzu to agreeing with Machiavelli from a radically different perspective. Lao-Tzu is concerned with the spiritual dimensions of humanity, as opposed to Machiavelli’s insistence on structure and order. He may place human behavior within a context of universal forces beyond human control, but he would also never endorse anything enabling mankind to act in ways defying the sanctity of life. For Lao-Tzu, and rationally, violence must always have one single effect: the creation of more violence (Sit 93). It is possible that he would have seen relaxed gun laws as tempting to humanity, given his emphasis on the need for humans to understand universal forces and their weakness in being mortal. Nonetheless, the greater likelihood is that he would have no patience with any promotion of gun ownership because it defies the basics of the I Ching. To own a gun would be to move further away from harmony with the universe, and because the weapon would be an expression of the self-absorption that is the root of what is known as evil (Lao-Tzu ix). What emerges then is that Lao-Tzu would consider gun control correct, even as his reasons are utterly removed from Machiavelli’s.
Conclusion
It is likely that gun control in the U.S. will be a divisive issue indefinitely, given how the subject triggers strong reactions of outrage, and from both supporters and opponents. When the thinking of two radically different philosophers is applied to the issue, a probability arises strangely reflecting agreement. Machiavelli’s determination on upholding ultimate authority would likely support control denying the people rights to guns. From a contrasting and humanist perspective, Lao-Tzu would also oppose free gun access, and because it would defy the correctness of the universal order and only generate the evil of self-interest. The men are completely opposite in philosophy, but one truth links them. Both the inflexible pragmatic ideas of Machiavelli and Lao-Tzu’s Eastern, spiritual philosophy would support gun control as necessary for what each thinker considers a stable, sound society.
- Hulliung, Mark. Citizen Machiavelli. Routledge, 2017.
- Lao-Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Trans. by Stephen Mitchell. HarperCollins, 1988.
- Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Dover Classics, 2015.
- Sit, Kwan-Yuk Claire. Lao Tzu and Anthroposophy, 2nd Ed. SteinerBooks, Inc., 2012.
