Socrates, Christ, and Buddha as "political" leaders

Natalie Depraz

pp. 121-132

in: Kevin Thompson, Lester Embree (eds), Phenomenology of the political, Berlin, Springer, 2000

Abstract

Seen from a Machiavellian point of view politics is usually considered as necessarily involving both (1) violence as a dimension of open struggle and (2) cunning as a complementary more indirect way to access instituted power. Though conflicts are regulated and controlled by laws that result from a common and historical elaboration, strength and domination, on the one hand (the "lion"-side), and manipulation and hypocrisy, on the other hand (the "fox"-side), constitute major features of political action upon the world.¹ In that respect, Carl von Clausewitz formulated quite truly how much "war is but politics prosecuted through other means."²

Cited authors

von Clausewitz Carl