The Difference Between Fear And Love, By Niccolo Machiavelli

The world isn’t just black or white. There has to be a middle, or as people say “the gray area” You need both love and fear to balance each one out because if you just rule through love or fear it will eventually fall to pieces. Things won’t last long with just one or the other. You need love to reassure you that you are going to be okay, you’re happy and loved, but you need fear to motivate you, to push you to do things that you have never done before and probably would never do if you didn’t have fear. Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian diplomat, politician, historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer of the Renaissance period, has believed that you should rule through fear rather than love. Machiavelli said “One ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting.” He wants people to be able and willing to lie, cheat, and kill when it is needed.”However, Machiavelli did not believe in ruthlessness. He recognized the acts of cruelty need to be clearly justified.” Back then, they couldn’t really figure out how to balance both fear and love. He thought about how many advantages there would be about fear and never really seemed to think about advantages about both fear and love. Fear would push you to get things done, and if you were to rule through just love then you would think of it as a perfect world where the only thing that really matters is yourself. That is