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Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy
Winner of the Helen and Howard Marraro Prize
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year
“Perhaps the greatest study ever written of Renaissance political thought.”
―Jeffrey Collins, Times Literary Supplement
“Magisterial…Hankins shows that the humanists’ obsession with character explains their surprising indifference to particular forms of government. If rulers lacked authentic virtue, they believed, it did not matter what institutions framed their power.”
― Wall Street Journal
“Puts the politics back into humanism in an extraordinarily deep and far-reaching way…For generations to come, all who write about the political thought of Italian humanism will have to refer to it; its influence will be…nothing less than transformative.”
―Noel Malcolm, American Affairs
“[A] masterpiece…It is only Hankins’s tireless exploration of forgotten documents…and extraordinary endeavors of editing, translation, and exposition that allow us to reconstruct―almost for the first time in 550 years―[the humanists’] three compelling arguments for why a strong moral character and habits of truth are vital for governing well. Yet they are as relevant to contemporary democracy in Britain, and in the United States, as to Machiavelli.”
―Rory Stewart, Times Literary Supplement
“The lessons for today are clear and profound.”
―Robert D. Kaplan
Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society. Everywhere they saw problems. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; religious leaders preoccupied with self-advancement while feuding armies waged endless wars. Their solution was at once simple and radical. “Men, not walls, make a city,” as Thucydides so memorably said. They would rebuild the fabric of society by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft.
A landmark reappraisal of Renaissance political thought, Virtue Politics challenges the traditional narrative that looks to the Renaissance as the seedbed of modern republicanism and sees Machiavelli as its exemplary thinker. James Hankins reveals that what most concerned the humanists was not reforming institutions so much as shaping citizens. If character mattered more than laws, it would have to be nurtured through a new program of education they called the studia humanitatis : the precursor to our embattled humanities.
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year
“Perhaps the greatest study ever written of Renaissance political thought.”
―Jeffrey Collins, Times Literary Supplement
“Magisterial…Hankins shows that the humanists’ obsession with character explains their surprising indifference to particular forms of government. If rulers lacked authentic virtue, they believed, it did not matter what institutions framed their power.”
― Wall Street Journal
“Puts the politics back into humanism in an extraordinarily deep and far-reaching way…For generations to come, all who write about the political thought of Italian humanism will have to refer to it; its influence will be…nothing less than transformative.”
―Noel Malcolm, American Affairs
“[A] masterpiece…It is only Hankins’s tireless exploration of forgotten documents…and extraordinary endeavors of editing, translation, and exposition that allow us to reconstruct―almost for the first time in 550 years―[the humanists’] three compelling arguments for why a strong moral character and habits of truth are vital for governing well. Yet they are as relevant to contemporary democracy in Britain, and in the United States, as to Machiavelli.”
―Rory Stewart, Times Literary Supplement
“The lessons for today are clear and profound.”
―Robert D. Kaplan
Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society. Everywhere they saw problems. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; religious leaders preoccupied with self-advancement while feuding armies waged endless wars. Their solution was at once simple and radical. “Men, not walls, make a city,” as Thucydides so memorably said. They would rebuild the fabric of society by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft.
A landmark reappraisal of Renaissance political thought, Virtue Politics challenges the traditional narrative that looks to the Renaissance as the seedbed of modern republicanism and sees Machiavelli as its exemplary thinker. James Hankins reveals that what most concerned the humanists was not reforming institutions so much as shaping citizens. If character mattered more than laws, it would have to be nurtured through a new program of education they called the studia humanitatis : the precursor to our embattled humanities.
1 pages, Audio CD
Published September 28, 2021
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About the author
James Hankins
47 books40 followersJames Hankins is an American intellectual historian specializing in the Italian Renaissance. He is the General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library and the Associate Editor of the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum. He is a professor in the History Department of Harvard University. In Spring 2018, he is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.
In 2012 he was honored with the Paul Oskar Kristeller Lifetime Achievement Award of the Renaissance Society of America.
In 2012 he was honored with the Paul Oskar Kristeller Lifetime Achievement Award of the Renaissance Society of America.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 27, 2020
Sometimes you just stumble into a fine book without realizing it. I put this book in my queue at the start of the year, as something to read in preparation for a trip to Florence. I was also looking forward to reading “The Beauty and the Terror” by Catherine Fletcher. Anyway, then March happened ...
When I finally got around to Professor Hankins book, I was pleasantly surprised and loved the book. This is a deep dive into the world of Renaissance political theory in Italy, from Petrarch up through Machiavelli with a whole host of well known and not so well known humanists covered in between. This is a serious review and study of Renaissance political theory and there is a lot that is covered. In addition, the book presents an extended argument so readers should be prepared to pay attention.
So what’s the argument? Read the book! I could not begin to do it justice in brief here. What is Renaissance political theory anyway - is this just about Machiavelli? He is the one who is read. Not quite. Machiavelli has a place in the argument. Hankins devotes three chapters on him towards the end. The argument of the book is more about what made Machiavelli different from the rest of Renaissance political theory. In a nutshell, Professor Hankins is arguing for a new conceptualization of political theory leading up to Machiavelli as concerned with “Virtue Politics”. Virtue Politics argues that political theory in Renaissance Italy focused on the critical need for good government, virtue, and merit in rulers and without that virtue/merit, bad government would prevail, irrespective of the various constitutional schemes that were employed by a state or whether the state was ruled by a prince or king, an oligarchical group of notables, or the general public, defined in various ways. Without virtues, there was little reason to expect that rulers would rule well, that subjects would prosper, or that Italian polities would prosper. To facilitate this, it is the job of the humanist to teach the requirements of virtue to young rulers, along with the experiences of rulers of the past, such as from Rome or Greece. Rulers have to be good men and they have to “walk the walk” of the moral requirements that they expect from their subjects and embody in their laws.
Where does Machiavelli fit in with this? Its complicated, but he disagreed and did not think it at all practical to expect rulers to behave virtuously and follow the norms of rule taught them by the ancients as interpreted by some humanists. That is putting too much of a burden on education and training and it is more practical and useful to look at principles that actual rulers employ to obtain and maintain their power. This moves matters into the core of Machiavelli’s political writings. Is Machiavelli against virtue in politics? Hardly. His writing is complex but it is likely that he was not supportive of positions that made the key to successful politics the task of training young leaders to be virtuous and leaving matters at that. Put another way, Machiavelli’s opposition to Virtue Politics is what made his work so important by breaking with prior writings and arguing for an instrumental view of the prince’s work based on the need for him to obtain and maintain power if he expected to be a successful ruler. Machiavelli’s opposition to virtue politics is what made his work important.
The argument in the book is persuasive and well documented. I also enjoyed reading about the other humanists/scholars referenced by Hankins and contributing to Virtue politics. I had heard of several of them but had not known of their political writings. Others, such as George of Trebizond, were new to me by hugely interesting. Professor Hankins is helpful by putting Italy and Western Europe in somme context during the period he studies. This is helpful in showing why the humanists developed when they did as well as how the shift to instrumentalist approaches was linked to macro changes.
Finally, the argument for Virtue Politics is not treated in a superficial manner but provided with reasonable support. When linked with certain institutional conditions, virtue politics seems somewhat related to the Chinese approach to imperial administration through personal merit and examinations. This is to show that the Virtue Politics position is a really one that was superseded in the West by the rise of political systems based on laws and popular sovereignty. He closes by raising issues of personal merit and virtue in the context of divisive western politics and the recent rise of populist movements in the US and Western Europe. I am glad he did not spend too much time on Trump but the point is there to be made. The west took a different turn from Italian Virtue Politics, but the issues raised by these writers remain relevant to politics today.
The book is very intense and provides numerous places to read and reread. This book is likely targeted to readers who know a lot of political theory. Hankins is a wonderful writer and a good explainer who keeps a reader in with the argument until matters become clearer.
This is a very impressive book and each chapter is filled with dense but interesting material. Patience will serve readers well here.
When I finally got around to Professor Hankins book, I was pleasantly surprised and loved the book. This is a deep dive into the world of Renaissance political theory in Italy, from Petrarch up through Machiavelli with a whole host of well known and not so well known humanists covered in between. This is a serious review and study of Renaissance political theory and there is a lot that is covered. In addition, the book presents an extended argument so readers should be prepared to pay attention.
So what’s the argument? Read the book! I could not begin to do it justice in brief here. What is Renaissance political theory anyway - is this just about Machiavelli? He is the one who is read. Not quite. Machiavelli has a place in the argument. Hankins devotes three chapters on him towards the end. The argument of the book is more about what made Machiavelli different from the rest of Renaissance political theory. In a nutshell, Professor Hankins is arguing for a new conceptualization of political theory leading up to Machiavelli as concerned with “Virtue Politics”. Virtue Politics argues that political theory in Renaissance Italy focused on the critical need for good government, virtue, and merit in rulers and without that virtue/merit, bad government would prevail, irrespective of the various constitutional schemes that were employed by a state or whether the state was ruled by a prince or king, an oligarchical group of notables, or the general public, defined in various ways. Without virtues, there was little reason to expect that rulers would rule well, that subjects would prosper, or that Italian polities would prosper. To facilitate this, it is the job of the humanist to teach the requirements of virtue to young rulers, along with the experiences of rulers of the past, such as from Rome or Greece. Rulers have to be good men and they have to “walk the walk” of the moral requirements that they expect from their subjects and embody in their laws.
Where does Machiavelli fit in with this? Its complicated, but he disagreed and did not think it at all practical to expect rulers to behave virtuously and follow the norms of rule taught them by the ancients as interpreted by some humanists. That is putting too much of a burden on education and training and it is more practical and useful to look at principles that actual rulers employ to obtain and maintain their power. This moves matters into the core of Machiavelli’s political writings. Is Machiavelli against virtue in politics? Hardly. His writing is complex but it is likely that he was not supportive of positions that made the key to successful politics the task of training young leaders to be virtuous and leaving matters at that. Put another way, Machiavelli’s opposition to Virtue Politics is what made his work so important by breaking with prior writings and arguing for an instrumental view of the prince’s work based on the need for him to obtain and maintain power if he expected to be a successful ruler. Machiavelli’s opposition to virtue politics is what made his work important.
The argument in the book is persuasive and well documented. I also enjoyed reading about the other humanists/scholars referenced by Hankins and contributing to Virtue politics. I had heard of several of them but had not known of their political writings. Others, such as George of Trebizond, were new to me by hugely interesting. Professor Hankins is helpful by putting Italy and Western Europe in somme context during the period he studies. This is helpful in showing why the humanists developed when they did as well as how the shift to instrumentalist approaches was linked to macro changes.
Finally, the argument for Virtue Politics is not treated in a superficial manner but provided with reasonable support. When linked with certain institutional conditions, virtue politics seems somewhat related to the Chinese approach to imperial administration through personal merit and examinations. This is to show that the Virtue Politics position is a really one that was superseded in the West by the rise of political systems based on laws and popular sovereignty. He closes by raising issues of personal merit and virtue in the context of divisive western politics and the recent rise of populist movements in the US and Western Europe. I am glad he did not spend too much time on Trump but the point is there to be made. The west took a different turn from Italian Virtue Politics, but the issues raised by these writers remain relevant to politics today.
The book is very intense and provides numerous places to read and reread. This book is likely targeted to readers who know a lot of political theory. Hankins is a wonderful writer and a good explainer who keeps a reader in with the argument until matters become clearer.
This is a very impressive book and each chapter is filled with dense but interesting material. Patience will serve readers well here.
May 28, 2023
Fourteenth century Italy, much like the twenty-first century West, was convulsed by catastrophic social disruptions and ubiquitous crises of political legitimacy. The Holy Roman Empire, the would-be inheritor of ancient caesarian glories, exerted only a fictive authority beyond the southern shelf of the Alps after its ability to exercise its titular power over northern Italy was stymied by the Lombard League in the twelfth century; giving rise to the governance of city communes following the recension of Imperial power that, by the trecento, had been largely replaced by tyrannies. Within the Italian cities, discord between Guelphs, broadly aligned with a Papacy that guaranteed their independence, and Ghibellines who were feared as a fifth column for the brooding Germanic Emperors, fostered an atmosphere of hyperpartisanship that proved a constant menace to political stability. The Black Death ravaged the peninsula, as it did all of Europe, between 1347 and 1351; a pestilence commonly interpreted as a signal of divine disfavor. Rounding out the century was the Papal Schism, during which three contemporaneous Popes, based in Rome, Avignon, and Pisa, each claimed to be the Vicar of Christ and denounced the other two as pretenders. The two prevailing political constitutions were monarchical (tending toward the tyrannical) signories and pseudo-republican oligarchies; the rule of one self-interested plutocrat or a small group of them. Bribery, simony, and all manner of corruption was unremarkable, and even Popes and Cardinals were on the take. Uprisings of the urban poor, notable among them the Ciompi Revolt of 1378 in Florence, injected a populist spirit into the cultural milieu.
Beginning with Petrarch and his followers, the tradition of Renaissance Humanism introduced a new paradigm of moral education—a new paideuma—into the intellectual discourse of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Although historians of political thought often regard the political theory of the Italian Renaissance as footnotes to Machiavelli, viewing its preeminent thinkers anachronistically as stepping stones toward the inevitable coronation of post-seventeenth century “republican exclusivism,” - republicanism here being understood as a polyarchic constitutional structure rather than a constitutionally-circumscribed mode of governance oriented toward the common good - the Humanists were not defined by their commitment to any particular system of government. They made themselves equally at home in service of the signory of Milan, the aristocratic republics of Florence and Venice, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Papacy. What united them, rather, was their dedication to the moral reformation of people—making rulers and citizens more virtuous, wise, and public-spirited—rather than relying on legalistic formalities or specific apparatuses of government to produce well-ordered, harmonious, and prosperous states. This shared emphasis on the necessity for virtuous men rather than proscriptive laws in a successful polity is what James Hankins terms Virtue Politics.
Humanists took to heart the Thucydidean maxim that “men, not walls, make a city,” as well as the warning of Tacitus that “the state at its most corrupt will have innumerable laws.” They believed that no system of government, however well designed on paper, could survive the custodianship of morally and intellectually degenerate elites. They sought to replace hierarchies based on wealth and lineage with ones that were based on the embodiment of the classical virtues as transmitted by Aristotle, Xenophon, Seneca, and especially Cicero, creating an elite that was accessible to the materially lowborn—and indeed to anyone with strength of character and humane education—and that could effectively govern without coercion, drawing its potency and legitimacy from the natural attraction, the charisma, exerted by virtuous statesmen. In this regard they were analogous to the tradition of Chinese Confucianism, which, as the final chapter of Virtue Politics fascinatingly explores, likewise emerged from an era of social turmoil and political fragmentation—the Spring and Autumn period—promoted the recovery and transmission of ancient ethical teachings and the education of a meritocratic elite, and became the dominant Chinese paideuma from the Han dynasty (roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire) to the end of the Qing dynasty at the beginning of the twentieth century. The writings of Matteo Ricci, himself a humanist, on the virtues of a Chinese state governed by a hereditary monarch and a class of scholars, the mandarinate, who were revered by the people as quasi-clerical figures solely in accordance with their learning and wisdom, became an inspiration to the final generation of humanist intellectuals in the sixteenth century. But Petrarchan Virtue Politics were soon to be superseded by Machiavellian political science; the self-sufficient classical virtues of courage, prudence, practical wisdom, and justice by Machiavelli’s virtù: a purely instrumentalized ideal of “effectiveness” or “know-how” divorced from traditional morality. Will the humanist paideuma make a comeback in our own time?
Beginning with Petrarch and his followers, the tradition of Renaissance Humanism introduced a new paradigm of moral education—a new paideuma—into the intellectual discourse of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Although historians of political thought often regard the political theory of the Italian Renaissance as footnotes to Machiavelli, viewing its preeminent thinkers anachronistically as stepping stones toward the inevitable coronation of post-seventeenth century “republican exclusivism,” - republicanism here being understood as a polyarchic constitutional structure rather than a constitutionally-circumscribed mode of governance oriented toward the common good - the Humanists were not defined by their commitment to any particular system of government. They made themselves equally at home in service of the signory of Milan, the aristocratic republics of Florence and Venice, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Papacy. What united them, rather, was their dedication to the moral reformation of people—making rulers and citizens more virtuous, wise, and public-spirited—rather than relying on legalistic formalities or specific apparatuses of government to produce well-ordered, harmonious, and prosperous states. This shared emphasis on the necessity for virtuous men rather than proscriptive laws in a successful polity is what James Hankins terms Virtue Politics.
Humanists took to heart the Thucydidean maxim that “men, not walls, make a city,” as well as the warning of Tacitus that “the state at its most corrupt will have innumerable laws.” They believed that no system of government, however well designed on paper, could survive the custodianship of morally and intellectually degenerate elites. They sought to replace hierarchies based on wealth and lineage with ones that were based on the embodiment of the classical virtues as transmitted by Aristotle, Xenophon, Seneca, and especially Cicero, creating an elite that was accessible to the materially lowborn—and indeed to anyone with strength of character and humane education—and that could effectively govern without coercion, drawing its potency and legitimacy from the natural attraction, the charisma, exerted by virtuous statesmen. In this regard they were analogous to the tradition of Chinese Confucianism, which, as the final chapter of Virtue Politics fascinatingly explores, likewise emerged from an era of social turmoil and political fragmentation—the Spring and Autumn period—promoted the recovery and transmission of ancient ethical teachings and the education of a meritocratic elite, and became the dominant Chinese paideuma from the Han dynasty (roughly contemporaneous with the Roman Empire) to the end of the Qing dynasty at the beginning of the twentieth century. The writings of Matteo Ricci, himself a humanist, on the virtues of a Chinese state governed by a hereditary monarch and a class of scholars, the mandarinate, who were revered by the people as quasi-clerical figures solely in accordance with their learning and wisdom, became an inspiration to the final generation of humanist intellectuals in the sixteenth century. But Petrarchan Virtue Politics were soon to be superseded by Machiavellian political science; the self-sufficient classical virtues of courage, prudence, practical wisdom, and justice by Machiavelli’s virtù: a purely instrumentalized ideal of “effectiveness” or “know-how” divorced from traditional morality. Will the humanist paideuma make a comeback in our own time?
January 16, 2021
In this long and deeply-researched book, Hankins argues against pre-existing views of renaissance humanism in Italy. Other authors, he claims, see the humanists as advocates for republicanism, links in the chain of liberty that runs from Ancient Rome to the framers of the American constitution. Not so, he says: Humanists supported both kings and republics. What really makes their thought unique is its emphasis on virtue: To have a prosperous and just political regime, you need to have virtuous rulers. 'Soulcraft' comes before 'statecraft': You need to improve the souls of rulers through an education in Greek and Roman thought, and then they will rule their states wisely. Hankins labels this approach 'virtue politics'. This is an accessible scholarly book with a wide-ranging view of the Renaissance, not a popular book which provides a potted history of the period and its thought. As such it may be a bigger project than you want to take on. But if you want to dive into the scholarly literature on this topic, you will probably learn a lot from this book. I know I did.
I'm hardly an expert in this area, but I was convinced by Hankins's claims. He provides a massive amount of citation to primary sources, including long block quotes of what are apparently difficult-to-access archival materials. His bibliography is filled with English and Italian sources ranging over a century, and demonstrates a mastery of the secondary literature. Even Hankins's relentless partisanship for his own position is reassuring, as he lays his cards clearly on the table and names his adversaries, describing their positions and his stance on them. This polemic also helps organize the text and keep readers interested. At times Hankins's portrayals of the humanists seems similar to that of Baron and other historians he opposes -- one gets the feeling that in fact they have more in common with Hankins that he himself is willing to admit. The book ends with a glowing account of Confucianism and its similarities to humanism, (no doubt the result of a well-funded junket to the PRC) which demonstrates how Hankins' conservative tendencies articulate with the anti-democratic impulses of the PRC. I'm on a very different page politically, but was still convinced that Hankins's reading of the articulation between these two traditions was correct.
Hankins's prose is clear and easy to read -- he has clearly taken to heart rhetorical values of the Ancients. At times it is repetitive: Hankins can dash off an outline of virtue politics easily and seems compelled to do so every 75 pages or so. Also, there is a certain amount of overlap that Hankins did not entirely eliminate when he combined the various articles from which he compiled the book. The massive amount of evidence that Hankins provides could be stultifying at times to a non-expert like me, but it is easily glossed over. Indeed, the book is well sign-posted so it is easy to keep the thread of his argument. Readers will need a little bit of Latin and Greek phrasing ('eo ipso', 'post hoc') to follow the argument. I found I could do it. Overall its remarkable easy to read and well organized given it's scope and size. If you decide to take it on... good luck!
I'm hardly an expert in this area, but I was convinced by Hankins's claims. He provides a massive amount of citation to primary sources, including long block quotes of what are apparently difficult-to-access archival materials. His bibliography is filled with English and Italian sources ranging over a century, and demonstrates a mastery of the secondary literature. Even Hankins's relentless partisanship for his own position is reassuring, as he lays his cards clearly on the table and names his adversaries, describing their positions and his stance on them. This polemic also helps organize the text and keep readers interested. At times Hankins's portrayals of the humanists seems similar to that of Baron and other historians he opposes -- one gets the feeling that in fact they have more in common with Hankins that he himself is willing to admit. The book ends with a glowing account of Confucianism and its similarities to humanism, (no doubt the result of a well-funded junket to the PRC) which demonstrates how Hankins' conservative tendencies articulate with the anti-democratic impulses of the PRC. I'm on a very different page politically, but was still convinced that Hankins's reading of the articulation between these two traditions was correct.
Hankins's prose is clear and easy to read -- he has clearly taken to heart rhetorical values of the Ancients. At times it is repetitive: Hankins can dash off an outline of virtue politics easily and seems compelled to do so every 75 pages or so. Also, there is a certain amount of overlap that Hankins did not entirely eliminate when he combined the various articles from which he compiled the book. The massive amount of evidence that Hankins provides could be stultifying at times to a non-expert like me, but it is easily glossed over. Indeed, the book is well sign-posted so it is easy to keep the thread of his argument. Readers will need a little bit of Latin and Greek phrasing ('eo ipso', 'post hoc') to follow the argument. I found I could do it. Overall its remarkable easy to read and well organized given it's scope and size. If you decide to take it on... good luck!
Read
January 9, 2023I only recently realized the through-line in much of media I gravitate to is noir. As I started to dig for some films of the genre to varying degrees, I came across LA Confidential, a popular 90s noir which I had somehow never seen (and which, strangely, isn't on most of the major streaming services). Now, I went ahead and bought it, sat back, and laced my fingers. What I got was more than I expected, though not unique to LA Confidential per se. The film simply put it all on display. You see, LA Confidential is a parable of the problems and questions in political philosophy that were vexing the humanists in renaissance Italy in the 1400s — don't let the police costumes and machine guns confuse you.
The movie opens with the premise of a new power vacuum in LA after the biggest organized crime boss gets taken out, with Danny Divito as ye olde TMZ reporter giving us the goods. Naturally, the power vaccum will be filled, the question is merely by whom, and how so — the sort of situation that was not uncommon in late 1300s and throughout 1400s Italy with a multitude of city-states vying for power and governance, fetishizing Roman law, culture, and custom along the way.
We are introduced to "Bud" (Russell Crowe), a cop who likes right hooks, a fan of justice just not necessarily through the law. Then, we meet "Jack" (Kevin Spacey), shown as a man with no moral compass and only interest in private pleasures and private goods. Finally we meet the third character, "Ed", the straight A cop, hereditary monarch, and law abiding law enforcer.
The respubica of LA is in these men's hands when it comes to solving a murder case that threatens to question the legitimacy of the LAPD. The question is how the law is actually enforced, because the law itself is just words, the people who administer the law are the ones who determine much of what actually matters. So we have ourselves a question: how is LA to be ruled, in actuality, by what system, and by men of what sort of build?
Ed is the wet dream of the humanists: son of a hero, turned hero himself, gaining the prestige and respect of his peers by his actions (despite their original distaste for his uptight demeanor and preference for the Aristotelian common good — unlike our friend Jack). He is our would be philosopher king, and we'll assume he's Done The Reading (greco-roman education, the humanists really loved that, which is basically a third of Hankin's book).
Jack is the oligarchical/aristocratic figure, gets killed on his redemption arc but acts as a stand in for the ineffectual waste of public resources and governing capacity one gets when the elite are not, in fact, virtuous (avarice, lust, etc etc).
Bud is our example of popular rule: sometimes useful, sometimes misguided, not always reliable.
He has some virtues, but is imperfect. He has a machiavellian streak to him, in that he prefers Virtu to Virtue.
The spectre of outright tyranny that was the center of the question of governance for the humanists makes it appearance through Capt. Dudley, as is clear towards the middle of the film (whoops, spoiler).
Later in the film we even get to see the discourse Hankins explicates around Machivelli's preference for mixed government and Virtu (effectiveness) as preferred over Virtue (as the humanists would have it) when we get some heartwarming good cop bad cop action. This of course implicates Ed's descent from the heavens as the virtuous figure and his turn to what Hankins would say is the "less naive" and more Machiavellian man. So Machiavelli's post-humanism is drawn out and perhaps, ultimately, endorced in LA Confidential.
Ultimately the question of whether constitutional and institutional form matters is one side of the coin of LA Confidential (how to administer law and govern), whilst the other side is the character and virtue of our protagonists: both questions are answered ambiguously as the film progresses, the characters change, and the forms of law "enforcement" are "experimented" with.
Anyways, Virtue Politics was a good read if you've read something like The Renaissance in Italy
A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento, as I did last year. The question of Virtu (vs Virtue) is addressed in a complete fashion and brings a lot of clarity for framing a lot of increasingly loud (and often dull discourse) around this very same issue in modern times. If you know where to look you can find people attempting a Petarachean paideuma right now and emphasizing the quality of our modern governing "elite" and eliding questions of constitutional form (broadly speaking) — for the same reasons the humanists would cite, but I prefer to think it's merely intellectual laziness. But I digress. Good (if exhaustive [better that then not, I suppose]) read if interested in renaissance political thought and not at all irrelevant to modern discourses, gave me a better framework for thinking about political discourse. I also enjoyed the comparison with and review of intra-civilizational dialogue between Confucianism and Virtue Politics in the conclusion, as it was always something I saw in common when reading some Roman writings but didn't quite know how to express.
The movie opens with the premise of a new power vacuum in LA after the biggest organized crime boss gets taken out, with Danny Divito as ye olde TMZ reporter giving us the goods. Naturally, the power vaccum will be filled, the question is merely by whom, and how so — the sort of situation that was not uncommon in late 1300s and throughout 1400s Italy with a multitude of city-states vying for power and governance, fetishizing Roman law, culture, and custom along the way.
We are introduced to "Bud" (Russell Crowe), a cop who likes right hooks, a fan of justice just not necessarily through the law. Then, we meet "Jack" (Kevin Spacey), shown as a man with no moral compass and only interest in private pleasures and private goods. Finally we meet the third character, "Ed", the straight A cop, hereditary monarch, and law abiding law enforcer.
The respubica of LA is in these men's hands when it comes to solving a murder case that threatens to question the legitimacy of the LAPD. The question is how the law is actually enforced, because the law itself is just words, the people who administer the law are the ones who determine much of what actually matters. So we have ourselves a question: how is LA to be ruled, in actuality, by what system, and by men of what sort of build?
Ed is the wet dream of the humanists: son of a hero, turned hero himself, gaining the prestige and respect of his peers by his actions (despite their original distaste for his uptight demeanor and preference for the Aristotelian common good — unlike our friend Jack). He is our would be philosopher king, and we'll assume he's Done The Reading (greco-roman education, the humanists really loved that, which is basically a third of Hankin's book).
Jack is the oligarchical/aristocratic figure, gets killed on his redemption arc but acts as a stand in for the ineffectual waste of public resources and governing capacity one gets when the elite are not, in fact, virtuous (avarice, lust, etc etc).
Bud is our example of popular rule: sometimes useful, sometimes misguided, not always reliable.
He has some virtues, but is imperfect. He has a machiavellian streak to him, in that he prefers Virtu to Virtue.
The spectre of outright tyranny that was the center of the question of governance for the humanists makes it appearance through Capt. Dudley, as is clear towards the middle of the film (whoops, spoiler).
Later in the film we even get to see the discourse Hankins explicates around Machivelli's preference for mixed government and Virtu (effectiveness) as preferred over Virtue (as the humanists would have it) when we get some heartwarming good cop bad cop action. This of course implicates Ed's descent from the heavens as the virtuous figure and his turn to what Hankins would say is the "less naive" and more Machiavellian man. So Machiavelli's post-humanism is drawn out and perhaps, ultimately, endorced in LA Confidential.
Ultimately the question of whether constitutional and institutional form matters is one side of the coin of LA Confidential (how to administer law and govern), whilst the other side is the character and virtue of our protagonists: both questions are answered ambiguously as the film progresses, the characters change, and the forms of law "enforcement" are "experimented" with.
Anyways, Virtue Politics was a good read if you've read something like The Renaissance in Italy
A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento, as I did last year. The question of Virtu (vs Virtue) is addressed in a complete fashion and brings a lot of clarity for framing a lot of increasingly loud (and often dull discourse) around this very same issue in modern times. If you know where to look you can find people attempting a Petarachean paideuma right now and emphasizing the quality of our modern governing "elite" and eliding questions of constitutional form (broadly speaking) — for the same reasons the humanists would cite, but I prefer to think it's merely intellectual laziness. But I digress. Good (if exhaustive [better that then not, I suppose]) read if interested in renaissance political thought and not at all irrelevant to modern discourses, gave me a better framework for thinking about political discourse. I also enjoyed the comparison with and review of intra-civilizational dialogue between Confucianism and Virtue Politics in the conclusion, as it was always something I saw in common when reading some Roman writings but didn't quite know how to express.
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August 8, 2021Les vacances se terminent!
Magnifique lecture sur la Renaissance italienne et les auteurs dits du "courant humaniste civique" qui se termine sur la divergence entre Bruni et Machiavel quant à trouver la bonne solution pour réparer une république hyperpartisane. Une lecture qui paraît éloignée dans le temps et l'espace, mais qui se termine avec cette impression de retour vers le futur ; où les mêmes séries d'événements se répètent, mais avec des acteurs différents.
La régression cognitive et sociale que Hannah Arendt appelait "atomisation des masses" est un mouvement bio-informationnel.
1) Le nouveau média (smartphone et plateformes) modifie notre cognition et altère notre réserve d'attention au point de pouvoir être utilisés comme armes (weaponizable, social engineering, ingénierie sociale)
2) la distorsion technologique a déstabilisé les écosystèmes des marchés de l'information, et tous les intermédiaires liés à ce marché de l'information (les courtisans et les clercs) - journalistes, politiciens, artistes, fonctionnaires, professionnels, vedettes, intellectuels
3) le nouveau média a démocratisé l'accès à l'information et la capacité de créer des réseaux sociaux, pour la plèbe et tous le peuple, mais le bénéfice économique est venu avec la capacité de déstabilisé l'écosystème du point 2), ce faisant, la vague populiste a été rendue possible en occident et ailleurs (et une série de coups d'État partout sur la planète)
4) nous vivons présentement un ressac des élites, du Deep State, des GAFAs, des whigs, des intermédiaires, des 'optimates', de l'aristocratie stato-financière ; ils ont choisi de mettre au silence leur opposition populiste. Ils ont choisi l'exclusion du marché de l'information, exclusion morale et destruction des réputations, exclusion économique, politique, artistique, culturelle, religieuse. Le régime de censure est instauré par les nouveaux aristocrates du complexe militaro-informationnel.
5) la stratégie des nouveaux nobles utilise le vocabulaire marxiste, intersectionnel, et le récit eschatologique écologiste comme nouvelle idéologie de cour politiquement et idéologiquement compatible avec le régime totalitaire du parti communiste chinois, afin de modifier et légitimer le nouveau régime biopolitique de censure.
6) l'enjeu des nouveaux nobles est celui de forcer la rééducation des sociétés occidentales ; des sociétés où la libertas et les vertues populaires sont difficilement assujetties sans qu'il y ait des déstabilisations très rapidement dans l'ordre de ce système. Pourquoi? Parce que présentement sont placés dans les marges des centaines de milliers de personnes sans accès aux marchés (ressources, informations, influence) ; ils sont laissés à eux-mêmes comme des ennemis intérieurs. Quelle est la prochaine étape logique du régime de censure, sinon la promotion des marchés il-licites?
À quoi sert l'apprentissage de l'histoire et de la philosophie ? À comprendre comment les sociétés fonctionnent et bien informer sa vision du monde. En arrivant à comprendre les principes de base et en étant à même de remarquer les détails importants d'un contexte historique et géopolitique précis, on acquiert la vertue de prudence que les humanistes de la Renaissance pointaient dans tous leurs ouvrages.
Magnifique lecture sur la Renaissance italienne et les auteurs dits du "courant humaniste civique" qui se termine sur la divergence entre Bruni et Machiavel quant à trouver la bonne solution pour réparer une république hyperpartisane. Une lecture qui paraît éloignée dans le temps et l'espace, mais qui se termine avec cette impression de retour vers le futur ; où les mêmes séries d'événements se répètent, mais avec des acteurs différents.
La régression cognitive et sociale que Hannah Arendt appelait "atomisation des masses" est un mouvement bio-informationnel.
1) Le nouveau média (smartphone et plateformes) modifie notre cognition et altère notre réserve d'attention au point de pouvoir être utilisés comme armes (weaponizable, social engineering, ingénierie sociale)
2) la distorsion technologique a déstabilisé les écosystèmes des marchés de l'information, et tous les intermédiaires liés à ce marché de l'information (les courtisans et les clercs) - journalistes, politiciens, artistes, fonctionnaires, professionnels, vedettes, intellectuels
3) le nouveau média a démocratisé l'accès à l'information et la capacité de créer des réseaux sociaux, pour la plèbe et tous le peuple, mais le bénéfice économique est venu avec la capacité de déstabilisé l'écosystème du point 2), ce faisant, la vague populiste a été rendue possible en occident et ailleurs (et une série de coups d'État partout sur la planète)
4) nous vivons présentement un ressac des élites, du Deep State, des GAFAs, des whigs, des intermédiaires, des 'optimates', de l'aristocratie stato-financière ; ils ont choisi de mettre au silence leur opposition populiste. Ils ont choisi l'exclusion du marché de l'information, exclusion morale et destruction des réputations, exclusion économique, politique, artistique, culturelle, religieuse. Le régime de censure est instauré par les nouveaux aristocrates du complexe militaro-informationnel.
5) la stratégie des nouveaux nobles utilise le vocabulaire marxiste, intersectionnel, et le récit eschatologique écologiste comme nouvelle idéologie de cour politiquement et idéologiquement compatible avec le régime totalitaire du parti communiste chinois, afin de modifier et légitimer le nouveau régime biopolitique de censure.
6) l'enjeu des nouveaux nobles est celui de forcer la rééducation des sociétés occidentales ; des sociétés où la libertas et les vertues populaires sont difficilement assujetties sans qu'il y ait des déstabilisations très rapidement dans l'ordre de ce système. Pourquoi? Parce que présentement sont placés dans les marges des centaines de milliers de personnes sans accès aux marchés (ressources, informations, influence) ; ils sont laissés à eux-mêmes comme des ennemis intérieurs. Quelle est la prochaine étape logique du régime de censure, sinon la promotion des marchés il-licites?
À quoi sert l'apprentissage de l'histoire et de la philosophie ? À comprendre comment les sociétés fonctionnent et bien informer sa vision du monde. En arrivant à comprendre les principes de base et en étant à même de remarquer les détails importants d'un contexte historique et géopolitique précis, on acquiert la vertue de prudence que les humanistes de la Renaissance pointaient dans tous leurs ouvrages.
February 26, 2022
This was good bad a hard slog. I should have realize that this was written more for an academic audience.
October 25, 2023
This is a masterwork by a dedicated scholar of Renaissance Italy and deserves to be read as a class in how political ideas and concepts of government develop and change over time. The message of the book is the virtue is essential for good government and good leaders, which is a message both timely and timeless. Whenever a people or their leaders stray from virtue into moral relativism, overly nuanced analysis, or bastardization of language the efficacy of government declines and eventually the state collapses.
Hankins also focuses on the early humanist thinkers of the period and how they 500 years ago recognized that any philosophy which placed the human solely at its center needed a leavening of virtue to prevent the development of narcissism which can come from the attribution of god like powers to mortals.
Hankins also focuses on the early humanist thinkers of the period and how they 500 years ago recognized that any philosophy which placed the human solely at its center needed a leavening of virtue to prevent the development of narcissism which can come from the attribution of god like powers to mortals.
November 28, 2025
While I was initially bowled over on first reading "Virtue Politics" by James Hankins' erudition and velvety-smooth prose, his Twitter takes during the genocide in Gaza prompted me to re-evaluate this seemingly masterful tome. Perhaps knee-jerk reactionary tendencies were at play under the smoothly-polished surface; an exercise in counter-signaling against "woke." This may sound like ad-hominem. But it does materially relate to Hankins' core thesis, namely that the pedagogical methods developed by the Renaissance Humanists - studying the classical languages, epic poetry, and studying history "for moral edification" - constitute the essence of what might be called Western civilization's wisdom tradition. An expert practitioner of those methods - such as Hankins clearly is - ought therefore, not to be making fundamental mistakes in political analysis. He ought rather to be politically streetwise and morally astute, as well as being full of fine words.
On the academic level, "Virtue Politics" succeeds magnificently as a bibliographical study of the development of Humanist pedagogy in the Renaissance. A conservative Catholic, Hankins rejects the standard modern view of Renaissance Humanism, developed by luminaries like Jacob Burckhardt, as a teleological road, or if you prefer, a mere stepping-stone, to the secular Enlightenment. Herein lies both the great strength and weakness of the book. The case is well made that the excesses of the Enlightenment-centered viewpoint have led to an anachronistic view of Renaissance Humanism, one which reduces the richness and nuance of Humanist political thought to a cliché of Machiavellian individualism and secularism.
But I think Machiavelli also serves Hankins, in his turn, as a foil to advance a somewhat oversimplified narrative intellectual history. Re-evaluating the Florentine cynic's cult-like status among "realists" in the modern academic humanities and social sciences seems justified, both intellectually and morally. Hankins' other main argument, that the return to the teaching of Latin, Greek, the Western canon, and of history free from the now obligatory New Left, pseudo-Marxist or "intersectional" cant, are all essential foundations for the reconstruction of a functioning academic humanities, is convincing. But there seems to be a risk that in advancing these noble goals in reaction to postmodernism and to the "cult" of Machiavelli, that Renaissance Humanism may again be reduced, this time to an instrumental tool, reified as the requisite syllabus (or marketing label) for 21st century Christian-conservative education.
Come to think of it, hasn't something like this been attempted before in the counter-Reformation and counter-Enlightenment of the 16th and 17th centuries? Although Hankins may have never characterized his project this way - doubtless as it would be too unpalatable to American Protestants - he would seem to be promoting something along very similar lines to Jesuit education, the Ratio Studiorum of the Counter-Reformation, albeit in quasi-secular form. In the Renaissance itself prior to the Reformation, very serious challenges to Catholic Humanism had arisen from revived intellectual and spiritual currents of antiquity such as Neoplatonism and Hermeticism, which frayed the edges of the unitary worldview of the Christian Middle Ages. The Jesuit movement's careful curation and co-optation of the Renaissance Humanist legacy for the aims of Catholicism was the result.
I'm not sure Hankins would cavil at all at being compared to a twenty-first century, secular Ignatius Loyola; my point is rather that perhaps, he himself ought to have explored the parallel. In "Virtue Politics," as elsewhere in his recent output, he has supplied powerful and even valuable manifestos of the present-day burgeoning "classical education movement" comprising home-schoolers and private colleges (largely of the American Christian demographic) seeking a return to the pedagogical techniques and superior educational outcomes of the nineteenth century. But one can't escape the feeling that it is all faintly reminiscent in educational terms of Trump's promotion of classicism in aesthetics. A Kitsch counter-Enlightenment for the Walmart age. In architecture, tacky, vaguely-Louis XV gilded bling can indeed be justified when contrasted with establishment Brutalism, or the tedious dregs of Bauhaus; in education, vacuum packed "classical education," much like its predecessor "Great Books Education," is certainly preferable to the banality, sophistry and "woke" insanity of many contemporary humanities departments. But both reflect the unfortunate reduction of the Western tradition to a lesser of two evils; a rallying-point, and perhaps worse, a fetish of reactionaries in a left-right Kulturkampf. And as revealed in many of the American Christian right's views on Palestine, such a fetishistic "conservative" ethos can result in acute political naivete.
On the academic level, "Virtue Politics" succeeds magnificently as a bibliographical study of the development of Humanist pedagogy in the Renaissance. A conservative Catholic, Hankins rejects the standard modern view of Renaissance Humanism, developed by luminaries like Jacob Burckhardt, as a teleological road, or if you prefer, a mere stepping-stone, to the secular Enlightenment. Herein lies both the great strength and weakness of the book. The case is well made that the excesses of the Enlightenment-centered viewpoint have led to an anachronistic view of Renaissance Humanism, one which reduces the richness and nuance of Humanist political thought to a cliché of Machiavellian individualism and secularism.
But I think Machiavelli also serves Hankins, in his turn, as a foil to advance a somewhat oversimplified narrative intellectual history. Re-evaluating the Florentine cynic's cult-like status among "realists" in the modern academic humanities and social sciences seems justified, both intellectually and morally. Hankins' other main argument, that the return to the teaching of Latin, Greek, the Western canon, and of history free from the now obligatory New Left, pseudo-Marxist or "intersectional" cant, are all essential foundations for the reconstruction of a functioning academic humanities, is convincing. But there seems to be a risk that in advancing these noble goals in reaction to postmodernism and to the "cult" of Machiavelli, that Renaissance Humanism may again be reduced, this time to an instrumental tool, reified as the requisite syllabus (or marketing label) for 21st century Christian-conservative education.
Come to think of it, hasn't something like this been attempted before in the counter-Reformation and counter-Enlightenment of the 16th and 17th centuries? Although Hankins may have never characterized his project this way - doubtless as it would be too unpalatable to American Protestants - he would seem to be promoting something along very similar lines to Jesuit education, the Ratio Studiorum of the Counter-Reformation, albeit in quasi-secular form. In the Renaissance itself prior to the Reformation, very serious challenges to Catholic Humanism had arisen from revived intellectual and spiritual currents of antiquity such as Neoplatonism and Hermeticism, which frayed the edges of the unitary worldview of the Christian Middle Ages. The Jesuit movement's careful curation and co-optation of the Renaissance Humanist legacy for the aims of Catholicism was the result.
I'm not sure Hankins would cavil at all at being compared to a twenty-first century, secular Ignatius Loyola; my point is rather that perhaps, he himself ought to have explored the parallel. In "Virtue Politics," as elsewhere in his recent output, he has supplied powerful and even valuable manifestos of the present-day burgeoning "classical education movement" comprising home-schoolers and private colleges (largely of the American Christian demographic) seeking a return to the pedagogical techniques and superior educational outcomes of the nineteenth century. But one can't escape the feeling that it is all faintly reminiscent in educational terms of Trump's promotion of classicism in aesthetics. A Kitsch counter-Enlightenment for the Walmart age. In architecture, tacky, vaguely-Louis XV gilded bling can indeed be justified when contrasted with establishment Brutalism, or the tedious dregs of Bauhaus; in education, vacuum packed "classical education," much like its predecessor "Great Books Education," is certainly preferable to the banality, sophistry and "woke" insanity of many contemporary humanities departments. But both reflect the unfortunate reduction of the Western tradition to a lesser of two evils; a rallying-point, and perhaps worse, a fetish of reactionaries in a left-right Kulturkampf. And as revealed in many of the American Christian right's views on Palestine, such a fetishistic "conservative" ethos can result in acute political naivete.
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