As an undergraduate reading Politics and English (and Related) Literature, one of the writers who made the biggest impact on me was Machiavelli.
One thing that struck me about Machiavelli was the way he sought clarity by asking hypothetical questions and reducing uncertainties to binary "either-or" options.
Machiavellian Options
The case might be laid out like this:
If [a prince] wishes to [retain power] is it better to [A] or [B]? He would then cite "necessity" and pick the more shocking of the two options as the infallible choice, and illustrate it with juicy cases from the annals ancient or recent history or the deeds of the biblical patriarchs.
For example, Machiavelli proffers this binary option in his little treatise, "The Prince": "Whether it is Better to Be Loved or Feared."
Well of course, he writes, every Prince should desire to be both loved and feared at the same time, but,
"...quando si abbia a mancare dell'uno de' dua..."
...when one has to lack one of the two..."
then it is better to be feared than to be loved...
The great exemplar of this maxim is Hannibal who, through his "inhuman cruelty" was able to keep his multinational army together and defeat the Romans in battle after battle.
The quality that Hannibal possessed is what Machiavell called "Virtù" (or "virtue" - but usually distinguished from classical virtue by this propensity to accept the necessity of "not good" means to achieving "necessary" ends).
One way to translate "Virtù" might be "manly vigour" although Machiavelli also cites Caterina Sforza as a female exemplar of "Virtù" - but we'll save that story for another day...
The Best Way To Predict The Future Is To Enact It With Virtù
Anyway, the point is that for Machiavelli, the best way to make a sound prediction about your future is to bring it about through your own acts of Virtù.
Virtù and Fortuna
And that brings us to another binary opposition: Virtù and Fortuna. Fortuna is an unreliable goddess who makes it damned difficult to predict the future, or to profit from sudden changes in circumstances. On the other hand, Virtù is what men can use to build dykes against sudden floods of bad fortune.
There are again two reasons for this difficulty that we face when wrestling with Fortuna.
One is that Fortuna is a woman ["la fortuna è donna"] and therefore capricious.
Men, however, suffer from the opposite vice: they are too set in their ways to adapt to changes in circumstances. When fortune favours their way of doing things, they prosper, but when fortune and circumstances change, they are destroyed.
Be Flexible, or Failing That, Be Impetuous
It would be best if you could be flexible, to be cautious in challenging times and impetuous in favourable times, but if you, like most people, can't manage that, then it is better to be impetuous and beat Fortuna into submission if you can.
That is what I learnt as a first year undergraduate about how to deal with the difficulty of predicting the future and how to handle uncertainty.
Measure For Measure
In my second year, I studied a two term course on "Shakeapeare the Dramatist."
One of the plays we studied, and then performed at the end of term, was "Measure for Measure."
The very title of the play contains a part of a maxim which is itself a prediction:
"...with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."
(Matthew 7:2)
The Duke's Ironic Predictions
There is an ironic scene in that play in which the disguised Duke makes a series of predictions about who or what is arriving at the prison cell where he, disguised as a monk, is observing - and attempting to manipulate - the situation.
The Duke believes that his strategem to have Claudio's death sentence countermanded has been successful and that the command to pardon the prisoner will be delivered shortly.
Each prediction is swiftly and comically proved false:
DUKE: ... Now they are come. [but nobody new arrives]
...
DUKE: Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die tomorrow?
PROVOST: None, sir, none.
DUKE: As near the dawning, provost, as it is,
You shall hear tomorrow. [Another false prediction]
...
A Messenger enters
PROVOST: This is his lordship's man.
DUKE: And here comes Claudio's pardon. [Yet another false prediction!]
In the end, with a lot of plot shuffling, the Duke succeeds in his aims so while his short term predictions are completely off, he does much better with his strategem in the long run.
Power of Prediction at Post Production Party
After the last night of our performance we had a post production booze up in one of the senior common rooms, and it was there where the next episode of this story begins. It is illustrative of my miserable ability to make sound predictions in spite of everything I had learnt from my two mentors, Machiavelli and Shakespeare, in the preceeding two years of study...
First things first...
On arriving at the senior common room I made a beeline for the drinks cabinet, and having secured myself a tumbler of wine I espied an empty space on a sofa where someone who vaguely resembled one of our female members of the cast was sitting alone. So I acted with Machiavellian impetuosity and wandered over to claim the comfy seat.
I flopped down onto the sofa (without spilling a drop from the tumbler) and turned to the girl with some banter about the evening when, to my astonishment, I found myself looking into the surprised and rather attractive face of a complete stranger.
I Did Not Predict That This Would Happen
So feeble were my predictive powers that what I had supposed would happen - that I would sit down and have some friendly chat about how the last three nights' performances had gone, and thereby secure myself a comfy seat for the evening - proved false in the major instance: How was I to know that she was a complete stranger??
The thing is, had I known that the girl was a complete stranger I would have hesitated and probably sought out friendly and familiar company elsewhere.
I was so inept at applying Machiavellian virtù to the dating game in those distant days that on most weekends anybody would have been able to make a sound prediction about how my evening would turn out: drink too much. Fail to pull. Keep on drinking with my chums until daylight. Go to bed. Wake up in the afternoon. Get up towards evening. Rinse and repeat.
But here I suddenly was, comfortably seated with a tumbler of wine in my hand and a pretty girl by my side who was amused by my disconcerted look. It turned out that she was the daughter of a Shakespeare professor who was a good mate of our course tutor and who came to the last night every year. That year lady Fortuna was smiling on me it seemed, because by her good grace she caused him to have his 19 year old daughter accompany him to our show.
So, seeing as she had seen the play, and knew my tutor (who had something of a "reputation"), there was plenty to talk about and we got on like a house on fire until she had to depart with her father.
The party carried on until about 7 o'clock the next morning, and I remember with what elation I cycled back to my digs that fine morning...
To Telephone Or Not To Telephone?
The next day I was faced with a dilemma... I didn't have her phone number and I wasn't even sure if I should ring her up if I did have it.
The easy part was tracking down the phone number. I knew her father's name and so I looked up all the B. Hxxxxxes in the telephone directory. [Ahem. Note to younger readers: In the old days, i.e. before the Internet, you could find people's telephone numbers and addresses by looking them up in an alphabetically arranged telephone directory.]
The second question, whether to phone her or not - and what the outcome would likely be if I did - took another session in the pub to work out...
Finding the question, "would she say yes or no if I ask her out on a date?" impossible to predict, I decided to order another pint of bitter and attempt to get to the bottom of the question before getting to the bottom of the beer.
Working Out The Options: An "Infallible" Prediction
What that second pint revealed was that I was faced with a Machiavellian "either-or" question on two fronts:
Either I telephone or I don't.
If I telephone, she will either say "yes" or "no".
This discovery merited further consideration, and over the third pint I had this astonishing insight, which greatly enhanced my power of prediction:
If I do not telephone, the option of telephoning still remains and so the question is unresolved.
If I telephone, the result will be either "yes" or "no" and that will be the end of it.
Therefore, I should finish my beer and go outside to the public telephone box and telephone.
That way (I predicted) I will know my fate in the next ten minutes.
Impressed with this infallible train of logic, I drained the glass and went out to the telephone box.
The phone box was empty. I went in. I picked up the receiver and dialled the number. The phone rang and an young woman answered it.
"Hello," I said, "Could I speak to Elizabeth, please."
"Who?" said the perplexed voice, "There's nobody of that name here.... [pause] ... Do you mean Oxxvxa?"
"Oh no," I said, completely flustered. "I must have the wrong number. Sorry."
And I hung up.
Back To The Pub, And Square One
I went straight back to the pub and ordered another pint of bitter.
Bitter, indeed, seemed my fate at the hands of that capricious mistress Dame Fortune at that moment. She had taken me for a merry ride on her Wheel, and unceremoniously dumped me back at the bottom, right back where I had started.
However, under the gentle inspiration of the nappy ale, as I reprised the events of the preceding hour over and over again, it dawned upon me that perhaps the young lady whose name I had thought was "Elizabeth" was after all named "Oxxvxa" and that I had simply misheard (or forgotten) her name when she had introduced herself that happy evening.
Both names have four syllables, start with a vowel and end with rather similar v/th sounds.
Indeed, deeper reflexion revealed to me the astonishing insight that the young woman on the other end of the telephone was my lady and her gentle prompting, "Do you mean Oxxvxa?", had been a not so subtle hint that I had been too dumb to pick up on in the heat of the moment.
Second Phone Call
I couldn't face another phone call that night, but the next day, or at my next opportunity, I put myself to the test again. This time, not only would I ask for "Oxxvxa," I would explain to whoever happened to be on the other end of the phone exactly who I was.
That way, I predicted, I would sooner or later resolve this issue one way or another and be done.
Ring ring. Ring ring...
A man answered the phone. Professor B. H. himself!
"Hello. Could I speak to Oxxvxa, please?"
"Oh, I'm afraid she's at her ballet class right now..."
A ballet dancer!
I calmly explained who I was and said I'd ring back.
Well, the binary question was still unresolved, but I felt I'd made some progress. Now I knew I'd got my lady's name right, and gained an intriguing extra insight into her life...
Third Phone Call
I telephoned for the third time...
This time I got the mother, Mrs H.
"Hello, this is David, could I speak to Oxxvxa, please?"
"Oh, she's not in at the moment, but she is expecting you to call."
Once again, I said I'd ring back. Still no resolution, but inch by inch, I felt I'd made a bit more progress towards realizing my prediction...
Fourth Phone Call
I telephoned for the fourth time. Mrs H answered again.
"Hello, this is David, could I speak to Oxxvxa, please?"
"Oh yes, I'll just fetch her."
BANG! Result...
Now my fate would be sealed...
Well, after all that, she cheerfully agreed to meet for a date. We met outside a pub on Micklegate, York, and had a fine and very funny time together on a crawl of several of the more salubrious establishments of that historic city.
So, in the end, my Machiavellian technique delivered the goods, and although there was much room for improvement both in prediction and application, I found myself in possession of a - my first - girlfriend throughout that bittersweet summer of distant but happy memory.
I had not dreamed, let alone predicted - who could have? - that my university girlfriend would NOT be a fellow student, but the daughter of one of our departmental professors!
Cheers!
David Hurley
Sources
Two of Swords Illustration from the Morgan-Greer Tarot deck reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT 06902. c. 1979 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. The Morgan-Greer Tarot deck is a registered trademark of U.S. Games Systems, Inc.
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