There is much to be learned from the examination of two figures and the manifestations of their thoughts, especially when they are separated by five-hundred years and vastly different context, but remain connected. Niccolo Machiavelli is thought to be the father of political science along with being a writer, humanist, historian, diplomat, and philosopher of the Renaissance. Tupac Shakur (2Pac) was a prominent artist and poet of the 1990’s, selling over seventy-five million records and is hailed as one of the most influential and authentic rappers of all time, if not simply the greatest artist of all time. The comparison between the two is derived directly from TuPac himself, as he took on the persona “Makaveli” after reading “The Prince,” …show more content…
Ruthlessness and power are everywhere so it’s not hard to understand why the doctrine of Niccolo Machiavelli is so adaptable to the thug life of Tupac Shakur. Still, the motivations and context behind them are almost entirely opposite. Machiavelli rejected the morality that Tupac was so desperately trying to find and define. In his writing he states “it is much safer to be feared than loved because...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.” Unlike the tortured Tupac, he has unanimously prioritized power over emotion and empathy in order to attain his goals. That mindset was necessary for him to succeed in the unstable Italy he inhabited. He was dealing with ruthless aristocrats, while in TDKL, Tupac battled systematic racism and corrupt law enforcement. Tupac’s goal was to unite the marginalized and disrupt the cycles of poverty, addiction and violence that he grew up in, a goal that was taught to him by the civil rights activists he grew up around, including his mother who was a Black Panther. Conversely The Prince emphasized the importance of having control of the populous as it