Machiavelli e il problema della libertà. Dal teatro della moltitudine alla crisi della democrazia

This piece is not an attempt to historically contextualise Machiavelli’s thinking, except where strictly necessary, but rather an effort to focus on the “Machiavelli problem” by relating the great Florentine humanist’s assertions to the present day. The aim, even briefly, is to show how all sociology, not just that pertaining to the twentieth century, is affected by the theoretical warp and by the practical and political consequences of said warp (in this sense, Machiavelli can be considered the most suited to the principle of Boudonian methodology, according to which “there is nothing more practical than a good theory”). However, Machiavelli is not limited to the beginning of an epistemological revolution that irrevocably changed the way we conceive humans and politics and that, above all, ends by substantiating the theoretical explanation of Max Weber’s historical-social sciences method (indeed, very little is understood of German historicism, the sociology of conflict, secularisation and avaluativity, as well as of the theory of ideal types, unless there is an appreciation for the great Machiavellian issues). Machiavelli also provides a social and anthropological conception of the human sphere that, on the one hand, is fundamental to modern political thinking from Spinoza to Hegel, while, on the other, remains central to understanding the extraordinary drama of our time, surrounded by aporias, paradoxes and contradictions that are seemingly irresolvable. As it was at the time of Machiavelli, and not merely in relation to politics, we try to reconcile freedom and security, individualistic arrogance and social cohesion, instability and order. This attempt is not just an invitation to rethink modern and current forms of politics with renewed sociological imagination, it is also a challenge to resist the cultural impoverishment of a globalised society increasingly subject to the fascination of a self-referential identity close mindedness.