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In those situations one must learn how not to be good,
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to have to violate the conventions
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and cannons of ordinary morality.
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Machiavelli takes his bearings from
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these extreme states of emergency
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and in his own way, seeks to normalize them,
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to present them as the normal condition of politics.
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Machiavelli's preference for these extreme situations
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expresses his belief
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that only in moments of great crisis,
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where the very existence of a state is at risk,
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does human nature truly reveal itself.