Article 2 : “Men and Women are Merely Players” by Robert Greene

Robert Greene with his new book, The 50th Law

This will be my second entry and i will be discussing and comments on the article called “Men and Women are Merely Players” written by Robert Greene. The article “Men and Women are Merely Players” is an excerpt from the book, “48 Laws of Power” and it also examine the effects of long lasting feeling /belief towards the norms and values.

The article propose that if a person do follows the value and norms it can make the person to be tortured and isolated from the society and therefore preventing them from acquiring any status and power. Therefore the article suggests that in order for one to obtain success, work positions, gain control of power and status in his or her life in a much more easier ways, one should not play by the rules / break the laws in order to obtain goals. Hence, the article suggest that many corrupted person are given the highest position in their workplace due to their mischief and lie their way into the highest position available in their workplace and vice versa whereby people who work hard to achieve their goals and following the rules often being stepped down and being push by other peoples. In addition, it seems like it is a must for one not to follow the norms and values as it will hinder one from achieving success.

After reading this particular article, the idea of an old proverb, , “rules were made to be broken” came across my mind and starting to came to my logic that the old proverb is actually true and are applied by several of dictators before this such as Machiavelli and Napoleon. Machiavelli is a person who is good in hiding his true form by pretending to be innocent to other people but the facts is that he is a mischievous person who will do anything to gain anything in his life. While the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte is known to be a cruel political leader. This can be seen when Napoleon willingly sacrificed half a million of his men when he invaded Russia in winter for his own agendas instead of the importance of the french people. Unfortunately for him, it resulted in his own demise. Even so, he manage to achieve great success against all his enemies except Britain who is navigated under Nelson. The article reflects those who are not fix to the rules will achieve greater success as been shown by Napoleon.

The same principle still can be seen within politicians where they use dirty tactics to obtain power in the government and this resulted in the whole organizations to embrace the effects of the problems such as bribery and backstabbing of members. In this article also stated that children are capable of decepting adults by make an act of purity and blamelessness to gain power in adult world and this is actully true. I always came across a moment where i were being asked by my mother to help feeds my younger sister. Here we can see that my younger sister are actually can and will use her available means by manipulating and decepting me to make priority to the things that she wants. In a nutshell, as stated in the excerpt, “those who make a show or display of innocence are the least innocent of all”.