""A Note on Machiavelli." Machiavelli viewed politics as always a bitter, even violent, struggle. But Merleau-Ponty argues that he shows us that something other than antagonism may also emerge from its conflicts. When I do violence to another I realize that I do violence also to myself. For my victim is not, I discover, just an object, but is like me a sentient being: " The evil that I do I do to myself, and in struggling against others I struggle equally against my self. After all, a face is only shadows, lights and colors; and yet suddenly, because this face has grimaced in a certain way, the executioner mysteriously experiences a slackening-another's anguish has passed over
to his."34 Were I a disembodied and absolute subject, capable of sustaining what Haraway calls the "god~trick," my violence against another would not return to haunt me, for I would not feel another's suffering."