Breaking the unity of traditional ideology precedes new forces acquiring independent self-consciousness.

Evidence

This position in which Machiavelli found himself politically is repeated today for the philosophy of praxis. Once more there is the necessity to be “anti-Machiavellian”, to develop a theory and technique of politics which—however strong the belief that they will in the final resort be especially useful to the side which was “not in the know”, since that is where the historically progressive force is to be found—might be useful to both sides in the struggle. In actual fact, one immediate result is achieved, in that the unity based on traditional ideology is broken; until this happens, it is impossible for the new forces to arrive at a consciousness of their own independent personality. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 623

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives a clean definition of what ‘anti-Machiavellian’ theory and technique accomplishes: not conspiracy but the destruction of traditional ideological unity so the progressive force can cognize itself.
• XREF: Carries into the Islamophobia toolkit: the mechanism by which a colonized or subjugated group breaks the ideology imposed by ruling culture to gain its own independent personality/consciousness parallels how Muslim-majority or migrant communities are framed as lacking selfhood until they rupture hegemonic narratives.
• QUESTION: ‘Anti-Machiavellian’ as a term for a theory useful to both sides at once is puzzling — how can a technique genuinely serve the progressive force if it is symmetrically useful to the ruling groups?