tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5581541991283907896.post8904980709289541062..comments2023-05-04T12:41:07.520+03:00Comments on Agents of Virtue: For everything there is a first time...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5581541991283907896.post-74165187001293188722009-03-26T13:15:00.000+02:002009-03-26T13:15:00.000+02:00Thanks for sharing the inaugural of your blog. Its...Thanks for sharing the inaugural of your blog. Its off to a good start. I think that to live up to the name of the Agents of Virtue your group must become Blogger Monks rather than Coffee House Intellectuals. This is not due to any shortcomings in intellect or insight, it is due to the nature of your subject. <BR/><BR/>Mature public institutions are irredeemably corrupt and anyone who achieves a position of power within them will sooner or later become corrupt as well. This cannot be changed. You bloggers are feeding from these institutions and attempting to be radical at the same time. This cannot succeed.<BR/><BR/>In my view change may not even be desirable. The relatively powerless must develop guerrilla skills so they may flourish via asymmetrical warfare. Ruthlessly objectify the Beast. Manage the managers and manipulate the manipulators. Of course if everyone developed the skills the entire institutional infrastructure would collapse and all would parish in anarchy. A minority will acquire the skills and successfully feed from the beast while the majority will continue to be its fodder. This strategy is not necessarily virtuous; it is the application of a craft. <BR/><BR/>Please don't consider my contrarian reply snarkful, not that I fear your retaliatory skill. I am an adroit smartass myself. Snark-isms are among the most effective forms of rhetoric if mixed with irony.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com