It has just occurred to me that one of the tenets of Machiavelli’s political theory, namely the practical orientation around political stabilization, can be practiced in a micropolitical context as well as the standard political context. Specifically what comes to mind for me is a practice of social diplomacy geared around promoting the coherence of a given milieu or community. And while diplomacy is an important part of such an enterprise, more generally it would seem to constitute an exquis...