The Duck of Minerva

Friday maxim

by Rodger Payne

7 December 2006, 2030 EST

This was the fortune cookie message from lunch yesterday:

“For a good cause, wrongdoing may be virtuous.”

I told my assistant that it sounded like a license to steal…but many other dark ideas came to mind.

In any case, since this is an IR blog, I might note that numerous scholars and diplomats would likely agree with the advice offered by that fortune cookie.

Here’s one.

Given that I have a very large stack of papers to grade, I will put this one to the readership. Comments?

Note: this is apparently a fairly common fortune, but yesterday marked the first time I ever received that message.

Yes, I know I’m posting this on Thursday. However, Dan previously posted a Friday maxim so this is my contribution to that thread. Plus, it is already Friday in part of the world.

Filed as:

Rodger A. Payne is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. He serves on the University’s Sustainability Council and was a co-founder of the Peace, Conflict, and Social Justice program. He is the author of dozens of journal articles and book chapters and coauthor, with Nayef Samhat, of Democratizing Global Politics: Discourse Norms, International Regimes, and Political Community (SUNY, 2004). He is currently working on two major projects, one exploring the role of narratives in international politics and the other examining the implications of America First foreign policy.

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