In the absence of faculties that are developed only through virtue, we employ forms of power and violence which seem to guarantee our only security.

That is why all genuine forms of non-violence require such extraordinary forms of training in virtue. Only those who are people of power can risk denying themselves the protections most of us feel we need if we are able to survive psychologically and physicaly. Moreover, the non-violent need not only to be virtuous but to participate in a community that provides them with the moral resources for living non-violently. For the disadvantages correlative to living non-violently can quickly generate self-hate if we are not sustained by a more substantive community that is able to remind us what we are about.

p.126 and note 58 on p. 267, A Community of Character

“To be reminded”; this is the locus of the purpose; to be reminded in observance, and to be reminded in the resulting mission, as it SEE HOW IT WORKS, and that the way it “works” is of a very different “WORKING” from the “pragmatic” “results” “profitable” measures we are given as assumptions of a consumer, safety-oriented society.