Alas, Machiavelli merely begs the question. In the end one chooses not against beauty but one beauty (greatness, Realpolitik, power, maybe) against some other (vague idealism or a caricature thereof). In the end, one still mysteriously says "Behold _to_kalon_" or "God wills it" or "This is what _I_ will." Some additionally utter the word "reality" with the sound of a man drawing a pistol, although the _to_kalon_ folks are fond of having the servants do it for them.
William Blake was the most concrete: he said that one could do another good only in minute particulars. Think innumerable- globally, act minutely. That was _his_ beauty -- he liked sharp outlines.
But I do like "revolutionary defeatism" even if its outlines are vague. Defeatism against all states, governments, parties and bosses, by means of subversion, seduction, sabotage, deflection, absence, negation, dancing in the moonlight, or talking a walk. Hence my visceral opposition the the war against Serbia (or Colombia or Vietnam). Those defeatism fans had the beginning of a good idea. Victory is death. Defeat opens the possibility of life, of beauty.
G.