Do You Need A Literary Agent?

How about you? Do you need a literary agent? Years ago I was convinced I needed an agent for my writing projects, but I’m not so sure now. Why? Well, two reasons: the more of their blogs and websites I’ve read, the more they've convinced me they loathe writers – especially those of the unpublished kind. It's clear from what most of them say - with their own horses’ mouths - that their own importance, (sprouting mainly from the title of their job) is of utmost importance to them. Secondly, without a literary agent I managed to find a great publisher for my first book (it took me years - mind); and I've just signed another contract to publish a second book of a different genre. 

Now, not all literary agents fall into this category. There are some brilliant, loyal, hard-working ones out there. I've just been unlucky with literary agents, that's all.
If I could sum up in two sentences, the essence of their (agents I've been unlucky to come across) between-the-lines message to new writers, it would be this: 

Our hands are too holy to touch you, our ears – to distant to hear.

Let someone else saddle your struggles, my own worth to me is too dear.

The agents’ blogs I’ve read speak to me from a detached distance, far above my measly-writer-head. If you don’t get that feeling, please let me know. I’ve read the blog of only one agent, who doesn’t feel that the title of his job has magically required him to sit at the zenith of my lowly existence.

I have agents for my TV and modelling work. They seek me out. They’re the ones who pick up the phone, pay for the call, and offer me projects. For them, I’m a valued part of their business, an living asset whose work makes them fifteen to twenty percent profit each time I get paid.
They don't start from the premise that I have no talent. After all, at the point of joining their agency, they had to take a chance on me.

(If you change your mind, I’m the first in line. Baby I’m still free, take a chance on me. If you need me let me know . . . Sorry, I couldn’t resist injecting a little Abba there.)

Why then, do literary agents operate from this distance? Why is the writer guilty of non-talent before he/she is given a platform on which to prove this supposition right? Why do literary agents in general, act as though the new writer is the enemy – the blight to avoid at all cost? This puzzles me. And as yet, I cannot answer any these questions.

(Gonna be around. Got no place to go . . .)

Have you got a literary agent who doesn't sound remotely like the ones I've just described? Please let me know in the comment section.