Absolute consistency in radical living can serve the tyrant rather than the poor.

Evidence

In the fable, two poor poets are invited to accept a considerable stipend by a tyrannical king who values their work. One is disturbed by the taint on the money. “You are inconsistent,” the other answers. “If you so believe, you must continue to go hungry. He who feels one with the poor, must live like them.” 106 Agreeing, the first poet rejects the king’s offer and proceeds to starve. Shortly thereafter, the other becomes the court poet. Horkheimer finishes his “fairy tale” by cautioning: “Both drew the consequences, and both consequences favored the tyrant. With the general moral prescription of consistency, there seems one condition: it is friendlier to tyrants than to poor poets.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 171

Categorization

• SEED: The logic of Horkheimer’s fable — that both consistency and its abandonment favor the tyrant — is a sharp lens for an essay on performative radicalism and the ethics of lifestyle politics.
• DEFINE: Illustrates the core Critical Theory stance that private moral purity is not itself revolutionary and can in fact reinforce existing power.