The powerful preach contentment and dismiss rule as too hard for commoners

Evidence

Those who take the meat from the table Preach contentment… . Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry Of wonderful times to come … . Those who lead the country into the abyss Call ruling too difficult For the ordinary. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 172

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Appeals to common sense and proportion serve reigning power, not truth — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 84; critical philosophy that becomes serviceable to power turns its own positives destructive; Rules necessarily overreach their justifications because of their intrinsic generality — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 46 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Appeals to common sense and proportion serve reigning power, not truth #expands (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 84
• critical philosophy that becomes serviceable to power turns its own positives destructive #expands (0.78)
• Socially accepted wickedness is reframed as an inherent imposed quality rather than chosen action #exemplifies (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 258
• Rules necessarily overreach their justifications because of their intrinsic generality #responds-to (0.72) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 46