It is the height of stupidity to claim that men who for a thousand years have had the power to berate us, to fleece us and to oppress us with impunity, will now agree, with good grace, to be our equals.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the folly of expecting oppressors to willingly accept equality with those they have oppressed.
Jean-Paul Marat's quote underscores the unrealistic expectation that those in power, who have historically oppressed and exploited others, will gracefully concede their dominance and embrace equality. It reflects a deep skepticism towards the motivations of those who have benefited from systemic injustice, suggesting that true equality is unlikely to be granted by the powerful without significant pressure or upheaval.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice movements, this quote can illustrate the challenges faced in seeking true equality.
Nothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker.
Sheep run to the slaughterhouse, silent and hopeless, but at least sheep never vote for the butcher who kills them or the people who devour them. More beastly than any beast, more sheepish than any sheep, the voter names his own executioner and chooses his own devourer, and for this precious "right" a revolution was fought.
The public is strongly in favor of the Kyoto Protocols, so strongly in favor that a majority of Bush voters thought that he was in favor of it. They are simply unaware.
TRUST, n. In American politics, a large corporation composed in greater part of thrifty working men, widows of small means, orphans in the care of guardians and the courts, with many similar malefactors and public enemies.
When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism has been by way of medicine....If you don't do this, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in American when men were free.
Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.
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