Nothing Changes

"Personally I have had occasion often enough already to observe that a democracy is incapable of governing others, .... Because fear and conspiracy play no part in your daily relations with each other, you imagine that the same thing is true of your allies, and you fail to see [human nature, 'self-delusional'] that when you allow them to persuade you to make a mistaken decision and when you give way to your own feelings of compassion you are being guilty of a kind of weakness which is dangerous to you and which will not make them love you any more. What you do not realize is that your empire is a tyranny exercised over subjects [if you deny this then skip directly to 'hopelessness'] who do not like it and who are always plotting against you; you will not make them obey you by injuring your own interests in order to do them a favour; your leadership depends on superior strength and not on any goodwill of theirs [cyclic flaw: outcome is created by very action designed avoid this possibility]. And this is the very worst thing - to pass measures and then not to abide by them. We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they remain fixed, than with good laws that are constantly being altered [confidence determination and resolve are higher qualities not present in the base human], that lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals [the Devil's shadow on Earth]. These are the sort of people who want to appear wiser then the laws, who want to get their own way in every general discussion, because they feel that they cannot show off their intelligence in matters of greater importance, and who, as a result , very often bring ruin on their country [Don't Get Stuck on Stupid, Son]. But the other kind - the people [those living as though still in the Garden] who are not so confident in their own intelligence - are prepared to admit that the laws are wiser then they are and lack the ability to pull to pieces a speech made by a good speaker; they are unbiased judges, and not people taking part in some kind of a competition; so things usually go well when they are in control. We statesmen, too, should try to be like them, instead of being carried away by mere cleverness and a desire to show off our intelligence and so giving you, the people, advice which we do not really believe in ourselves."

Cleon 427 B.C. from the Mytilenian Debate