Thursday, April 4, 2024

Antisthenes’ proposal

 Antisthenes told the Athenians they should use their donkeys to plow their fields.

The Athenians replied donkeys were not born to that. Horses were. It's a question of ability or capability.

Antisthenes asked if incompetents were born for high office.

It was election season in Athens when Antisthenes made that crack, and it’s election season in this country now. As the old bluesmen used to say, sometimes I’m overcome thinking about it.

• Source: I came across the story in “On the art of conversation” in Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, translated by M.A. Screech; London: Penguin Books, 1993, pp. 1059-60.

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