Peter Sloterdijk. Critique of cynical reason (№ 407552)

The requirement to make the Reasonable public domain entails a certain policy, pedagogy, propaganda. Thus, the Enlightenment deliberately displaces from its memory the bitter realism of the teachings of the ancient sages, to whom it was perfectly clear that the masses are stupid, and only a few have reason. The modern striving for the elitist has to be masked with democratic phraseology.