"The peasants are a leaderless mass. History shows few instances when they seriously threatened the rulers. The term 'peasant revolt' sounds nice in textbooks and has a certain propaganda value, but only for the naive. In reality, the peasants have almost always served as a tool; their leaders, most often of non-peasant origin, have used them for their own ends."
--Czeslaw Milosz, The Captive Mind, 1953

I disagree. Your 'worth repeating' comes at a good time. The Corner is having a bit of scuffle between Derb and everyone else over conservative populism (Derb being both conservative and sympathetic to populism, and everyone else being neither).

The peasants can be a tool, but often they are the right tool for the job (a job that others won't do).

We're all peasants.

Damned dirty peasants

This sounds like an apt description of the relationship between Democratic elites and those they supposedly champion--particularly "their leaders...have used them for their own ends." Anyone else think of the Clintons?

Who does Milosz consider "peasants." Is this a statement about feudal leaders and serfs, or is this a more general comment about rulers and ruled?

Ralph, regardless of what Milosz's context is (and no doubt that angle *is* worthy of inquiry), doesn't it seem that the passage might be "Worth Repeating" for broader reasons?

I don't subsribe to the interpretation that this is a "general comment about rulers and ruled," though. Rather, it seems more along the lines of a comment about "demogogues," a la Republic bk. 8 and, more to the point, Aristotle's Politics, bk. 5: "...for where there is a popular election of the magistrates and no property qualification, the aspirants for office get hold of the people, and contrive at last even to set them above the laws." (Pol 5.4.1305a30-33, trans. B. Jowett)

Interestingly, Aristotle continues: "A more or less complete cure for this state of things is for the separate tribes, and not the whole people, to elect the magistrates." (Pol 5.4.1305a33-34)

sorry, mis-cited above: Pol 5.4 should be 5.5

Given Milosz's context as a Polish poet writing during Soviet Communism, I got the sense he was referring more to the 1917 Revolution(s) and the peasants' part in that. Demogogues sure, but would he really have popular election in mind?