Those morons in the movie
Idiocracy are very down to earth.
You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an
envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he
snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even
handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all
nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to
bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.