A majority of one …

… A Superfluous Man | Chronicles Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The State, through government-run schools, strove to keep the citizens as ignorant as possible. Intelligence was more of a threat to the growth of the State than foreign foes; an intelligent mind knows that the State is not omnipotent and omniscient, and this knowledge is dangerous. "What was the best that the State could find to do with an actual Socrates and an actual Jesus when it had them? Merely to poison the one and crucify the other; for no reason but that they were too embarrassing to be allowed to live any longer."

Nock has been a lifelong  influence on me, prophylactic against, among other things, that tendency to turn politics into a religion mentioned at the start of this piece.