Policemen of virtue (Simic)

Schoolteachers, clergymen, and other policemen of virtue have always been in complete agreement with philosophers. No model of the ideal society since Plato has ever welcomed poets, and for excellent reasons. Poets have no respect for the authority of church and state. They are always corrupting the young, making them lazy and dreamy. Irreverence...is what they are peddling. From the point of view of group-think, such manifestations of individualism are, of course, perverse...

Charles Simic