Been perusing the work of a Well-Regarded Expert in the history of political thought. Said WRE unfailingly follows a strict interpretive procedure that runs as follows.

First, examine the work of political thinker to establish whether or not it furnishes any plausible justification for any form of hierarchy.

Second, if the work yields any semblance of such a justification, announce that this was the sole aim of the work all along.

Third, dismiss the explicit content and trajectory of thinker’s arguments—even those pitched against inequality—as ideological fig leaf for whatever form of inequality may prove acceptable as a consequence.

Fourth, denounce thinker as elitist, reactionary apologist for domination.

A fine way to make a living, that.