Lazarum, argumentum ad 105
culture compensates them for their poverty with extra measures
of wisdom and virtue, sometimes of beauty.
With her clogs and shawl she stood out from the others.
(It could just have been malnutrition, though.)The poor are probably more likely to prefer the means of
acquiring real education, health and respite from an arduous life
than to want the phantoms wished on them in the rose-tinted
imaginations of detached observers.
The politician who astutely recognizes that most of his con-
stituents are poor will often go to extraordinary lengths to feign a
similar poverty, thereby hoping to command respect. His
limousine is left at the frontier with his well-cut suit, as he
changes down to the car and clothes of his constituents. Those
self-same electors, did he but know it, probably regard him as no
better than themselves, and reserve their admiration for the guy
with the flash car and the swanky outfit. The point is that the
argumentum ad Lazarum is a fallacy which appeals to the well-to-
do. The real poor have no time for it.
The best view I ever heard on this was told to me by a simple, honest
woodcutter...
(Who was probably smart enough not to depend on the views of
woodcutters...)Woodcutters, like aged peasants with weatherbeaten faces,
should be lined up in orderly squadrons in support of your
arguments. A few simple fishermen should act as outriders, with
a score or two of wise old washerwomen in reserve. Their faces,
lined by experience, should nonetheless reflect an inner placidity
and acceptance of life. The views which you put forward were, of
course, gained from sources such as these.