Overthrown

I thought it would be easy to decipher these words of advice the Analects are giving off, and boy I couldn't be more wrong. Our teacher in English proved this difficulty in class a while ago. He kept giving us lines to find their deeper meaning and I failed miserably in doing so.

So here I am, trying to find the important meaning in this line of advice: "The Master said, 'The common people can be made to follow it, but they can not be made to understand it." (Book Eight 8.9)

I find it rather easy to understand although I'm sure if I was in English I would be disapproved of for teh reason I didn't look deeper. In this case, I'm going to dig a little deeper.

By the word common I think of normal people of no higher status. Sort of like commoners. For example, in the U.S. the common people would be those under rule of the president and other high above the top people. You look at the second part, "can be made to follow it" and it reminds me of how laws are placed and enforced so no one wants to break them. They are like dogs and can be told whatever to do.

The rest of the phrase says, "but they can not be made to understand it". First glance tells me the common people won't understand what they are told to do, and that's taking it literally. But looking more into it and then putting it together with the other half of the line I grabbed hold of another understanding of the text. What I can understand is it saying that people under rule or who are overpowered by others can be convinced and persuaded to do things all though they aren't either bright enough or powerful enough to understand it's wrong to be controlled as slaves. Another possibility is that it could mean they aren't able to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Am I wrong?