Didactic

Something that’s “didactic” (dy-DAK-tik) - from the Greek for “to educate” - is instructive, but inclined to teach or moralize excessively.

Example (as used by Sheila Fitzpatrick in Everyday Stalinism): “The show trial may be defined as a public theatrical performance in the form of a trial, didactic in purpose, intended not to establish the guilt of the accused but rather to demonstrate the heinousness of the person’s crimes.”

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