Hi all,
Below, I’ve reinterpreted a few more of Aesop’s fables.
Enjoy.
Tim
'The Woman and Her Servants' – a woman’s rooster wakes up her servants every morning. The servants decide to kill the bird so that they can sleep in. The woman, no longer able to determine the exact moment of dawn without the bird, starts to wake up the servants even earlier.
Moral: It is our own devices that bring greater misery.
This is another example of victim blaming. Describing the actions of servants as ‘their own devices’? Please. The problem isn’t the time of the wake up call – it’s the fact of what the wake up call represents in the context of freedom.
TYC: Treat the disease, not the symptom.
'The Oak Trees and Zeus' – the trees complain about being chopped down and Zeus responds by telling them to be less desirable to woodcutters.
Moral: People who author their own ills foolishly blame the gods.
This is a spectacularly dumb story. These trees grow up, completely defenseless, waiting all the while to get chopped into Lincoln Logs. They raise the issue to Zeus, who is apparently some kind of leader among the gods. What does the great Zeus do about it? Not much, unless your limited concept of jurisprudence involves the ‘you asked for it’ defense.
TYC: If you don’t want to deal with a problem, just blame the victims.
'The Camel Who Shat In The River' – this tastefully named story refers to a somewhat low-intelligence camel who relieves himself in a river. Moments later, the dung he just deposited behind him is caught in the current and floats by in front of him.
The camel doesn’t understand what is going on and exclaims – what is going on? That which was behind me I now see pass in front of me!
Moral: Sometimes idiots hold sway rather than the eminent or sensible.
I thought this story was a slam-dunk for ‘shit runs downhill’ (or downstream). I’d have also accepted ‘the past always catches up to us’ or even ‘the river knows’. Alas, Aesop once more cooks up some other nonsense and, in the process, proves his inability to explain even the most basic of his stories…
TYC: Some people can’t explain shit.
