What we can learn from the past.

I just happened to open a book of Aesop’s Fables that I have not read for many a long year. Some are very apt – even after some 2500 years since they were first collected. 

For those that may have forgotten or didn’t know, Aesop is thought to have been a freed slave and lived for a while in Athens, round about 600BC.

Here are two of his fables that some may feel are apposite today:-

The two bags. 

According to ancient lore every man is born into the world with two bags suspended from his neck – one in front and one behind, and both are full of faults. But the one in front is full of his neighbour’s faults; the one behind, full of his own. Consequently, men are blind to their own faults but never lose sight of their neighbour’s.

Sound familiar?

The trees and the axe.

A woodsman went into the forest and petitioned the trees to provide him with a handle for his axe. It seemed so modest a request that the principle trees granted it right away, and they declared that the plain homely Ash should furnish what was needed. No sooner had the woodsman fitted the staff for his purpose, however, than he began chopping down the noblest trees in the woods. By the time the Oak grasped the entire matter it was too late, and he whispered to a neighbouring Cedar, “With our first concession we lost everything. If we had not sacrificed our humble neighbour, we might still be able to stand for ages”.

Moral: When the rich surrender the rights of the poor, they provide a handle to be used against their own privileges.

Again, sound familiar?