Our PROG TEACHERS Need to Teach Aesop's "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" & "The Scorpion and the Frog"

By Jim Yardley in Truth in Fables: Why Progressives Hate Aesop

The Scorpion & The Frog

The fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is more applicable than ever in describing the environment in which we live.  Each interest group, especially those interest groups on the left, is infected with the need to describe ever more frightening futures, regardless what their interest is -- environment, education, energy, medical care, or whatever else the cause du jour may be.  Of course, they also try to sell the idea of submitting yourself to their tender mercies and giving them unlimited access to the Treasury (i.e., your money), with which they might be able to mitigate the horrors.  But only if you grant them dictatorial power over you and all your actions.

Sadly, there seem to be a lot of people who haven't heard of the fable the boy who cried wolf.  Had they ever encountered Aesop at any time in a school setting, this technique wouldn't have worked for any of the special interest groups -- or the president, for that matter -- who use it again and again and again.

Doubtless there is some conflict within the left-leaning American Federation of Teachers (AFT) ranks concerning whether or not anything written by Aesop should be taught at all.  He was, after all, an old European, which by default means that he was an imperialist taking advantage of every innocent within his field of view.  On the other hand, one could trumpet the fact that Aesop, who was a slave, overcame the stigma of slavery and become a famous writer.

But the overarching problem of Aesop for Progressives is this: his fables show that one of the linchpins of Progressivism -- i.e., that humanity and human behavior have "evolved" -- is utter nonsense.  Reading Aesop undercuts the Progressive narrative that the behavior of mankind has progressed beyond the behaviors of the past, which was dominated by paternalism, militarism, homophobia, sexism, imperialistic ambition...well, you get the idea...

Read it all here..