Friday Fable. Aesop’s “THE SNAKE AND THE WASP”*
|
|
“A wasp landed on the head of a snake and began to harass him, stinging him again and again. As he was suffering from terrible pain but couldn't get rid of his enemy, the snake crawled into the road and looked for an oncoming wagon. He then put his head under the wheel as he said, 'I die together with my enemy!'
This is a fable for people who share their troubles with their enemies.”
Dying with your enemy seems extreme; is there not an alternative step to avoid this Lose/Lose outcome?
Since Aesop’s animals can talk, the snake should find out what’s bugging the wasp, what is the source of the conflict? It’s doubtful the wasp is after the snake as food – there’s some other reason for it to afflict so much suffering on a fellow creature. So, identify the grievance. If some concession or compromise can be made, then make it. Alternatively, instead of the snake crawling into traffic he could look for water, dive in and be rid of the wasp.
Now that’s all easily said. Advice giving is vastly different from advice taking! I worked in an academic setting for many years. Among the faculty there were legendary feuds, some never resolved until the death or departure of the combatants – indeed, they died with their enemy. And, I’ve seen departmental faculty who do not talk to each other, ever, because of some philosophical difference. Not exactly dying with your enemy, more a mutual suffering. And, I’ve seen the two enemy camps waste creative effort in trying to enlist support through complaining ad naseum to any one trapped into listening. I have to admit we in the library have our own versions of petty, hardly irreconcilable, conflict. Those spiteful jealousies and that lack of trust are detrimental to the institution. Our service and production suffer, decisions are avoided or delayed, and resources are not well used. Nor are readers as well served as they might be.
So, to take my advice for the snake and the wasp, why, in my time, did we not address it? Why did I not approach the opposition and open the discussion about what’s going on and how can we get past it? I think it would have been easy to do, if only we had done it!
*Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
Dying with your enemy seems extreme; is there not an alternative step to avoid this Lose/Lose outcome?
Since Aesop’s animals can talk, the snake should find out what’s bugging the wasp, what is the source of the conflict? It’s doubtful the wasp is after the snake as food – there’s some other reason for it to afflict so much suffering on a fellow creature. So, identify the grievance. If some concession or compromise can be made, then make it. Alternatively, instead of the snake crawling into traffic he could look for water, dive in and be rid of the wasp.
Now that’s all easily said. Advice giving is vastly different from advice taking! I worked in an academic setting for many years. Among the faculty there were legendary feuds, some never resolved until the death or departure of the combatants – indeed, they died with their enemy. And, I’ve seen departmental faculty who do not talk to each other, ever, because of some philosophical difference. Not exactly dying with your enemy, more a mutual suffering. And, I’ve seen the two enemy camps waste creative effort in trying to enlist support through complaining ad naseum to any one trapped into listening. I have to admit we in the library have our own versions of petty, hardly irreconcilable, conflict. Those spiteful jealousies and that lack of trust are detrimental to the institution. Our service and production suffer, decisions are avoided or delayed, and resources are not well used. Nor are readers as well served as they might be.
So, to take my advice for the snake and the wasp, why, in my time, did we not address it? Why did I not approach the opposition and open the discussion about what’s going on and how can we get past it? I think it would have been easy to do, if only we had done it!
*Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
John Lubans - portrait by WSJ