Leading from the Middle

Caption: Book cover by Frank Lieberman (1946)

With the collusion of a corrupt king, a baron plundered his neighbors. The baron grew fat; the neighbors waned thin. After the death of the monarch, the baron was brought to justice and jailed. The judge restored the ill-gotten gains to the neighbors and the remainder he put into the public treasury. The baron’s family pleaded with the judge to return this wealth; it had not been stolen - rather these were “investments” made through the family’s hard work and should not be confiscated.
The judge pondered and then remembered the Judgment of Bocchyris.
His verdict: Just like the plundered neighbors who daily saw the baron grow large while they starved, so now the baron’s family could come to the treasury once a year and gaze upon “their” money. And so was the family’s wish granted but not in the way they intended.

*Laura Gibbs, the Latin scholar, who recently wrote about the Judgment of Bocchyris, inspired my fable as did a recent news article about a crook’s family in Detroit claiming as their’s, the cash and other property seized by the police.

N.B. ”Leading Change”: A seminar on leading and following change in libraries and other organizations. Sponsored by the University of Latvia. August 25-28. By John Lubans & Sheryl Anspaugh. At Ratnieki Conference Center, near Sigulda, Latvia. Instruction in English. Cost: 170 €. Includes tuition, accommodation, meals and transport from Riga.

On August 29th there’s a special reason to be in Latvia: the grand opening of the National Library of Latvia in Riga!

Copyright John Lubans 2014

 

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