Leading from the Middle

Caption: Braggin' Bear Illustration by ARTHUR RACKHAM, 1912

“A Bear was once bragging about his generous feelings, and saying how refined he was compared with other animals. (There is, in fact, a tradition that a Bear will never touch a dead body.) A Fox, who heard him talking in this strain, smiled and said, ‘My friend, when you are hungry, I only wish you ‘would’ confine your attention to the dead and leave the living alone.’"
“A hypocrite deceives no one but himself.”

The bear’s self-delusion is reminiscent of a newly translated fable by Laura Gibbs. That fable (below) will be included in my “Fables for Leaders” book:
Odo of Cheriton’s “The Weeping Man and the Birds
“You need to beware of hypocritical politicians, as this fable shows. There was a man who used bird lime for catching birds, and the bird lime made his eyes water. As he was killing the birds he had caught, one of the birds remarked, ‘Look at that man! He is so good and pious.’ Another bird asked, ‘How can you tell?’ And the first bird said, ‘Don't you see his tears? He is weeping with pity.’ A third bird chimed in, ‘And don't you see his wicked actions? A curse upon that man and his tears: he is weeping while he slaughters us.’
So it is with the mighty men who go to church and pray and give money, weeping piously all the while. Yet they exploit and slaughter the poor and those less fortunate than themselves. The prayers and tears of men like that are an abomination.”**

Alice in Wonderland remarked after the Walrus and the Carpenter scarfed up all the little oysters: (Of the two), "I like the Walrus best," said Alice, "because you see he was a little sorry for the poor oysters."
Odo’s story reminds me of a boss who fired a worker and then waxed solicitous about the ex-employee’s well being. It was meant to come across as a most magnanimous gesture, shedding rays of empathy and (crocodile) tears upon the displaced and downsized!
It was instead, all a scam, a persona cultivated for the environment in which this boss worked.
Some people regarded this boss as a kind person and an effective leader – indeed, he was foremost in volunteering to promote the institution, the quintessential “Yes man” to his boss. Like the first bird said, he was “so good and pious!” A few, especially those that were slaughtered by a boss “weeping with pity”, penetrated the “good and pious” veneer and saw the magnanimity for what it was: a politically cultivated strategy for self-advancement.

*Source: AESOP’S FABLES A NEW TRANSLATION BY V. S. VERNON JONES WITH AN INTRODUCTION By G. K. CHESTERTON AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR RACKHAM (Publisher: London: W. Heinemann; New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1912). Available at Gutenberg.

**(Laura Gibbs’ translator note: For a more literal translation, see Jacobs Odo 15; see also Oxford Aesop 297.)


Copyright © John Lubans 2016

 

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