Forum Post: The Ant and the Grasshopper
Posted 12 years ago on Feb. 25, 2012, 10:37 a.m. EST by SuperCat
(60)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
ORIGINAL VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.
the ant built his house out of what he could steal from the june bug and the crow, he enslaved a million avids to provide his food and used eunuchs as home builders.
yea - all Capitalist's are evil. Tell that to the boss next time you go in for a job interview and see how that goes lol! With your attitude - you deserve whatever you get.
just pointing out that that ant did not get there by his own sweat alone
tell that to your hiring employer when you are negotiating your wage. good luck.
How do you know? Why couldn't the ant have gathered his own materials and built his own home? you assumed wrong and you know what they say about people that assume...
the same way you know he did,, thats how i know he didnt
"The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter."
That supports my position. Where in the story is your position supported?
having passed 5th grade science ,, im aware of how ants actually operate
This is incorrect. In the end the grasshopper is scolded for not preparing and then the ant shares with it. There is no proper moral to the original story.
I prefer the story of the Grasshopper and the Octopus. All year long the grasshopper is busy gathering acorns for the winter while the octopus mooched off his girlfriend and watched TV. But when winter came, the grasshopper died, and the octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
the ants work hard as a collective, providing for all in the colony, while the autonomous grasshopper merges and acquires the labor of the ants by manipulating them and creating classes within the colony. I always thought that the greedy grasshoper was a good archetype for Capitalists. and the ants were Socialistic. Why you want to miss represent one of my favorite childhood tales.
The story of the ant and the grasshopper is one of Aesops Fables from Greece 600 BC.
You can replace the characters with the squirrel gathering his nuts and the groundhog dancing in the field if you like
Weirder by the minute here!
Seems to me you are painting the ant as an individual when the ant is a naturally dedicated member of a massive colony. The individual means almost nothing there.
Then you are making the ant appear more nobel than the individual, which the grasshopper actually is in nature!
This forum is really getting strange, particularly the random threads like this one, which just happen to relate. Check this post, which has a link relating to our instincts and the possibility that we have insect genes that are controlling our unconsious mind.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/red-vs-blue/#comment-652180
The story of the ant and the grasshopper is one of Aesops Fables from Greece 600 BC.
You can replace the characters with the squirrel gathering his nuts and the groundhog dancing in the field if you like.
So colonization has no part? Okay. Like to know more of the background of the orgins from Greek history. Maybe ants have specific traits there that will make it clearer.
I do get the message about basic behaviors. Humanity needs to control itself and limit its impacts. Priorities, long term and short term must be observed.
I've been reading that thread I posted, and found this which uses some science to show decision making to be super important and very possibly controlled by invisible instincts.
http://truthasaur.com/misc/collectiveunconscious.html
Instincts probably not in the interest of humanity if allowed to rule.
The story has nothing to do with colonization. If it were it would have talked about the ants not the ant.
Aesop's Fables were lessons about INDIVIDUAL behavior, responsibility, and choices.
The Boy who cried Wolf The Tortoise and the Hare The Fox and the Grapes The Ant and the Grasshopper The North Wind and the Sun
I am not a fan of collectivism. I am not Borg. Resistance is not futile.
There is a tragedy that develops in collectivism. http://www.dieoff.org/page95.htm
Okay, I can accept its about hard work and foresight.
Correct, resistance WORKS!
Strategy really helps. Have you been checking out the Article V convention groups. I went through them and found one that has some awesome logical strategy.
http://articlevconvention.org/
There is a fourm for amendments, see the one about priorities and preparation for the convention. Just doing that would fix a great deal.
Trying to shame poor people again. Doesn't work. Total crap.
Where's that guy who claims to detest divisive posting?
If this isn't divisive, I don't know what is, as it has 0 roots in reality..
Troll Alert
And another troll is pulled from the hat.
that the only response you could muster lol!!!
What another post trying to smear OWS, Occupy and the 99% movements?
What more needs to be said?
I thought OWS was the ant working hard all summer. Did I get that wrong?
It looked to me like the status-quo ( greedy corrupt ) were cast in that roll. Then the OWS, Occupy and 99% supporters were posed as the lackadaisical grasshopper.
EXAMPLE: ( taken from the above post )
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
good post.
When I was a kid the grasshopper and ant story was one of my favorites, though much to the frustration of my parents, who were clearly trying to teach me some moral imperative, I always rooted for the grasshopper.