Intent on crossing the creek, the scorpion was searching everywhere for a way: a branch fallen from a tree would be a natural bridge; perhaps something it could use as a barge. It was useless: no branch was that long, no twig or leaf would carry its weight.
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Suddenly, it saw a frog resting safely on the sun, just across the creek. Frog was observing all Scorpion’s comings and goings. The solution to its problem, Scorpion thought, might be at hand.
“Oi, Frog!” it called. “Can you help me across, please?”
Frog was, understandably, reluctant. Even if there was something to gain from helping Scorpion (and it was unclear there was), it was a risky proposition. Among all creatures in the forest, scorpions had the reputation of, well, scorpions: evil, in one word.
Frog explained all that as diplomatically but as sincerely as it could.
After some thought, Scorpion politely explained that scorpions, as everybody knew, cannot swim. Any aggressive move against Frog would mean its own death. If nothing else, Frog could trust Scorpion’s enlightened self-interest. Frog had nothing to fear. Besides, precisely because of its reputation, Scorpion had no friends in the forest. If Frog helped it, it would become its only friend and gain its gratitude. That would be useful against other creatures, because Frog itself had its own enemies.
Scorpion was persuasive and thoughtful. That didn’t fit with their notoriety, Frog thought. Indeed, all Scorpion said sounded eminently reasonable. Maybe that reputation wasn’t deserved, after all. So Frog agreed to help. It crossed the creek and, with some residual trepidation, allowed Scorpion climb on its back.
Midway across the stream, however, Frog felt a stinging pain precisely where Scorpion was. “Scorpion stung me!” it realised.
“But … But … But … I thought we were fr … ” Frog tried to protest, but was cut short by Scorpion's cackle.
Quickly starting to sink, it asked in disbelief: “Why? Don’t you understand you’ll die with me?”
“Why? Why?” Scorpion repeated mockingly. “Because I’m a scorpion! That’s what we do! We sting and kill, without that our life is not worth living” it added, full of hatred and contempt.
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The credit for that story is not mine and it has an obvious reading. Considered by itself, in abstract, it’s probably less than fascinating. Things may change when one takes into account concrete situations.
Who are the scorpions and who the frogs is for you to decide:
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A few days ago Mike Isaacson gave us a glimpse of a phenomenon of actuality, given the first anniversary of the Charlottesville events: Nazis in hiding disavowing Nazis in public. The result is what you see in the link above.
Isaacson is onto something, I reckon. I’ve been observing a number of internet identities popping up in some comment threads and, while they deny being Nazis, they tick all the boxes. (As regular readers may know, I think comment threads in blogs can be most instructive). Apparently, Nazis less than successful in hiding their Nazism are infiltrating blogs which purportedly “avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism”. Birds of a feather flock together, as old folks used to say.
Proselitising, of course, is not new. But that kind of proselitising is different and there is at least one historical precedent for it. The Fabians made extensive use of it: “permeation”. The idea was to send “missionaries”, pretending to mix with the heathens, with the secret purpose of evangelising them. You know, they would join a socialist group they disagreed with. After being accepted into the group they would start making “friendly” criticisms: any criticism would do. The point was to undermine the host and gain converts. (A related concept is the "concern troll"). Think of a virus.
They, in other words, just like the new breed of crypto-Nazis, added an ingredient to the recipe: false advertising.
Keynesians are known for their evangelic zeal.
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What is evident in a fable, it seems, can be less than evident in real life: the use of persuasion to push an individual or group into self-destruction, at times even at the expenses of the persuader.
Image Credits:
[A] “Black scorpion (Androctonus crassicauda)”. Author: Per-Anders Olsson. File licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Source: Wikimedia. Olsson neither knows me or the use I make of this file, therefore there’s no reason to believe he endorses either.
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