Political Metaphor - and being wise after the event

I was thinking about writing a piece about Taiwan’s (big) recall and the political, social and constitutional machinations surrounding it. 

 Then I was obviously struck by the boiling frog metaphor given the way the KMT is using its tiny majority with the TMD to take tiptoe steps, which no-one cares much or notices, to achieve closer ties with mainland China. Actions which prompted the recall campaign in the first place.  

It’s certainly an apt metaphor given the apathy, disinterest and laissez-faire attitude of many Taiwanese voters, plus an apparent lack of critical thinking about how their actions now within the current democracy will affect their future or generations to come.

 The stupid frog is happy in cold water but it is too dumb to realise the water is getting hotter…until it dies.     

 However, on passing the idea by my Taiwanese wife, she quickly dismissed the frog metaphor as it has become cliched because the local media use it all the time. Understandably so, as it seems many Taiwanese are sleepwalking into closer ties with China. The last general election kind of proved that.  

 The boiling frog lesson is clear. Beware slow and small changes that will not noticeably alter your normal course of life and do not make a noticeable difference at the time.  Once you realise the cumulative effect is huge, like the frog who finally realises the water is boiling… It is too late.

 The Camel’s Nose

 The camel's nose is a metaphor from the Middle East for the same situation, where allowing small, apparently innocent acts will open the door for larger, undesirable actions. It too can be applied in Taiwan’s case. 

An ancient saying in the Arab world, by the late 1800s it was being told as ‘An Arab miller allows a camel to stick its nose into his bedroom, then other parts of its body, until the camel is entirely inside and refuses to leave.’ 

In the early part of the last century, Horace Scudder, an American scholar and editor ends his missive The Arab and His Camel ends with: "It is a wise rule to resist the beginnings of evil." 

It is hard to think of a more apt metaphor than China worming its way into Taiwan as the KMT takes small steps that no one notices while the camel (China) sticks its head further into the tent and eventually gets right in. Then refuses to leave.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

I particularly like this one. It is from a 1985 American children's book by Laura Joffe Numeroff to illustrate that if you let someone take an inch, they will take a mile. (yet another example of how widespread this idiom is). 

 The story begins with a boy who feels sorry for a little mouse and gives him a cookie. The mouse devours the cookie gratefully but then asks for a glass of milk to wash it down. 

 The boy provides the milk but the mouse then asks for a straw to drink the milk and a napkin and a mirror to check he has no milk on his snout. Then he asks for scissors to cut his hair as he already has a mirror and also a broom to sweep up his hair trimmings. 

 The mouse is tired after all this activity and wants a nap, but only if he has a story read to him. After his nap he draws a picture and hangs it on the refrigerator but looking at the refrigerator he gets thirsty and asks for a glass of milk. “Oh, but I need a cookie to go with my glass of milk,” says the mouse.  

 The circular demands of the greedy and devious mouse have much in common with modern politics and, indeed, to demands by voters when benefits or handouts are on the line. 

 Evidence of this is the KMT’s promise of TWD 10,000 to everyone in Taiwan. That’s the Cookie. They know it will sow discontent if A) they are prevented from handing out the money B) if alternative goodies are not on offer and C) they will look good whether the 10k happens, or not. 

 If there is no handout, the DPP looks bad for opposing it. If it happens, the KMT will look wonderful for making it happen. 

 It’s a horribly cynical political move which takes no account of the actual state of the fiscal account in Taiwan. But blatant and cynical moves which bear no relation to Taiwan’s economic or geopolitical situation are the KMT’s usual mode of operation. Evidence opposing defence contracts… and some other things… ****** 

 Thin End of the Wedge

 From my own neck of the woods, the United Kingdom, this situation is usually summed up by saying a situation is ‘The thin end of the wedge’. 

This comes from the carpentry and logging industry where wedges of iron or steel were used to split wood. The small effort of hammering a wedge can eventually split a massive log.

 It is yet another metaphor illustrating the danger of small things leading to huge consequences.

 There are so many versions of this from around the world which would seem to illustrate that the danger of allowing small steps to quietly lead to much bigger things is a well recognised danger. All of them would seem to apply to Taiwan and the mainland, not just the boiling frog.

 The list is exhaustive but here is a small selection. "Give the peasant freedom, and he will hop on your bed"- Greece. "If you give them a finger, they will take your arm" - India, Italy, Germany and pretty much the rest of Europe. “A rolling snowball will be harder to stop” - Norway. "Give them a dog, they want an elephant” - Vietnam. "Give them an inch; they'll take a mile." - UK, China, Turkey. "If you let the pig under the bed today, tomorrow it will demand to be on the bed" - Bulgaria. 

 The Slippery Slope

 The slippery slope argument is a negative one where there is an attempt to stop  someone from taking a course of action because it will lead to an undesirable  conclusion.

 Away from these folklore sayings handed down over generations warning that small changes can easily lead to cumulative disaster, others refer to this phenomenon as Creeping Normality.

 In 2005,  American scientist Jared Diamond explained it in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond sought to explain why the natives of Easter Island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, in the course of long-term environmental degradation, irrationally, chopped down all their trees.

 “I suspect, though, that the disaster happened not with a bang but with a whimper. After all, there are those hundreds of abandoned statues to consider. The forest the islanders depended on for rollers and rope didn't simply disappear one day—it vanished slowly, over decades,” Diamond wrote. 

It would seem wise to take note of this ancient and global wisdom of not ignoring the small things because they quite often turn into big things without anyone really noticing until it is too late.

Tinkerty Tonk