The Boiling Frog
The story of The Boiling Frog goes, if you put a frog into a pan of boiling water, it will leap out right away to escape the sudden danger.
But, if you put a frog in a pan that is filled with cool water, and then you gradually heat the pan until it starts boiling, the frog will not notice the danger until it is too late.
The frog's survival instincts are geared towards detecting sudden changes, not those ever so subtle ones.
The story of The Boiling Frog that is used to show how people might get into terrible trouble, directly or indirectly. This is often used to show why people should be mindful of the sudden changes as well as, and more importantly, the much more subtle ones.
It serves well to warn us to keep us paying attention not just to obvious danger but to more slowly evolving danger.
One example that comes to mind here in Australia is the water crisis we are in now! Well of course we have been in water crisis for many years just that our politicians treated us like the proverbial Boiling Frog . . .
. . . I think y'all can see where I am going with this example.
Another is the Animal Rights movement which started out as just chipping away a little at a time that now, in the present day, they pose a grave danger to our very survival.
Don't believe me?
Look back over the changes made to various pieces of legislation regarding animals then look who was pushing for it and then look who was advising the government on it.
The of course there is the John Howard Boiling Frogs. That us each and every Australian who is being boiled slowly, feeling a tad uncomfortable but thinking it will get better.
Go read Not Happy, John! by Margo Kingston.
Go read Silencing Dissent by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison.
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