"Sugar, Darling, You Look Marvelous." The Business of Aesop™ No. 54 - The Fox and the Crow.
Gregg Zegarelli Esq.
Managing Shareholder at Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC
Former New York City Mayor Michael Blumberg deserves credit. Whether you like him or not, he deserves some credit. Remember? He started a conversation about the human consumption of sugary drinks in New York.
Sugar. Simple sugar. Pervasive, ubiquitous, been-around-sort-of-forever, sugar.
But, to me, as an attorney, the particular conversation topic is not always the interesting thing. What I especially love about many conversations is the debate itself.
No, not necessarily the legal question of governmental intrusion by regulation. No, not even the many physiological effects of sugar. What I love is the actual human conversation itself. The Big Picture, if you will—what drives human beings and their sophisticated, evolved, monstrously big brains, to take their respective positions. The influences on the debate purporting to find justice and truth.
So, sometimes, it's not about the topic, per se, it's about the exercise.
Attorneys will be reminded of a case taught in the first year of law school about a dance school that kept telling an octogenarian woman what a marvelous dancer she was, until the school swindled her out of all of her money. We know that flattery is an important tool of manipulation. Always has been, always will be. What is such flattery, but a manipulation by telling human beings what they deeply yearn to hear.
Yes, critical advice is like Saint Augustine's statement, "God, give me chastity, but not yet."
On a related matter (the truth, that is, not chastity), my wife was upset with me one time at a live concert performance. Why, you ask? She was chided by a woman sitting in front of her, because my very young child at the time kicked the woman's seat in front of us. The woman presented the issue unforgivingly and hotly, immediately looking back at my wife, "Control your daughter or take her out of here!" My wife looked at me for a defense, when I said calmly, "The woman's right." Ouch. Double ouch. Triple ouch! Like many husbands, I am a victim of myself. I suspect that my wife wanted me to chide the woman because the woman's presentation of the truth was not sweet enough.
The truth is a dish best served cold, and garnishments are merely tricky distractions. There is presentation, and there is fact, and, with some disciplined skill of discernment, we cannot confuse the substance of the woman for her shoes, the man for his clothes, the thief for his attorney, or the truth for the sweetness of words.
The skill of the rhetorician is to guide human nature into acceptance of an argument of pleasure. To be persuaded by the natural inclinations of human nature. It is always easier to pull someone downhill. Just give people an excuse—sometimes any excuse—to do exactly what they want to do.
Remember how excruciatingly hard it was for our Founding Father, John Adams, to defend the British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, needing to reduce the argument to pure simplicity to overcome the infuriated emotive hate of the colonial jury against England, saying now famously, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
(I'm sure Mr. Adams had more than a few of his own ouches with Abigail, too...)
The rhetorician applies the weight of persuasion until the mental muscular skill of the listener simply gives up. Tell the listener what the listener wants to hear. A form of flattery. This happens all the time. Yes, believe it, America is too good to fail. Greece was too good to fail, so was Rome. Self-pride works more effectively than critical planning. One feels good and one hurts, now choose.
Self-pride works more effectively than critical planning. One feels good and one hurts, now choose.
I mention this because I admit that I was stuck attentively to the debate about sugar.
The sugar industry apparently took the position that sugar is being victimized and it is unfair to single out sugar as the cause of the rampant obesity of the common American. A refined argument for sugar. And, so sweet to hear. According to that sweet logic, it apparently follows that we can keep eating lots of addictive sugar—maybe globs of sugar—because there is no scientific data that sugar is the cause of obesity.
It's not our fault for the claims that we're an obese nation for eating and drinking so much sugar. Believe it, it's not the dark chocolate (that's good for us), the children fruit drinks (10% real fruit juice), or the caramel macchiato (just a morning coffee). Really. Just what I yearned to hear. And, it is all so confusing because there are different kinds of sugar—and, by scientific rule, without sugar we will die! Yes, we die without sugar. Sugar is our savior!
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, sugar stands unjustly accused. The real reason we are claimed to be an obese nation is because we do not exercise enough to burn off all the sugary calories. It's not sugar's fault that we don't exercise enough!
Now I get it. We don't exercise our bodies enough. True. So, now, I suppose I'll now do what sugar wants me to do: I am happily deflected to the cause of obesity somewhere else. It's not about the sugar, it's about not taking the time to exercise. Got it.
A sweet argument for sugar, but let's play the game and put some salt into it: We need to exercise our minds more.
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We need to exercise our minds more.
Aesop understood the dangers of flattery, with one of his most famous and well-known fables, The Fox and the Crow, presented now for your enjoyment:
54. THE FOX AND THE CROW
A hungry Fox saw a Lady Bird settle onto a branch with a large piece of cheese in her mouth.
“Good day, Mistress Crow,” the Fox cried up into the tree.
“How beautiful your feathers and eyes! I am sure your voice surpasses other birds!
"Pray sing me a song that I may greet you as the Queen of Birds!”
The Crow, quite full of herself for the Fox's words, lifted her head and began to sing. But, as she did so, it was only to let the cheese fall to the ground. And, thusly, the Fox had a nice morsel of cheese to enjoy for his lunch.
"Well, Mistress Crow," gloated the clever Fox. "You may very well give your beautiful voice to others, but you should keep your wits about you."
Moral of the Story: Give compliments genuinely. Receive compliments graciously, but without being controlled or manipulated by them.
"Verum catino optime servivit frigus."*
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* "Truth is a dish best served cold." -grz
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., earned both his Bachelor of Arts Degree and his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dual -major areas of study were History from the College of Liberal Arts and Accounting from the Business School (qualified to sit for the CPA examination), with dual minors in Philosophy and Political Science. He has enjoyed Adjunct Professorships in the Duquesne University Graduate Leadership Master Degree Program (The Leader as Entrepreneur; Developing Leadership Character Through Adversity) and the University of Pittsburgh Law School (The Anatomy of a Deal). He is admitted to various courts throughout the United States of America.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., is Managing Shareholder of Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC. Gregg is nationally rated as "superb" and has more than 35 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes, including startups, INC. 500, and publicly traded companies. He is author of One: The Unified Gospel of Jesus, and The Business of Aesop™ article series, and co-author with his father, Arnold Zegarelli, of The Essential Aesop: For Business, Managers, Writers and Professional Speakers. Gregg is a frequent lecturer, speaker and faculty for a variety of educational and other institutions.
© 2012-2016 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.
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Diversity ,Equity, Inclusion Consultant
7yAnother good one Gregg