The Ant and The Grasshopper - was the ant in the right?

[MrsWembley]

Discuss.

After you...

Actually, just wondering if anyone else will make the connection that I did, after listening to R4 a few minutes ago...

What, no-one?

I've been listening to R4 on and off all day and didn't catch any reference to ants or grashoppers.... Maybe if you were to precis the general plot?

Isn't it the story of the careful ants who work in the summer to prepare for winter and the carefree grasshopper who doesn't and then gets caught in cold by not preparing .

Wasn't listening to radio so no idea what you are alluding to.

Isn't that 'A Bug's Life'?

Who are the careful ants and who are the lazy singing, carefree grasshoppers?

What! Nobody!??? I thought this board was for political discussion...

I didn't want to spoon feed either. I really hoped someone would get the analogy. Sometimes it's easier discussing a problem if we do it in terms of stories. Is the ant in the story right to say 'fuck off, you should have prepared for bad times' or should he say, 'here, I'll help you out now, but you have to sing for your supper'.

In a society where everyone is equally capable of making a contribution it's immoral to deliberately choose idleness. The idle can therefore expect to suffer. If a section of society is incapable of making a contribution it's immoral for others not to offer assistance. If the only contribution you can make is singing, that's what you should expect to do.

But isn't it also immoral to refuse to help those who have failed to contribute through their own foolishness and see them starve for want of a little of the plenty that those with foresight and a different ethic have saved?

It would be immoral to let anyone starve. However, it would also be immoral to encourage idleness. Obviously this mirrors the 'what is welfare for' debate at the moment.

If they have failed to provide due to foolishness then they should be made to sing for their supper!

Was the ant not identifying that the grasshopper had a talent he did not and they made a trade on that basis?

The particular ant I'm thinking of offered help but with strings attached - kind of a 'sing for your supper' I suppose. The ant then got berated and abused for suggesting anything of the sort. I must admit I felt sorry for the ant (a new feeling for this particular self-righteous cow ant) and felt she would have been perfectly within her rights to say to the grasshoppers 'fuck you, I'm off'.

Still wondering why she didn't.

And an insight from James Joyce:

Thank-you, somebloke, that was beautiful!

No-one's got the reference yet, though!