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Showing posts from July, 2017

We are Losing by Trying to Win

Most people have heard of Jonathan Swift's classic novel, Gulliver's Travels. In it, Gulliver travels from one strange place to another, encountering tiny people, giant people, talking horses, and all kinds of adventures. Most people today think of it as a children's storybook because the scene where he is tied down on a beach by little people who feel threatened by him has made its way into almost every children's cartoon. But Gulliver's Travels is far from a children's storybook. It is an insightful and often cutting look at human nature. Swift was a careful observer of human behavior and lampooned it mercilessly. Swift was an Irish writer and clergyman and said that he wrote this novel to "vex the world, not divert it." I think we could use some of that vexing - and could do with some learning from it. In Gulliver's last adventure, he runs across creatures called "Yahoos." They are nasty creatures who horde shiny rocks and hur