As IF Times

link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup

There’s a classic old European fable about stone soup. Different cultures have their own iterations on the idea, but the essential story is as follows:

Some travelers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the very hungry travelers. Then the travelers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travelers answer that they are making “stone soup”, which tastes wonderful and which they would be delighted to share with the villager, although it still needs a little bit of garnish, which they are missing, to improve the flavor.

The villager, who anticipates enjoying a share of the soup, does not mind parting with a few carrots, so these are added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travelers again mention their stone soup which has not yet reached its full potential. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient, like potatoes, onions, cabbages, peas, celery, tomatoes, sweetcorn, meat (like chicken, pork and beef ), milk, butter, salt and pepper. Finally, the stone (being inedible) is removed from the pot, and a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by travelers and villagers alike. Although the travelers have thus tricked the villagers into sharing their food with them, they have successfully transformed it into a tasty meal which they share with the donors.

The way the story is spun according to Wikipedia, it seems as if the tale is all about sharing.  In fact, the story is more about the naivete of people once they are convinced of an idea, and the entrenchment of that idea once others confirm that view.  It struck me that this is an apt parable for what’s been happening over the past 2 plus years in (mainly) western societies.

Recall that a ‘deadly virus’ had emerged which was a grave threat to civilization.  A simple 2 week period of sequestering would resolve this; then four weeks, then masks; then vaccines for the elderly; then for kids, then travel restrictions; then job curtailment, then fines, etc etc etc. Lo and behold, the people are convinced that the figurative soup is wonderful.

We should all understand why history repeats, or at least rhymes, over periods of human history.  People don’t change and the same formulas work over and over again.  There will always be purveyors of stone soup, but sadly there are even more people willing to consume it. It’s too bad that the lessons of history can only be seen with clarity in hindsight.

link https://autistocrates.substack.com/p/aristotle-on-tyranny?utm_source=url

There’s an old saying that “there’s nothing new under the sun”.  For those interested, that line is taken from a passage of the Bible, under Ecclesiastes (1:4-11 for those researching)  In the passage, the reference was more about the consistency and predictability of life and of people.

The human experience can be viewed the same way of course and history has shown that basic elements of human nature always manifest themselves in almost predictable fashion.

As far back as Aristotle’s time, the reality of some people desiring to control other people has been a common trait among all societies.  In fact, he accurately describes the method by which tyranny takes over a society.

“Their first end and aim is to break the spirit of their subjects. They know that a poor-spirited man will never plot against anybody.”

“Their second aim is to breed mutual distrust. Tyranny is never overthrown until people can begin to trust one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are always at war with the good. They feel that good men are dangerous to their authority, not only because they think it shame to be governed despotically but also because of their loyalty to themselves and to others and because of their refusal to betray one another or anybody else.”

“The third and last aim of tyrants is to make their subjects incapable of action. Nobody attempts the impossible. Nobody, therefore, will attempt the overthrow of tyranny, when all are incapable of action.”

An essay discussing this is in the link above.

So, we can see that the methods by which tyrannically minded people use to control passive people have all but been prescribed since Aristotle’s time and likely before then.

This is an interesting perspective as we view the happenings of the world in the past two years through the constants of human behaviour. We refer of course to the chain reaction of events spawned over 2 years ago (!!) by a supposedly deadly virus.

Using fear as the big stick, the majority of the world’s societies fell lockstep into protocols which were implemented essentially at the behest of one man.  Truly amazing when you think about it.  An entire planet of 7 billion people had their lives uprooted by the utterances of ONE man. Fear of the unknown was the means by which entire nations were cowed into protocols that, today, are laughably comical.  But in the absence of real data, it was easy for the people who supposedly knew better to create rules out of thin air.

Fast forward to our present day, a full two years after the original alarm about a global catastrophe which would cause death on a scale only seen in video games and NONE of the projections have played out in any way whatsoever. Ironically, the real tragedies show up in the so called remedies to the virus.

What’s even more amazing is how the narrative has morphed seamlessly into protocols which have nothing to do with a generally benign virus.  Even as evidence piles up from nations worldwide that the ‘pandemic’ is over and that measures taken during the threat were proven useless, certain nations, notably the ‘free’ western nations of the US, Canada, France and Germany are doubling down on measures having no link to illnesses.  Odd how the virus is only deadly in wealthy nations.

To cite one example, the Canadian government took the extraordinary ( and illegal) measure of restricting citizens’ bank accounts if they were deemed to be anti-government operatives. This characterization would include a waitress who donated $10 to a freedom rally.

Clearly the agenda has moved from containing a virus to containing and controlling entire populations.  As we now know, the methods being used are timeless… and timelessly effective.