have you ever heard the fable of the scorpion & the frog?

yes it has often been reduced to that, but as clemenza rightly pointed out the original point is that the scorpion's inability to change is as destructive for the scorpion as it is the frog. But then the moral is basically "do not help scorpions," which is not great, as Christine said.

Kim's post helps me realize that part of my aversion to this fable is that I strongly dislike arguments based on "human nature" (though tbc I started the thread b/c it's weird how often I encounter this in pop culture with zero acknowledgement of how common it is, not b/c I hate the fable itself)

Weird that Trump would have used it, because, to me, it illustrates a somewhat subtle point, not exactly a specialty of his. His reading probably amounted to the thrill of the scorpion saying "I can do whatever the fuck I want."

I imagine trump would use it in strictly the “don’t help scorpions” sense.

Or "you elected a scorpion, what did you expect"?

tbh I don't remember him mentioning it, though I am grateful for forgetting anything from those four years

Story is slander on scorpions tbh. The only time scorpions are likely to sting frogs is when frogs are trying to eat them.

^ found the scorpion

Trump told the snake story not the scorpion one. In the snake story the snake just bites the woman to death there’s no mutual self-destruction.

this is kinda like the Cat-Maiden fable

THere's a really good take in an old Tharg's future Shocks I think, or a Ro-Jaws Robo Tales or something where the scorpion has become a clamp on robo bomb. Ancient 2000AD anyway.

There's a supremely well done version of this during the end credits of Chameleon Street (1989). Harris puts together a continuous version consisting of spliced confessional-style footage of basically the entire cast telling it. The technique is really cool and, somewhat surprisingly, padding the story out makes it a lot more fun to hear (as does the context-setting of having just seen the film of course)

sometimes logic, argument and even good intent just don’t matter because the power of nature often defeats them.

Power of nature, or perhaps the nature of power, ahhhh

i learnt this story as the coal and the straw in a learn-to-read book at my primary school in the mid-60s (the book was probably already 50 years old then). in this version the straw acts as a bridge over a little stream and the coal (which is red hot) walks across and burns the straw into two pieces and both fall and drown (if the straw is even still alive at that point). oh no!

i don't recall if there was any "lol! lmao!" dimension to it as i was too new to reading for subtext but the inappropriate grisliness of the main narrative has never left me! i was too young to be confronted with this! and i had no one to blame but myself as it wasn't a reading we'd been set, i was reading ahead bcz i was bored with whatever insipid forgettable pablum constituted the earlier chapters. lol! lmao!

Lol;lmao

the frog said to the scorpion "why did you do that, now we will surely both drown"

The scorpion replied "u must be new here. We the best, man."

the straw acts as a bridge over a little stream and the coal (which is red hot) walks across and burns the straw

surely you asked why was the coal like 'this is fine' when on fire but when faced with some dousing water it could only recoil like so much drake

"Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and to let his failing senses catch the words, roars in his ear: "lol! lmao!"