Rants Log-in | Search Rants | Account Info

“AH, WILDERNESS!”
(With recognition due to Oscar Wilde)

Once upon a time, in the wild, there existed a herd of donkeys and a herd of elephants. They were perennial political opponents, with well designed, mirror-image ideas on how the wilderness should be run. A large bone of contention between them had to do with how each herd defined “pack values.” The donkeys tended toward liberalization of individual conduct, while keeping a tail’s length from the influence of the controlling authority (CA), in those matters. The elephants also professed, in most matters, to keep a tail’s length from the CA. But, when it came to individual conduct, the elephants called upon the CA to enforce their own herd’s concept of “right” and “wrong.”

When these two species first decided to occupy the same region of the wilderness, they drew up a compact that mutually would affect both herds, in perpetuity. A salient item of that contract declared that there was to be complete freedom as to individual beliefs with regard to deities; but that those beliefs were not to interfere with operation of the governing principles. Contrary to the stipulation of the compact, mention of a deity did appear on the currency and other trappings common to both herds. “Mention” was as far as it went, until, not too long thereafter, the elephants began, surreptitiously, to subvert the compact by insinuating tenets of their faith into the actual operations of the CA. This intrusion particularly affected how each herd looked upon the reproduction process.

The donkeys always maintained that, since the females of the species were the vessels of reproduction, the determination as to whether they wished to reproduce, in a particular instance, strictly should be the province of that female, at that time. The elephants, on the other hoof, held a countervailing point of view. They wished to write into the CA codes that all reproduction, once begun—regardless of the physical or psychological effect it might have on the female in question—must be brought to term and delivered. Apart from holding such draconian views, the elephants also insisted upon strict chastity by both sexes, until they be properly mated according the rules of the CA. Their adherence to these moral certitudes was uncompromising. Females who broke their chastity rules were scorned and banished from the herd.

It came to pass, one political season, that the electoral advantage between the two herds ran with such equanimity that the in-power elephants were in jeopardy of losing that power it wielded—badly—through the preceding two election cycles. Their leading candidate was in great disfavor with the herd, because his commitment to many of their moral concepts was not absolute. He was particularly shaky with regard to their standards on reproduction. The candidate was in a quandary. He had wisely to choose a supernumerary. There was one possible choice whose female offspring had violated the chastity rule, but she herself was strong on the rule of coming to full term and delivery. The idea seemed somewhat devious to the candidate, but he was on the verge of losing his base support within the herd, so a decision had to be made.

With the convening herd all a-trumpet, the conflicted supernumerary was presented. In the audience were all of her calves. Ironically, the calf who had violated chastity—contrary to all of the herd’s oft-stated ethics—she seemed to be held in particular esteem. The still-unproperly-mated sire was brought along for an odd sort of punctuation to this what-otherwise-would-be unseemly display.

“Ah, Wilderness!” It takes a thick hide to support such blatant hypocrisy!