Wild Pigs — Free Morals

Challenge the free morals too

A forward in WhatsApp reads like this…

Karl Marx once said- “Remove one freedom per generation. Soon you will have no freedom left and no one would have even noticed.

One day while the class was in the laboratory, a Professor noticed a young man kept rubbing his back and stretching, as if his back hurt.

The Professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him that he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting Communists in his native country, who were trying to overthrow his country’s Government and install a new Communist regime.

Then, the student looked at the Professor and asked a strange question-

“Do you know how to catch wild Pigs ?”

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punchline. The young man said that it was no joke at all.

“You catch wild Pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting Corn on the ground. The Wild Pigs find the Corn and begin to come every day to eat the Free food.

When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence on one side of the place where they are used to coming regularly.

At first, the Wild Pigs are scared, but when they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side.

The Pigs, which are used to the Free Corn, start to come through the gate to eat that Free Corn again. Then you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly, the wild Pigs have lost their freedom. They run around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the Free Corn.

They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity and they are slaughtered thereafter.”

The young man then told the Professor-
“That is exactly what is happening in many countries today.

The Governments keep pushing the people towards Socialism and keep spreading the Free Corn out in the form of programmes such as Free Rations, Free Electricity, Tax credits, Caste Benefits, Farm subsidies, Welfare Schemes, Free entitlements, Free medicines, while the people continually lose their freedom, just a little bit at a time.”

One should always remember a simple Truth:

There is no such thing as a Free Lunch

If you think that the Free Ride is essential to your way of life, then God help you when the gates slam shut !

Most of the problems we are facing today, are because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living !

Familiar ??

Think…….

A very nice story; We have good stories in the form of films, music, dramas and they convey a beautiful message. Here, in this WhatsApp message, the creator of the message doesn’t want to trouble you with finding the moral of the story. It is also given; *Free Moral* and the lesson to take home. Yes, such free moral is not always so true. The shades are hidden.

Can I ask a few questions? is it okay to ask questions? We don’t ask questions about stories. And we don’t need the free morals too.

1. Why the story starts with wild pigs and a group of persons who wants to catch. There is already a big inequality which can’t be forgotten. The capabilities of one group is indirectly assumed to be higher than that of the other group. Was it intentional? Ask yourselves. But it is there.
2. Free Corn is given to the pigs. Think the exactly opposite option. Does pigs have the capability to provide free food for the group of persons? Seemingly silly questions. But they are all used to come to seemingly straightforward “free moral of the story”.
3. Why the pigs are interested in the free corns? Possibly because they don’t have access to other food. Yes, as the author says, pigs shouldn’t have gone for the free food, but probably started a revolution. No, they are not capable of doing that. Either they are naïve (as author likes to believe) or they don’t have the resources to do it.
4. Even when the fences are created, wild pigs continue to come to eat. Is it because they are addicted to these free food? May be yes, they are addicted. May be No, they don’t have another option. This situation of no-option is not only their creation. They don’t have resources from the beginning.
5. And then the interesting moral of the story, “Most of the problems we are facing today, are because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living !” Who are these people working for a living? The super-rich (who does a lot of work), the rich (who does work) and the middle class (who does some work). And who are those people calling “vote for living”? Yes they are the wild pigs.
6. I ask the question, is it a critique of Karl Marx (I don’t consider him as God, but a thinker with some strong intuitions, which can’t be blindly followed everywhere) or socialism and a support of capitalism (they work for living)?
7. Or is it an invitation to critique neo-liberal capitalism throw away the free moral? The neo-liberals don’t give free lunches or other stuffs, they buy you and your resources by providing a value (much less than their original value). And we call it smart business move. And they make you like wild pigs (don’t have resources). And you are forced to depend on free stuffs. And finally you are blamed for your own fate (and those saintly neo-liberalists). And the saints will say that your fate was always the result of your action.
8. Yes, there are examples of rare, genius wild pigs who escaped the fences or managed not to eat those free corns; they got transformed into humans later. Yes, they are exceptions. Their lives and examples are advertised to show that “original group of persons who gave free corns” were right and “wild pigs are fully responsible for their fate.
9. We blamed wild pigs; we blamed Marx and socialists; and those super-rich and neo-liberalism and their strategies are all successful and their success is genuine. Middle class won’t remain long there; a few will be pushed to the richest side and the most will be pushed to the other side.

Thank you for the free moral of the story