Friday
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, one of the smartest political commentators I know, doesn’t use the word “evil” lightly, so I was startled to hear him direct it against Fox News last night. For the occasion, I also have a good fox poem.
Hayes is thinking how figures like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity are persuading their viewers not to get vaccinated, even though (1) they themselves have been vaccinated, and (2) they work for a company that has very strict anti-Covid policies, requiring its employees either to be vaccinated or to be tested every day. That is more than even President Biden is demanding of large businesses.
In other words, they’re lying while the people who swallow their lies are dying. Fox doesn’t care that America’s death toll has surpassed 700,000. Its business model requires that viewers stay riled up at all times, regardless of the human cost.
In Jean de la Fontaine’s “The Crow and the Fox,” Master Fox knows just how to flatter Mr. Crow to get his cheese. Tell him you want to hear his beautiful voice and the morsel will drop in your lap. And so it happens.
Fox News flatters its viewers by assuring them they are much smarter that so-called experts (beginning with Dr. Fauci) and don’t need to listen to anybody. Sound off with your beautiful opinions about Covid, they tell people, even though those opinions are as mellifluous as a crow’s caw. Then Fox picks up the cheese.
In the poem, however, the Fox confesses to the trick. “Learn that each flatterer/ Lives at the cost of those who heed,” he tells the Crow. In real life, Fox just uses the same trick over and over.
And Crow falls for it every time.
The Fox and the Crow
By Jean de la FontaineAt the top of a tree perched Master Crow;
In his beak he was holding a cheese.
Drawn by the smell, Master Fox spoke, below.
The words, more or less, were these:
“Hey, now, Sir Crow! Good day, good day!
How very handsome you do look, how grandly distingué!
No lie, if those songs you sing
Match the plumage of your wing,
You’re the phoenix of these woods, our choice.”
Hearing this, the Crow was all rapture and wonder.
To show off his handsome voice,
He opened beak wide and let go of his plunder.
The Fox snapped it up and then said, “My Good Sir,
Learn that each flatterer
Lives at the cost of those who heed.
This lesson is well worth the cheese, indeed.”
The Crow, ashamed and sick,
Swore, a bit late, not to fall again for that trick.
Additional Note: When I was an eighth grader attending a French school in Paris, I was required to memorize this poem and still remember it to this day. For those of you who know French, I run it below:
Le Corbeau et le Renard
Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perché,
Tenait en son bec un fromage.
Maître Renard, par l’odeur alléché,
Lui tint à peu près ce langage:
“Hé! bonjour, Monsieur du Corbeau.
Que vous êtes joli! que vous me semblez beau!
Sans mentir, si votre ramage
Se rapporte à votre plumage,
Vous êtes le phénix des hôtes de ces bois.”
A ces mots le Corbeau ne se sent pas de joie;
Et pour montrer sa belle voix,
Il ouvre un large bec, laisse tomber sa proie.
Le renard s’en saisit, et dit: “Mon bon Monsieur,
Apprenez que tout flatteur
Vit aux dépens de celui qui l’écoute:
Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute.”
Le Corbeau, honteux et confus,
Jura, mais un peu tard, qu’on ne n’y prendrait plus