{"id":591,"date":"2013-01-16T13:16:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T11:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=591"},"modified":"2015-04-28T01:57:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T23:57:44","slug":"stories-you-may-not-have-heard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/stories-you-may-not-have-heard\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories you may not have heard"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you could live at any time in the past, when would you like to live?<\/p>\n

I think I’d feel very much at home during the Renaissance, or in ancient<\/span> Greece. Those were great times to be a scientist, a philosopher, a traveler, or all three. Scientists and philosophers saw it as part of their job to be on the road, visiting other scientists and philosophers, absorbing<\/span> new ideas and observing different ways of doing things.<\/p>\n

An aspect of this that really appeals to<\/span> me is the fact that it was possible, up to about 1700, for an individual to have read all the books in existence (at least from one’s own continent) and to know everything that was known about the world (or one’s own part of it). Today that’s barely<\/span> possible even for a computer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since I live in the present and not the Renaissance, I enjoy talking to people and discovering what they know and what they don’t know, and seeing how that matches up with<\/span> what I know and what I don’t know. We all have our favorite subjects and gaps<\/span> in our knowledge, and in an environment such as my workplace, cultural differences add to this.<\/p>\n

One thing I’ve noticed is that people from different cultures grow up with different stories. Some we have in common \u2014 Grimm’s fairy tales<\/span> in different versions and the tales<\/span> of Hans Christian Andersen, for example. Others seem to be more prominent<\/span> in one culture than another. My British colleagues have only a vague recollection<\/span> of Aesop’s fables<\/a>, while the name “Aesop” barely rings a bell with<\/span> my German counterparts<\/span>. By contrast, every American has heard of him.<\/p>\n

Aesop was a slave who lived in Greece 2,600 years ago. His job was to teach children, and he did this by telling them stories that offered a moral or a lesson. Wikipedia lists 69 such stories; I would say about six of them are very commonly known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

The Ant and the Grasshopper<\/h4>\n

During the summer, the ant<\/span> works hard to collect food, while the grasshopper<\/span> makes music. Winter comes and the ant eats well, while the grasshopper goes hungry.<\/p>\n

The Boy Who Cried Wolf<\/h4>\n

In order to get attention, a boy warns people about a wolf that doesn’t exist. When a real wolf shows up<\/span>, nobody believes him.<\/p>\n

The Fox and the Grapes<\/h4>\n

A fox<\/span> wants to eat some grapes<\/span>, but they are too high for him to reach. The fox then tells himself that the grapes are probably sour and that he never really wanted them.<\/p>\n

The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs<\/h4>\n

A farmer has a goose<\/span> that produces golden eggs. Thinking that the goose’s body must contain much more gold, the farmer kills the goose, losing both his wealth and the source of it.<\/p>\n

The Tortoise and the Hare<\/h4>\n

The tortoise<\/span> and the hare<\/span> decide to have a race. The hare is confident he’ll win, so he takes a nap<\/span>. When he wakes up, the tortoise is too far ahead, and the hare loses.<\/p>\n

Town Mouse and Country Mouse<\/h4>\n

Town Mouse visits Country Mouse, but doesn’t like the food he’s offered. Country Mouse visits Town Mouse, but finds the city too dangerous. The two worlds<\/a> cannot be brought together.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

These fables are so well known that they provide metaphors for ordinary situations. Americans often accuse<\/span> each other of “sour grapes” or “crying wolf”. Politicians accuse each other of “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs”. A candidate far behind his opponent in the polls<\/span> may claim to “be the tortoise”. A person who prefers a simple life may refer to himself as a “country mouse”.<\/p>\n

Why are these stories particularly well known in America? I don’t know, but it might be because some of them reinforce<\/span> certain American values<\/a>, such as diligence<\/span> and self-reliance<\/span>. “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, along with “The Tortoise and the Hare”, is a particularly good example of this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you could live at any time in the past, when would you like to live? I think I’d feel very much at home during the Renaissance, or in ancient Greece. Those were great times to be a scientist, a philosopher, a traveler, or all three. Scientists and philosophers saw it as part of their job to be on the … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[222,11,13,22,16,133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1793,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/1793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}