RE: The Kind and Gentle Lion (An Original Children's Story)
I'm sorry. This is a beautiful story but it's so wrong on so many levels that I feel I must address them. This isn't a personal attack and I know you mean well, but this is the sort of message we have been teaching our children that has lead us to and perpetuates our present dysfunctional and dependent society
You are promoting the "responsibility to protect," the idea that the powerful must always take control. This is the current lip service excuse for war in the Middle East. It's brainwashing.
You are teaching children that most people cannot protect themselves, that they need "authority" and "overwhelming force" from outside to insure their safety. Again, this is brainwashing.
You are anthropomorphizing a lion into something it is not. The other animals were right to not trust the lion enough to go with him. A real lion would eat them.
The lion gave the others fair warning. They ignored him. He needn't do more. They chose their fate and it is not his responsibility to rescue them from their own ignorance.
You are teaching children that it isn't okay to be alone, that you must be part of a group to be happy. This is collectivism, which is okay in family and tribe, but does not extend indefinitely to the entire jungle (world) and can only be maintained by an immense power structure through force. Only when people are content within themselves can we voluntarily extend outwardly to include others into our sphere.
This is a Disneyesque rendition of a fairy tale. In the original Three Little Pigs, the first two did not build their houses in a manner that would protect them from the "Big Bad Wolf." They were negligent and irresponsible and so the wolf killed them and ate them. They paid with their lives. And when the wolf tried to climb down the chimney of the third pig's house, the pig put a pot of boiling water on the fire, the wolf fell in and the pig ate him. In the Disney version, two of the little pigs got to run away to their responsible older brother who took them in and protected them from the wolf. This sends the message that one need not be personally responsible, the exact opposite of the moral conveyed in the original story. It also promotes the idea that if you shirk personal responsibility, someone or something will be in place to protect you, reinforcing the idea that personal irresponsibility is no big deal. Walt Disney was a fascist propagandist par excellence.
We now have at least 3 generations programmed to behave irresponsibly and look to authority to protect them. It has given us mountains of legislation that overwhelms our freedoms and promotes litigation. It has given us perpetual war. It has given us "helicopter" parents who won't let their children learn from their own mistakes or accept responsibility for their actions. Lastly, it has promoted a dependent society of individuals who are not self sufficient, who lack survival skills and who cannot take care of themselves and will most likely die if society breaks down.
It has also given us teachers who shirk the supremely important job of opening children's minds to the reality of life on planet Earth and setting the foundation for continued learning and critical thinking that will weave a much stronger and coherent social fabric in the future.
It all begins in the tender and innocent mind of a child and those of us who write stories must be ever conscious of the messages we are planting in those fertile fields. It is not a job to be taken lightly.
Please do not take this personally. I don't fault you in any way. You have been raised inside a propaganda fog. You are a beautiful writer and should continue to write. I only went to these great lengths to instill the idea that a writer's responsibility is paramount and that if we aren't careful our art becomes simplistic mind pollution instead of the crystal clear diamond of truth we all strive for.
OK.
I don't care what that guy up there says, was a great story and he/she is being way over-analytical.
hahahaha! thanks a lot @steemitcomics. he'd been thinking too much, I guess.
You get from art what you bring to it.
The lion was not responsible for the protection of any of the other species but instead ventured to form an alliance with them through voluntarism. His actions put him in a position to help and thereby a position of leverage to negotiate a mutually beneficial relationship.
Teaches that force is only appropriate in defense of yourself and/or another in order to stop aggression. It does not necessarily dictate the force must be externally sourced (hey that rhymes).
I agree with you on that one.
Again...voluntarism. Nobody forced him to defend them. The narrator didn't indicate that it was something he must do.
Some people are sad when they are alone. Others prefer it. The story seems to indicate that the lion was the former. Even so, there is no underlying theme that tells the reader that he must join the rest of the jungle to survive. In fact, it pretty much says that that he was about to just let them go. There is no force pushing the jungle's inhabitants together. They do so under their own accord. It's not like he put the hunters in a cage and threatened to let them out if the rest of the jungle didn't play with him.
True, but in defense of the OP, the hunters did manage to catch 5 animals before the lion intervened. It doesn't say what happened to them, so the reader can interpret that how they see fit.
Each story has a purpose, but they don't always have to have a lesson. Sometimes they are simply manifestations of an imagination. The author's intent matters less than the readers own interpretation. We must not fear our children looking inside of themselves and pulling their own meanings from stories. We can teach them the principles of force and the ethical and moral considerations of it, but with art, we must let them interpret their own meanings.
very well said @moeknows. thanks a lot. 😊😊😊
First, I want to thank you for your long reply to my comment. I get so tired of one and two word comments that really do not address the comment itself and lead to meaningful conversation. Thank you for your time.
I agree that everyone is different and that we all get out what we put into a story. My point was that this is a children's story and as such must be crafted carefully. Young children lack critical thinking skills ( and, quite frankly most adults as well) and so their perceptions must be a bit more guided. These are the minds of the future and if you fill them with cotton candy, the will become unhealthy.
We all have our own preferences and I am perfectly happy to let everyone express them. I wasn't criticizing the author, simply pointing out to a young, aspiring writer the awesome responsibility she has if she is going to write to children. As a parent and grandparent, I also am free to chose which children's stories I will read to my kids. I understand that the values we wish to instill are best presented as children's stories and I always discuss what the stories mean to the children, guiding them in their thought processes. When they are adults they are free to read whatever they choose and that is what being a parent is all about.