Wag More Bark Less is Ancient
“Wag more, bark less” is a pretty good example of trite bumper-sticker philosophy, the sort of thing popular with leftists who’ve traded their protest placards for small strips of vinyl and conservatives that can’t resist preaching the good word to the masses at every opportunity. Surprisingly, however, it’s not a proverb of modern origin with roots that extend back beyond 500 B.C.
In its current form it is a rather bland anthem, in the same vein as The Bark Magazine’s “Dog is my co-pilot:” appropriate for subtle consumerist branding, and thus it’s not surprising to be the choice for a crunchy-granola (in philosophy, not recipe) dog biscuit company who aligns with all the typical paternalistic sentiments of saving the widdle doggies, children, women and the environment. While there are dozens of popular dog-related bumper stickers, this one is particularly popular here in Colorado, enough that another Denver resident who is decidedly more affirmative on bumper stickers than I am wrote this analysis of the “Wag more” fad:
A new one I just ordered is “Bark Less Wag More.” What a nice sentiment this one has, an approach to life that would be admirable for us all. When I first saw it I thought, okay this is my new calling card, my new mantra, my daily goal, my personal mission statement, if you will. I lived with that philosophy for a couple days (actually it was more like 40 minutes) and then I thought, Nah, I’ll pass.
And I agree, it’s not really a message I support. It has the same “ignorance is bliss” kind of message as “Don’t worry, be happy.” I’d say my perspective aligns with the anti-PC curmudgeons that Clough embraces:
So, my new bumper sticker will probably never make it onto the truck, as nice and sweet as it is. After all, it would look out of place next to “I’m already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.”
These are tricky times for curmudgeons, as political correctness and the “every kid wins a ribbon at field day” mentality that has taken over. P. J. O’Rourke, the resident curmudgeon at Rolling Stone, says that, “It’s only in recent years that curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap.” It wasn’t that long ago that Mark Twain, James Thurber and H. L. Mencken (members of the Curmudgeon Hall Of Fame) were highly regarded. O’Rourke also said, “Popular culture has always been moronic. It has to be by mathematics. I mean, one-half of the population is by definition below the median intelligence.”
Andy Rooney (another member of the Hall of Fame) states, “Curmudgeons are idealists at heart. They’re trying to straighten out the whole world. I think criticism is the best source of change.” The truth of the matter is that curmudgeons are occasionally crotchety and testy, partially because they carry a big burden. As Author Jon Winokur reflects, “Curmudgeons don’t hate sinners, just sin. They don’t hate humankind, just humankind’s excesses—and they hold out secret hope for the improvement of the species.”
As banal and hippie-dippie-come-conformist as the message is, it actually has a very ancient origin. The Story of Ahikar is an age-old folktale that was widely popular in antiquity given that we find variations of the story coming down to us through Syrian, Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopian, Turkish, Greek, and Slavic literary traditions. It is likely Persian or Babylonian in origin and describes the harsh trials but eventual vindication of a righteous man (c.f. the tale of Job), Ahikar, who was counselor to the Assyrian king Sennacherib* circa 700 BC and his successor-son, Esarhaddon.
The tale is part of the extra-Biblical cannon of works (like the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) that none-the-less are influenced by or influential on Biblical cannon.
In the beginning of the tale, Ahikar instructs his adopted nephew with an extensive series of proverbs which greatly over-lap those found in the books of Proverbs, Psalms and Ecclesiastes, e.g. “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” The story also has strong parallels with the apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus and Tobit. While modern scholars believe that the list of proverbs were originally a different collection of wisdom that was added to the Ahikar story, they are included in an Aramaic papyrus of the story found in the ruins of Elephantine, Egypt dated to 500 B.C., leading them to conclude that the sayings represent popular proverbs of the era.
And herein we have our most ancient documented use of “wag more, bark less:”
My son, sweeten they tongue and make savoury the opening of thy mouth; for the tail of a dog gives him bread, and his mouth gets him blows.
The ancient phrasing gives us a much better argument for the declarative call for behavior change compared to the modern version. It is an appeal to consequence using rather compelling imagery. A happy dog that wags its tail can more easily con you out of a piece of bread than a dog that growls and barks. And of course this is true. But it’s a rather cynical means of manipulation, no? Do what gets you rewards instead of what is honest or rational? This sort of advice breeds obsequious behavior and values sycophants above peers and well-meaning criticism. And yes, we have selected many a dog to be sycophants in place of a peer. The question remains if we should select humans in the same manner, and clearly some people do.
Frankly, while most people say they value honesty and forthrightness, in practice I find this to be a lie. Most people value pleasant fiction over harsh truths and the way to make friends and influence people is to play into these vanities instead of actually calling it like it is.
So what the hell are you wagging for? I’m barking at you bub!
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Chris: The truth has never been more correctly stated. They see the truth as
as person being a negative individual. They see knowledge as evil and wish
to insulate themselves with ignorance.
I always took this to be “don’t just yak about it, DO something!” “Less complaining or talking of intentions…go out and DO what you say you are going to.” WAG= action BARK= complaint or hollow statement of intent
You over-rate barking.
I’ve never been kept from sleep by the neighbor’s dog wagging its tail. An ill-directed bark could scatter a herd. Those whose every third word is derived from the root ‘fuck’, even if they claim to be ‘sayin’ it like it is’, are no closer to ‘truth’ than the most obnoxious of chihuahuas.
Your favorite curmudgeons mixed truth with wit and humor. Hardly barking.
p.s. Love the click-to-edit feature (wag wag).
Truth is a bitter pill, and we like our sugar sweet, but look what all that sugar-talk has done to dog breeds.
In societies where the people don’t criticize others, especially not their children, everyone is free OF CRITICISM, and must learn by guessing what it is that each other person might not like. But we don’t all dislike the same things.
It makes it difficult for people to understand others around them, and to be understood. Nobody will “make waves”. People will tell you they love your hot wings, but they don’t, so they just don’t come over if that is what you are cooking, making you GUESS what the problem is.
Was it something I said? Is he having an affair? Is he allergic to my new kitten? Can’t be my new hot wing recipe – he loves them.
It might be painful to hear “Your new recipe taste like crap.” Or even “I like regular bar- B-Q wings, not hot wings”, but it is better than trying to guess what the problem is.
Take the case of a young boyfriend and girlfriend who visit each other’s apartments – until she gets a cat. Boyfriend will not tell the truth. He says the cat is cute. He hates the cat. He doesn’t want to eat there or even sleep over anymore.
Girlfriend knows that he doesn’t really like the cat, but she doesn’t know that he really hates having the cat around. She begins oi doubt her boyfriend.
But if he would just say “I don’t like cats.” And then next visit say “I don’t like to be in a room with a cat, could you please put Mr Mouzer in the other room when I come over?” then she would know what the problem was, and maybe have the cat stay at her sister’s house when he was staying the night.
Perhaps, we should comment on the club whose rules state something about not being allowed to say anything detrimental about the club, purebred dogs, or ( I forget the third thing, dog shows maybe?).
Most people are not lawyers. They guess what their rights might be, and what it will cost them to try to get their rights. Many people err, not on the side of freedom, even their own freedom, but on the side of safety, especially their own.
I have heard people who were shut up by this, not just ignorant people who truly believed that the club got to write real laws, but also professional people who should have understood better.
For example, one woman quoted a case where a club had conduct rules. Many people at an event stayed nearby at a hotel. A man attacked a woman at the hotel. Since both people were at the hotel to attend the event, the club said the man was in violation of their conduct rules.
Going by this reasoning, she said she was unaware of where the club’s authority and power ended. Since most of her life and conversations were about dogs, she felt suppressed all the time.
So I said that it wouldn’t be a big deal if they wanted me out of their club, as I wasn’t a member anyway.
This launched a big debate, although a stifled one with plenty of half sentences, where some people believed that I could be put in jail for speaking the truth even in our own homes, that I would never be allowed to breed or show dogs ever again, or having to pay a big fine, etc.
This sort of open ended threat, where people are forbidden to do something as natural as speaking the truth, but they have no idea what the punishment might be, has a wet blanket effect, where people are pale and inhibited. It ruins the fun.
But what is the effect on the club? They get no feed back, well no feed back about problems. And what happens to any business that ignores their problems?
What would have happened if NASA (the astronauts; what puts satellites up in orbit so you can get electronic signals) had not wanted to upset anyone by mentioning failed O rings?
Without the ability to correct errors, they would have to shut down, to quit. To not discuss problems, even to dwell upon the problems until an answer is found, is to allow those problems to block your future. And the results could have a stifling effect on the future.
I was browsing a bookstore on the morning this post came out. One title caught my attention, something like: The Science of Harry Potter. Harry Potter is about magic, not science, right?
I’m the curious sort, so I opened the book. I only read one page before being distracted, and putting the book back. It was pointing out that criticizing your friends for breaking socially helpful rules didn’t help YOU, it helped SOCIETY, and therefor was altruistic.
And isn’t that also true in the dog breeder culture? Who , within the show dog culture, gives constructive criticism to qualzucht breeders? Perhaps, this cull-ture lacks a “tenth man”?
I am told that companies often hire a “devil’s advocate” – no it has nothing to do with the devil, it is just an insulting name for a person hired to disagree with them, thereby presenting the other side, and preventing people from being blind-sided by attacks they would not see.
There is a good post about constructive criticism in the dog world at:
Darlingyouaredoingitwrong.blogspot.com/2009/10/wolf-friends
The important part is that the wolves who follow your herd/club/blog be correct in their big picture.
For BAD example: people who WERE breeding good farm dogs, good pet house dogs, good hunting dogs etc, were/are hounded by purebred/show breeders who nag at the regular people to quit breeding regular dogs, and breed(side) show breeds. Those are Big Bad Wolves, pushing destructive criticism.
My tablet wouldn’t let me break into the countdown and change it, but I realized that could be read two ways, perhaps a clearer way to write it would be:
…quit breeding regular dogs, and start breeding show dogs instead.
After reading this post, I had to look for this again. Kinda like when your friend starts to hum a song and you can’t get it outa your head and you just have to furiously dig through your old records to hear it again …
This passage was written in 1899 by Ambrose Bierce and men (politicians) wore beards back then
Two Dogs
The Dog, as created, had a rigid tail, but after some centuries of a cheerless existence, unappreciated by Man, who made him work for his living, he implored the Creator to endow him with a wag. This being done he was able to dissemble his resentment with a sign of affection, and the earth was his and the fulness thereof. Observing this, the Politician (an animal created later) petitioned that a wag might be given him too. As he was incaudate it was conferred upon his chin, which he now wags with great profit and gratification except when he is at his meals.
Like you Bert there is something quite compelling to cause one to return again to this posting. May makes intriguing statements as well. Adding to this found curiosity will attempt to determine if my dogs are wagging tails right to left.. left to right or is it up and down or around?
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-dogs-tail-wagging-01513.html
I assumed that I knew what “spare the rod and spoil the child” means: “if you don’t punish your children they will be spoiled”.
But someone else assumed the meaning to be biblical commands: “thou shall punish your children only lightly and rarely, and thou shall spoil thy children”.
The bible was not written in English. The new testament is said to have been written in olde Greek, and the old testament in ancient Hebrew. Just as we don’t speak in the thou, thy, thine way of a couple hundred years ago, even though we use the same written language from 200 years ago, so too have other languages changed, enough so that correct translation might not be possible.
So which translation do you think is the correct one?
The Ahikar makes it pretty clear which meaning was popular:
“Spare not the rod tonight son for the rod is to children as dung in the garden; and as the tie and seal fastening the packet, and as the tether on the foot of the ass, so is the rod profitable to the child. For thou shall strike him with a rod once or twice, dexterously and quietly, he does not die. But if you leave him to his own will, he becomes a thief and they take him to the gallows and to death, and he becomes unto thee a reproach and breaking of heart.”
I agree that it is the consequences. I have found that parents who do not know how to discipline their children have obnoxious dogs as well.
I should add that those obnoxious children mistreat the dogs. Many breeders such as myself have learned to make parents bring children. I am far from the only breeder who decides not to sell a puppy to such pet seekers. I have said on more than one such visit, “Your child or children are not ready for the responsibility of a Family Dog”.
The spoiled brats get tired of the Toy, but a young puppy is not a toy. Too many end up in Shelters by blaming the breeder for behavior issues.
Its hard to wag more and bark less – when you are being barked at.
Paddyannie recently posted..Testing new theme
It’s “wag more bark less” not “only wag no barking”. We have a society full of critics of everything. Like barking, non stop criticism loses it’s purpose and just becomes annoying.
A sinful world would find friction more comforting over peace. Maybe you are having difficulty with “peace” as a state of mind. “Pleasant friction” = stress. Stress IS a disease. Stop being contagious.
Mark is the topic of this liberal attitude relating to your suggestion of
“political correctness” and “politically correct.?” According to the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, communists first used the term “without any irony, to judge the degree of compatibility of one’s ideas or political analysis with the official party line in Moscow.”Now, according to actisits and feminists, the term emerged in the 70’s by lefties with intention of poking fun at holier-than-thou lefties who were dogmatic in their insistence on the puritanical following of their political beliefs.
“In the early ’80s, when feminists used the term ‘political correctness,’ it was used to refer sarcastically to the anti-pornography movement’s efforts to define ‘female sexuality.’”
But the person who arguably pushed the concept of political correctness into the mainstream wasn’t a progressive but a conservative.
The term became popular in the early 1990s, most notably referred to by then-rising, now-fallen-star conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza. In “Illiberal Education” he wrote that political correctness and affirmative action had ruined college admissions by giving preference to less-qualified students on the basis of their race. This argument spoke to conservative anxieties about the changing face of the United States and launched D’Souza — and the concept of political correctness as a pejorative — into the mainstream.
Others jumped on the anti-pc bandwagon. In a 1991 commencement speech, President George H.W. Bush said, “The notion of political correctness declares certain topics, certain expressions, even certain gestures off-limits. What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship.” I personally suggest that actor Charlton Heston said it best when you suggest Chris should stop being contagious. In his 1999 speech, “Political correctness is tyranny with manners.”