When the Boy Cries Wolf

Guy English:

In the story of the Boy That Cried Wolf the village ultimately paid the price for not being vigilant. The interpretation has always been to take it as a parable to improve personal behaviour but what I enjoy most about that tale is that it works both ways — there are two parties at fault: the attention seeker and those who took the cognitive shortcut of disregarding what the attention seeker was saying because they’d been wrong in the past.

★ Friday, 6 May 2011