The political aspect of the role of fables in the article "Aesop, Aristotle, and Animals: The Role of Fables in Human Life "by Edward Clayton seems very interesting to me. The author shows that most fables have the theme of strong and weak characters. From my experience, I agree with the article that a lot of the fables contain characters with significant differences in strength and that the lesson for the weak characters is always to not challenge their power. This is portrayed by weak characters being defenseless no matter the situation, or just getting significantly outclasses in wit or brutality. It looks as if that the conditioning of the lower classes into powerlessness has been a standard practice since the ancient times. Most of the fables given explanation by the author in this article are trying to argue the theory of social control and I agree with it. It is an eye opener that one role of fables is to control society and it is so well argued in the article.
Conspiracy theories aside, I also like how the author walks the reads through the history and the role of fables in ancient Greek city states. It was a enjoyable read going through how fables is widely accepted in Greece even in serious matters. I think breaking down complex politics into simple fables works well with most people. I would definitely start watching C-Span if they would tell fables to start off debates of complex matter.
Overall it is definitely a very long interesting read, I enjoyed the first part the most as it starts off with an interesting theory of society control and later just drift off to historical texts. It is definitely well suited to become a documentary on the history channel. Very interesting to see a well researched article on how fables play a role in human society.
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