We've been hearing it a lot on the news from political pundits lately, this proverb about if you give a man a fish, you'll feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you'll feed him for a lifetime. But this isn't the best metaphor really, now is it? Because after all, it hardly applies to everyone, now does it?
What if you live in a desert, or in the mountains, away from all fishing opportunities? Teaching you to fish would be a waste of time, and worse, it might even be considered teasing! So here teaching someone to fish would be useless, and giving them a fish might be helpful. (Unless it's spoiled or something.)
And what about if you live somewhere that has lots of laws against fishing (the snail darter, the delta smelt, etc, etc.)? Then you'd get in trouble with the law, and worse, in trouble with environmentalists and conservationists, if you adhered to this teaching! So again, we've got a situation where teaching someone to fish would be bad for them, and giving them a fish might be the better plan.
And what if you don't like fish? Some people can't stand seafood! Won't it curse them to a life of torment and misery to expect them to spend all their lives catching fish all the time? Think of the smell! Poo-tinky! So again, here we have a situation where teaching someone to fish would be bad for them.
So look, pundits: not everybody can be helped by this fishing lesson analogy! So try to come up with something else next time, okay? And with all the bullying vegans out there, might I suggest a farming metaphor for next time? (Although some people are allergic to certain produce, so there's already a problem with that one. How about giving people a choice: Hunting, Fishing, or Farming? Surely then that would be enough for everyone, right?)
