Boiled Frogs
Today I came across an interesting meme: the Boiled Frog. People use the parable of the boiled frog to describe a situation in which a sudden decrease in comfort would be protested, but a slow and steady degradation isn't noticed until it's too late. The parable, which isn't true, claims that a frog dumped in hot water would quickly jump out, but if you put him in tepid water and slowly raise the temperature to boiling he doesn't notice and just sits there.
The boiled frog syndrome has been used to decry slowly rising interest rates, and the decline of environmental quality, and the erosion of our personal rights. I delight in finding phrases that capture a concept concisely like that. Like the "broken window theory" I describe somewhere in this post.
The boiled frog treatment tickles me because it involves my mascot the frog, and human behavior, and our declining quality of life. It's this convenient confluence of factors (the perfect storm phrase is so overused) that makes the Boiled Frog trope such a pleasing phrase to me.
We're all boiled frogs.
Blog Tag: Opinion
Posted 5/08/2005 11:23:00 AM
L
On 5/08/2005 7:44 PM, 
Melissa said...
On 5/09/2005 1:14 AM, Michelle said...
On 5/09/2005 7:27 AM, gemmak said...
On 5/10/2005 6:54 PM, 
said...
4 Comments:
Just from my own experience, I think that most people have a finite amount of bad things that can happen to them before they want to jump out of the pot. It doesn't matter whether trouble builds slowly or happens suddenly.
I'm reminded of what it is like arriving at work. Sometimes the floor is quiet and peaceful, but as the evening progresses one bad thing after another happens. As a nurse reaches her personal limit, she will either cry, disappear for awhile or call in sick the next day, or all three. If the shift starts out in crisis, nurses will react the same way. It just happens faster, because their breaking point is reached faster. I don't think that people are better able to tolerate a bad situation just because the heat is slowly turned up. My employer has gotten smart, though. The doors to the balconies are permanently locked, because too many employees were jumping. (The nursing crisis is bad enough without having to find replacements for the jumpers.)
I do like the "broken window theory." My adopted hometown of Santa Clarita has a similar policy when it comes to grafitti. There simply isn't any. Well, if it does appear, it disappears within hours. The policy is effective and helps the residents feel that their neighborhoods are safe, which they are. It also helps that so many cops live here, too.
I love this post. I wish more people were exposed to this type of writing.
I know from my studies that in NY the train carriges were covered in grafitti at one stage and costing the city megabucks. They decided that every time a train came in covered, they'd keep it in the yard till it was all clean, then send it back out. After a few months they noticed a marked decline in the amount of grafitti. I still think they use the same method today.
Good grief man.....I had to think about that for a minute....and yes indeed...all boiled frogs we are :o(
I saw a frog car on the freeway today on my way to work. You're not the only one with this uh...interest. The car was a light green VW with a large green stuffed frog in the rear window and the license plate was a spelling variation of Kermit. Do you have one too?
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