Apparently, fiddler crabs often rush to defend neighbors from wandering fiddler crabs. This, despite the fact that they have to leave their own homes at considerable risk… they might die, or some other creature might take over their home while they’re away fighting.
The icing on the cake: fiddler crabs that go away to fight are almost always bigger than their neighbors. Basically, they’re helping to keep weak crabs as neighbors so that they themselves will be safer. It reminds me of medieval fuedalism.
While that is nifty, and I understand I’m really opening myself up for you to call me stupid, how is that like feudalism? Feudalism wasn’t really much about helping the weak so much as it was about extorting the weak.
First off, I pretty much restrict the vitriol and attack language to P&R. (Koontz is the one exception, because he is consistently an asshat in whatever forum he posts.) So even if you were being stupid, I would put it much more gently here.
Second, it’s not a stupid question.
Feudalism wasn’t really much about helping the weak so much as it was about extorting the weak.
The system, both in rhetoric and in practice, was all about the weak nobles pledging loyalty to the strong, and the strong in turn protecting them. The plight of the peasants was irrelevant… they weren’t really a part of the system: they were chattel to be traded and used.
I suppose if you want to do a more in depth and accurate analysis, this would be more like the Soviet Union setting up satellite states as buffer regions. But the idea of a fiddler crab in shining armor rushing out to save his neighbor, the damsel in distress, seems a hell of a lot more amusing than imagining… well… whatever the hell the crab would be in the Soviet Union analogy.
It’s the Stalin Crab! He has a 5 year plan! Run!!!
Well, the reason the small nobles allied with the strong ones was fear of the strong ones. It was coercion. Give me X bushels of wheat a year or I will kill you. The primary person you were getting protection from was the person you were pledging loyality to, not any foreign threat.
This is much more like the buffer state situation that you mention.
Umm… Christian? Perhaps you’ve met Steve Clarke? There’s a reason why they call him Steve “The Fiddler” Clarke. It ain’t because of his musical aptitude.
