I’ve heard this term get used a lot...I’d like to say recently,
but it was probably a few years ago. It was being used on financial shows...
“Lion’s share of the market”. Well, if you’ve watched any nature programs on
lions, you can get the general idea of the expression.
But I thought about it in a slightly different way. Since I’ve
spent (and continue to spend) a lot of time thinking about how and why I’ve
ended up where I have...and how/why others have ended up where they
do...analogies like “the lion’s share” and ecological niches in general have
been helpful in answering those questions.
Now it’s true that I’ve seen Life of Pi recently, so that might
be a slightly inspirational contribution to my writing this post, but I
actually had the idea turning in my head before I saw that movie (...before I’d
even heard of it), and I’ve written a couple posts recently comparing human
culture to animals here and here.
Ok, so, the lion’s share. The lion kills the zebra. It gets first
bite of the biggest and the best portion of the kill. When it (or they...could
be more than one lion) has had its fill, it leaves. But there is still plenty
of zebra left. So the hyenas come in next, get a fairly decent share, then the
vultures, and so on...until we get to the very tiny critters that clean off the
rest.
Why does the lion get “the lion’s share”? Because it’s a lion. It
killed the zebra. So no other animal got to it first. With the entirety of the
zebra in front of it, it would naturally eat the best part.
Why does the hyena get second pick? Because it’s a hyena. It
didn’t kill the zebra. Probably couldn’t if it wanted to. And it can’t push the
lion out of the way.
Vultures, same idea. They didn’t kill the lion, and they can’t
push the bigger animals aside.
And so forth down the line. All these animals depend on the lion
in order to get their meal.
Now I’ve said before that ecological niches are generally not
preferred by the animal in that niche. But because of its characteristics and
adaptations and competition, that’s where it ends up. Based on this lack of
preference, we could personify these animals.
The lion is happy because it gets the biggest and best portion of
the zebra. Though, it does get a little irritated that it has to be the one to do
all the work to kill the zebra, while the others don’t have to do anything but
sit around and wait.
The hyena and vultures may be envious of the lion and its share.
maybe they want what the lion has and think that they should be allowed to have
the best portion...even though they really lack the characteristics of the lion
to do what it does.
Anyway, I think you get the idea. And you can draw parallels as
you see fit. Maybe the lion is business, the hyena the government, the
vultures...well, I don’t know, whoever else might be awaiting what the lion has
made available.
Though...there are problems with using analogies like these. For
starters, animals don’t actually have those human feelings of envy and
irritation. The lion doesn’t care what happens to the remains of the zebra. Nor
is the hyena envious of or thankful for the lion. All of these animals have to eat, and they do
so in the way they are best suited. That’s it.
Personifying the animals as was done above can be helpful in
understanding ourselves, our lot in life, and the attitudes we take, but it can
also give people a certain vindication for their behavior.
If we were to have these animals act out what people actually do,
we’d have a very different picture. If the lion, indeed, got tired of
freeloading hyenas and vultures, then you would see it expending energy to
chase off the hyenas and vultures, in attempt to keep the whole zebra for
itself. “I killed it. I deserve all of it.” It would get into a hoarding
mentality...even though it couldn’t possibly eat all the zebra before it went
bad.
If the other animals, having been chased off and left with
nothing, felt pushed into desperation, they might try...and with enough in
numbers, succeed in chasing off the lion and enjoy (for the moment) what they’d
taken from it. But they’d find themselves in a bad way the next time they were
hungry for zebra. (…though, perhaps
they’d find a new way to acquire food.)
So what’s the take-home here? Well, initially, I was thinking it
would be to understand yourself and your place in the world and not complain
about it...as the animals don’t complain in spite of not understanding
themselves.
But also to not misapply analogies to justify behavior (I guess
that one was pretty clear).
Um, and with the animalification of people (opposite of the
personification of animals) in the last illustration, we might take home that
while nature is red in tooth and claw, animals are not as weird as people.
