Killing all of the dogs and cats
2013 August 13
When England fell to the plague in 1665, people had no idea what was spreading the disease. The authorities needed to do something, so they ordered the immediate killing of cats and dogs.
Sadly, this had the opposite effect: the rat population soared (and rats were spreading the plague from infect fleas). (Dolnick 25)
Sometimes when we have no idea what to do when facing conflict, it feels better to do something than nothing. Killing the cats and dogs is easier than creating something new. (Business sales are down, so I’m going to have massive layoffs; my concert was poor attended, so I’m going to stop performing for a while.)
Unfortunately, killing the cats and dogs can be worse than doing nothing at all.
Comments are closed.