László Arany (1844-1898), the son of the celebrated poet, and the “Shakespeare of ballads”, János Arany (1817-1882), collected Hungarian folktales. One of these tales taught children, how decisions supposed to bring collectively can be manipulated by the strongest participant.
A number of animals escaped from their homes, and fell into a trap. They were not able to escape, and became very hungry. There wasn’t any food around, so the wolf suggested a solution: ”Well, my dear friends! What to do now? We should eat soon, otherwise we starve to death. I have an idea! Let us read the names of all of us, and the most ugly one will be eaten.” Everybody agreed, (I have never understood, why). The wolf assigned himself to be the judge, and counted:
”Woolf-boolf o! So great!, fox-box also great, my dear-my beer very great, rabbit-babbit also great, cock-bock also great, my hen-my-ben, you are not great.. and they ate the hen… so on…next time cock-bock became food… (thanks to Judit Zerkowitz for the translation from Hungarian).
This is a great example of demonstrating how objectivity is manipulated if one of the voters controls an election.
From RANKING to REPAIR! 