Trained

It took a long time for things to go so far. It came about because things that should have been stopped were not stopped soon enough.
The I Ching or Book of Changes

I ran across this this weekend as an epigraph in one of J. K. Rawling’s Cormoran Strike novels. (No, I haven’t read them, I was just browsing in Half Price Books; has anyone else?) It seems appropriate for the moment, although it is of course appropriate for every moment. It is very closely related to something I’ve been telling new and prospective parents for many years—“You can train them, or they will train you. Either way, someone is getting trained.” Parents get trained by eight month olds and eight year olds because “things that should have been stopped weren’t stopped soon enough.”

The political among us of both stripes will think it applies perfectly to what’s going on in the world…

… The added bonus is that both are correct.