Swift Lilliput Satire

      It's almost depressing recognizing the parallels between the rope dancing in Jonothan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and sports in our world. Gulliver's Travels is a collection of stories about the journeys of a man to different mysterious worlds and interactions with strange creatures. On one of these adventures, Gulliver finds himself in the world of Lilliput where everything is miniaturized. Lilliput is ruled by an emperor, has a government, and a complex society that is very similar to our own. Lilliput has differing political parties, a class system, and even a rival society that they actively fight against. From his place far above their world, Gulliver observes these traits and tries to make himself as useful as possible and even takes pride in being a high-ranking member of society. However we as the reader can see that this is nothing more than a grim allegory for real life. For example, the way that the Lilliputians are viewed in society is by how good they are at rope dancing. Those who are good rope dancers are given higher positions in government and are viewed as more valuable members of society. This is clearly a metaphor for sports and other meaningless talents in the real world. While sports might've not been Swift's intended similarity at the time, it works perfectly for the analogy in modern times. In our society, we too often view people based on how well they can throw a ball or how fast they can run. While these are fun skills to focus on as a hobby, they too often determine an individual's entire public perception. When people see somebody who is talented at a given sport, they are more likely to trust them and respect them, thus granting them a more favorable position in our social hierarchy. However, this position is not exactly earned. Unfortunately, people with skills that are determined as valuable in our world that don't really mean much are able to cut the line socially and be perceived as important and trustworthy even though how well they can throw a ball doesn't translate into how capable, intelligent, or how good of a leader they are. Rope dancing is the most important skill to have in Lilliput. If you can't rope dance well, then you're out of luck and need to find some other position in the world. Swift is trying to tell us that although rope dancing can be a cool skill, society shouldn't be run by good rope dancers.