Conventional wisdom, adages, proverbs — there’s not a lot of difference in amongst the lot of them. Wisdom becomes known as wise because of the myriad confirmations of the people who experience it for themselves. — Adages are a bit of wisdom that has settled in to a society. An adage becomes a proverb when people in that society use them to try and teach, or to slip you a little unwanted advice.
Today’s proverb is actually more of an adage, but its wisdom is a bit of hard-won truth from the people of Rwanda that I think we can all acknowledge. It was collected years ago by an NPR reporter who was trying to run down the provenance of Hilary Clinton’s “It takes a village to raise a child.” (I do love people’s tendency to say things are “African proverbs.” People in politics throw them out all the time… and I really wish they would not.) Anyway, unlike that proverb, this one has a real language, country AND continent where it’s familiar, and it was recorded by Timothy Longman, who was at the time the director of the African Studies Center at Boston University:
“The dancers have changed, but the drums are the same.”
beware the drummer
Don’t shimmy a do-si-do dance
While the band plays you songs of romance.
Enthralled you’ll become
By sweet words overcome
And off with the drummer you’ll prance…!
Never trust the drummer. They make a song sound amazing, but if you listen, the rhythm never changes…