Captain James Cook

I heard a story that apparently was true on the radio the other day concerning the explorer Captain Cook, and I wanted to write it down. 

"Capt. James Cook had a problem with his men. They kept getting scurvy. Having invested so much money into his voyages, obviously seeing his crew getting sick was not something he wanted. It was brought to his attention that German sailors however didn't get scurvy. The reason he put this down to was, that German sailors took barrels of sauerkraut on board with them when they went to sea. So Capt. Cook bought some barrels of sauerkraut himself and placed them on board his ship. Given that it is rather an acquired taste he knew that his sailors wouldn't touch the stuff, so the question is, how did he get them to eat it?" 

"It was quite ingenious. What he did was, he instructed that the words, 'For officers only,' be written on each of the barrels. Why did he do this? As soon as his sailors saw the signs, they naturally would feel they were being robbed of something. So in the middle of the night, the men crept down to where the barrels were being kept, and helped themselves. "If it's good enough for the officers,' they thought, 'it's good enough for us." The plan worked. The scurvy stopped, and Cook no doubt sat in his cabin laughing at just how clever he was." 

The only reason Capt.Cook's plan worked was he knew that his men would immediately feel a deep sense of injustice, as soon as they saw those barrels. He knew human nature. The fact that to most English people sauerkraut probably tastes disgusting-well, that didn't matter. It was the principle. Once the men had been deluded into thinking they were being cheated, he knew they would eat it, whatever it tasted like. 

We're all surrounded by injustice and we each experience that injustice every day of our lives. For most of us, the way we react to that injustice is just as predictable as the sailors course of action.