Thought for the Weekend - The False Butterflies

Like Fabre’s old experiment with processionary caterpillars marching in circles around a flowerpot — nose-to-tail, endlessly, until they collapse from exhaustion — our corporate and societal systems often feel the same. Motion without direction. Consumption without renewal. Glitter without substance.

This morning, while scrolling through Sunday posts and reading the news about another processionary caterpillar species making its way north, the parallel became impossible to ignore.

The caterpillars march blindly, stripping their environment bare, leaving irritation and rashes in their wake. And above them, dazzling butterflies flutter — beautiful on the surface, hollow inside. In nature, butterflies pollinate, connect, and spread life. But in our Societal and also Corporate Zoo, these butterflies are impostors. They are the elites of the neoliberal system: shimmering symbols of “success,” floating gracefully above the colony, but feeding not on nectar. Instead, they siphon capital, public wealth, and trust.

Their elegance is deception. We are trained to admire them: the shareholder calls performed like liturgies, the Davos panels choreographed as pilgrimages, the glossy ESG reports masquerading as evidence of care. Their wings shimmer with words like purpose, innovation, sustainability. But the substance is thin. These rituals are not signs of transformation, but of control. Below, the processionary humans keep marching — consuming, working, conforming — while the False Butterflies flutter off with the gains.

The contrast with real pollinators could not be sharper. True pollinators — teachers, carers, community builders, repairers, farmers restoring soil — regenerate the ecosystem with every act. They do not glitter, they are rarely celebrated, and they are consistently undervalued. Yet without them, nothing truly flourishes. Meanwhile, the False Butterflies thrive precisely because the Zoo was built for them: regulation softened, politics captured, education streamlined to produce obedient larvae. They survive not by giving back, but by keeping the colony in motion.

The lesson from the caterpillars is painfully clear. We march because those above us insist on “growth,” “innovation,” “progress.” But the direction isn’t chosen by us — it’s dictated by the shimmer of wings we mistake for beauty. As long as we confuse appearance with substance, the procession will never stop.

Real metamorphosis will not come from admiring hollow wings. It will come from valuing and protecting those who actually pollinate life — those who give back more than they take, who regenerate instead of extract, who connect instead of defoliate. The future belongs not to the False Butterflies of the neoliberal greed and creed, but to the quiet, underestimated pollinators who hold everything together.