saw off the branch one is sitting on

saw off the branch one is sitting on (third-person singular simple present saws off the branch one is sitting on, present participle sawing off the branch one is sitting on, simple past sawed off the branch one was sitting on, past participle sawed off the branch one was sitting on or sawn off the branch one was sitting on)

1. To pursue a course of action that will lead to self-destruction.
   • 2006, Frederick Crews, Postmodern Pooh, page 11:

     A critic's role, he wrote, is that of “sawing off the branch on which one is sitting”: One can and may continue to sit on a branch while sawing it. There is no physical or moral obstacle if one is willing to risk the consequences.

   • 2012, U. Duchrow, F. Hinkelammert, Transcending Greedy Money:

     Since the theory of action must necessarily start with the actors, then the actors who saw off the branch on which they sit cannot give their action any meaning.

   • 2016, Justin Buckley Dyer, Micah J. Watson, C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law, page 24:

     If we insist that all thoughts are simply chemical or physical phenomena, and conclude that reason is therefore unlikely to yield true beliefs, we will saw off the branch of the tree we are sitting on.

   • 2016, Ellen Landreth, My Little Visits With God Corrected, page 131:

     BUT, if you persist in your slanders against God's Holy Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives, sawing off the branch on which you are sitting, severing by your own perversity all connection with the One who forgives.

   • 2020, Sarah Bennett, Dave Bamford, Susanne Becken, 100% Pure Future: New Zealand Tourism Renewed, page 29:

     The model is wrong. Papatūānuku is the basis of real wealth. Her wellbeing should not be the cost of accumulating wealth. We are literally sawing off the branch we sit on.

• bite the hand that feeds one
• dig a hole for oneself
• dig one's own grave
• like turkeys voting for Christmas
• shoot oneself in the foot