This defines my views completely.

I will submit that I am not a knee jerk cut and paster. When I post a 'serious' thread I have thought it out and weighed the options of not posting it. Please take this into account and turn down your flamethrowers. I simply ask you to read this and intelligently discuss. Warning, it is a long read. /disclaimer


ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS

By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D., author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?
-- William J. Bennett in a lecture to the US Naval Academy November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:

"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true.

Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another.

Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation:

We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.

For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens?

What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.


Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel?

Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.

There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population.

There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. -- Edmund Burke

Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you.

If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.

I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die.
That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.

Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.

Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy.

Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.

Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."

Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.

And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes.

If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime.

Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...

"Baa."

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other.

Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made so and kept so by the exertions of men better than himself. -- John Stuart Mill

You want intelligent debate about that?

Hrrmph. To paraphrase Ebeneezer Scrooge: " Baa Humbug"

Wow, thanks yes I actually did.

Well OK then. Sheep burying their heads in the sand is an atrocious mixed metaphor.

Such quality of English pretty much matches the quality of argument. It sounds like a sermon. A bad one.

I'll go back to my grass munching now thanks.

Lecktor,

The article is excellent, and for the most part I agree with it. The one part I have a problem with is that it takes time to call out the concept of feeling that there is never a justification for war, while also not acknowledging the opposite extreme that we are currently living with - that the end always justifies the means. I find that the pretense of patriotism and protecting the sheep (America) while it simply being about a power grab is far more dangerous than apathy.

Furthermore, there are many who believe that war is necessary, just that this particular one is not. Where does that fit into this wonderful analogy of sheeps, dogs and wolves?

I dunno. To paraphrase a thought from Terry Pratchett's Small Gods... "sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. Goats are intelligent, and have to be led."

It's accurate enough as an anecdotal observation on how people are, but I don't believe it's desirable or necessarily inherent.

I couldn't read all that. I'll try again when I can concentrate better.

I don't, however, agree with the opening statement that people are sheep and are almost incapable of hurting one another. It is more that people are held back by fear of punishment and retribution. Additionally, people hurt one another subtly every day so they are not the gentle, productive creatures they are purported to be in the article. People are mean and manipulative even if it is not reflected in violent crime statistics. They often work their magic through other means.

Not having read the whole article, I don't really have anything to say. I just like the sound my typing makes. Isn't it soothing?

and this defines my views completely:

What Gabe and Christiano say is true. The analogy, while eloquent, and apt - to a point - oversimplifies.

"Wolves", I would argue, are to some extent productions of our culture. In other words, it's not true that there are always the same number of "wolves", but I'm not enough of an idealist to think they would ever entirely disappear.

Also, as Christiano said, this analogy, if used as a criticism of people who think the "War on Terror" is unnecesary, seems... incomplete perhaps? Not completely applicable. Yes, there are those who think war is never justified. I'm not entirely sure I disagree with them, but I don't think war will disappear anytime soon.

The analogy of sheep is flawed in various ways:
-it sounds demeaning
-it's inaccurate, as Gabe pointed out. Humans are, after all, predatory animals.
But to say that the majority of humans are wolves would be inaccurate as well. Perhaps some sort of scavenger? But then, the whole analogy falls apart.

That's well written, and interesting. One the one hand I can respect that point of view. On the other I think it's a dangerous oversimplification. It attempts to justify itself by painting the world in black and white and its inhabitants as one dimensional beings. Who says the hero's path isn't the one of non-violence? And who says non-violence is the result of denial? It takes courage to live in a world that's still barbaric in so many ways, that's full of so many people you wish were just like you, and to truly live and let live. That doesn't mean being a doormat or a victim. It means standing firm to a principle until you have absolutely no choice left but to use violence to protect your own life, or to lay it down in the name of that principle.

I found it interesting that he used statistics to back up his argument because they don't really favor it. The attack on the WTC is what started this current wave of war and aggression, but if you look at the actual number of people who've been killed by terrorism in the last fifty years and compare it to the number killed by the common cold, or aspirin, or bathtubs, terrorism will most likely be last in the list. The war on terrorism is being justified with worst case scenarios... what if they get a nuke? We should be worried about that, but not as worried as we are.

That we rolled over the Hussein regime so easily and found that Iraq was in no way an imminent threat, and discovered that the Iraqis care more about their pride and dignity than our proffered brand of freedom... shouldn't that tell us that we were worried about the wrong thing? The real problem isn't terrorists, or nukes, or a tin pot dictator. The problem is that we don't know how to live and let live. We can't turn the rest of the world into a mirror of ourselves and we have to get over our nationalistic pride that blinds us to the fact that most of the rest of the world doesn't want to be our reflection.

Peace will never come from the barrel of a gun. We may protect ourselves in the short term. We may violently force some places to climb up out of the stone age. We may keep ourselves from being attacked. We're lucky there are warriors willing to be bent to those purposes... but long term peace depends more on those that would rather lay down arms than pick them up. Ideology may be worth dying for, but it's seldom worth killing for.

While it is in fact, an interesting read - it has a serious flaw.

1) It presumes evil within mankind. I agree with this.

2) It presumes that some people consider themselves 'protectors'. Again I agree.

3) It utterly ignores the possibility that 1) and 2) may overlap.


It is not the overtly evil that I fear. Usually they satisfy themselves, and that's good enough - the scope of damage is thus limited.

It is those that believe that they are 'saving' all of the rest of us - with such surety that they feel the deaths of *other* people's sons in the name of their particular cause is justified. Rarely are they correct.

Not sure I agree with this.

In the scope of the global conflict of WWII, actually - it is arguable that peace *did* come from the barrel of a gun.

Imperialism and Fascism rely upon expansion - had nobody fought back, there would have been little to stop further violent expansion going far beyond Europe and the East Asia Coprosperity Sphere.

Instead, we had decades of smaller brushfire wars. It is hard to predict what would have happened, but WWII is well known as an honourable war for good reason.

I couldn't read the parent post. Someone let me know, is it more pro-war military sentimentalism glued together with flawed logic and half truths?

~Ulrika~

Thank almost all of you for your responses. I am mulling over almost all of them and will respond in kind tomorrow.

Did someone say something hysterical ? I thought I heard something but I'm not sure.

p.s. Women should cook.

Thanks Siggy. I'm not sure how to take this just now.

While the analogy was good, it was simplified. But I have to agree with it. No one wants to think bad things about the guy next to him. We all go around thinking nothing bad will happen to us. Till it does. THEN you find out which one you are- sheep or sheepdog.

I agree with what you wrote. It isn't mutually exclusive from the point I was making. Hitler was trying to remake the world in his image. He wanted to create the master race and his tool was facism and war. Pacifism woudln't have ended that. But I think the question we have to ask ourselves is this... how much of our ideals of spreading freedom and democracy is born from the same kind of arrogance? If much of the world doesn't want us to "save" them, but we force our way ahead in trying to remake the world in our image, how much of that is truly about the ideals and how much is based on a kind of nationalitic religion? Have we not been taught in many ways to see ourselves as the master race? The shining city on a hill?

We've let our country become more like a company town than a nation of truly free people, with everything sold to us from the company store and the company press. I believe we're straying far from the real ideals we were meant to represent, yet we don't seem to notice. I think that's because our notions of freedom and democracy have become a relgious mantra very much divorced from the original meanings. As long as we keep repeating the mantra we can sustain the apathy that keeps us from looking at where we're really going and what we're really doing.

"This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other."

I find this passage particularly interesting.

What the author's analogy seems to overlook is that even amongst "warriors," moral (or ethical, if you prefer) absolutes are rare. "Bad guys," "sociopaths," "criminals of pure evil intent" are not as common as is allowed--were this the case, Andrea Yeats (the woman who drowned her four children in a bathtub) would be . . .?

Human behavior amongst "wolves," "sheepdogs," and "sheep" is complex and often inscrutable.

Not all "sheepdogs" are good or act soundly from an impulse for good--"warriors" make mistakes. In addition, many "sheepdogs," public servants, forget the "serve" component of "to protect and to serve." And all sheepdogs are hired by (in the case of elected officals--who, by default, fall into the "sheepdog" category) and paid for by the sheep.

With all due respect for you, Lecktor, and for those who put their lives in peril on a daily basis, it is essential that we recognize the efforts of and the importance of the "sheepdogs."

However, as the Stanford Prison Experiment showed, there is a fine, fine line (finer than your author seems willing to admit) between "sheep," "sheepdog," and "wolf."

http://www.prisonexp.org/

Ooh. Does it also involve a narration from an individual (probably male) either active or retired in the military?

~Ulrika~

yup

Great post!

Thank you Roo. I'll ponder further and post retort tomorrow. I would serve no worthy debate tonight.

Go ahead and tell Ulrika she can stop as no one is laughing anymore that I can see.

To all that have commented seriously I appreciate your views and will present proper and respectful response. Good night for now.

Always assume that I'm laughing and use it as justification for your actions.

TY for that thought provoking post. It's not really about whether it's right or wrong, or if you agree or disagree with all or part of it. It's that it makes you think about who you are, and who the people around you are, and how you can change yourself to make this world a better place. But that's just my opinion.