Large Fierce Mammal

Once Wendell Phillips and a young friend were sitting by the fire. It was a memorable evening. Recollections had flushed the cheeks of the veteran campaigner. Memories of former heroic days had loosened his tongue. He had completely lost himself in the thrilling recital of the past. The young visitor sat enthralled. At last, when he recognized that the evening was far gone, he rose with a start. “Mr. Phillips,” he exclaimed, as he grasped the older man’s hand, “if I had lived in your time, I think I would have been heroic too!” The veteran, who had accompanied his young visitor to the door, was noticeably aroused. As he pointed down the street, he drew the attention of his companion to flaunting indications of audacious vice. His voice was tremulous with indignation as he exclaimed: “Young man, you are living in my time, and in God’s time! Be sure of this: No man could have been heroic then who is not heroic now.” ~ There is Always a Time for Heroism, by GR Jordan (From The Emerging Revival, 1946)

There’s an old joke about a Boy Scout who, one bright Saturday morning, puts on his uniform and declares to his Mother that he’s off to do good deeds all day long. When he returns a few hours later, with a black eye and looking like he just escaped from a dude ranch by being dragged through a hedge backwards, his Mother asks him what happened.

He says, “I helped an old lady across the street.”

“But what happened to you?” his Mother asks.

“She didn’t want to go.”

I remember this tale every time I hear anyone claiming to be, or implying that they are, a “sheepdog”.

For there to be any need for sheepdogs, then there needs must be sheep. A mass of harmless, helpless dullards needful of being directed, protected, shorn of their useful wooly coats, or harvested for their meaty goodness by those who hold stewardship over them. Not unlike the way governments see the citizens of the nations they’ve been elected to “serve”, although that is a related topic deserving of its own specific treatment on another day.

If you’ve read the first installment of this article, you’ll know I’m not talking about the denizens of farm yard and pasture; nor of actual Dogs or Sheep. What I speak of is a silly and harmful affectation that afflicts human society. Within the context of human society then, my position is that assumption of the ostentatiously self granted title of “sheepdog”, by those who ever so nobly don its mantle, is at the center of a superfluous and misguided view defining patterns of behaviour that place the sheepdog in a position of superiority over all others on whom the chosen have bestowed the title of “sheep”.

I mentioned a well known historical precedent for this last time – the common use among Christian clergy of the term “flock” in reference to the congregation of whatever church they serve. The actual quadruped called Sheep is widely held to be a dull witted herd animal that is easily prone to panic flight, and more than capable of racing to oblivion – over a cliff for example – simply because the animal it was following happened to be running that way. In the clerical reference, the term implies a group of people needful of continuous – indeed perpetual – guidance and oversight. People who will never be capable of making a sound spiritual or moral decision that isn’t needful of validation by their betters. Their overseers. Their sheepdogs.

I personally espouse and teach what I hold to be the necessity of being as self-sufficient and savvy as one can possibly be in seeing to the welfare of you and yours. I believe in community and lending a hand in defense of those who can’t help themselves, and in knowing how to recognize evil under all its masks; but none of this make me responsible for, nor entitled to force my personal philosophy on, anyone else. I take responsibility for my own actions, and the outcome thereof, and I expect all others to do the same. Weakness, sickness, age, infirmity, or a present shortage of real world education or training do not represent Human conditions deserving of the endowment of sheephood. However, willful ignorance, in hope that whatever ails you will be cured one day when “THEY” find a solution, certainly, to my mind, is characteristic of another term I do enjoy – that being “sheeple“.

Sheeple make up the throng of people who prefer to be led, and then complain mightily at the local Tim Hortons when the leadership falls short of expectations. For those who’ve never heard of it, Tim Hortons is a Canadian cultural icon in the form of a chain of coffee and doughnut shops in which, on any given day, all the problems of the world are being solved on an ongoing, albeit ineffective, basis by a herd of sheeple. They’ll slurp their overly acidic coffee, chew on their cruller, and either pontificate mightily, or nod sagely as others do. After that, well, as quick as a flash, fuck all happens. As I like to say, everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

So then, the sheeple will complain, but that’s all they’ll do, and in the end they won’t change a thing because they’d rather be comfortable, like things to remain  predictably static, and prefer to be led instead of stepping up to lead. Unhappy changes inflicted on them can be effectively introduced by first scaring – even outraging – them with an announcement of impending doom, then facing them with the new reality, but toned down to a level far less than expected. This can be counted on to invoke relief that the effects were “only” slight. Give it enough time for the situation to be accepted as the new “normal”, and then ratchet up the change incrementally. If they notice, tell them it’s temporary, and for the good of all. Short term pain for long term gain; like the introduction of income tax, just until the war is won. If you really need to bamboozle them, slip them the fast one while they’re distracted with a well timed scandal, tragedy, or reality show outrage. It works every time.

So sheeple do exist, in multitudes, and without them, retail and politics as we know them could not, nor prosper as they do. The sheepdog mentality though – now that’s a dangerous oversimplification if ever there was one. You see, for that to work, everyone in society has to fit neatly into one of three categories:

• sheep;
• wolves; or
• sheepdogs.

To clarify, let me quote an article posted a while back by The Killology Research Group, and that I regularly see distributed by the self-appointed sheepdogs of the land:

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.” Or, as a sign in one California law enforcement agency put it, “We intimidate those who intimidate others.”

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? Then you are 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.

There will be some who can embrace every word of that excerpt without argument or qualm, but for me, the last paragraph epitomizes all that is wrong with this mindset – that the definition of a “healthy productive citizen” is one who has absolutely no capacity to do violence. We must then take the leap from zero to a, “… capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens …” defining, “… an aggressive sociopath – a wolf,” before arriving at society’s noble saviours. Those endowed with, “… a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens ….” – the sheepdogs.

In its simplistic use of the words sheep, wolf, and sheepdog, an important player gets forgotten – the shepherd. That one who holds mastery over both sheep and sheepdog, and in whose interests the sheepdog risks life and limb keeping the wolf at bay. The sheepdog does none of this out of love for the sheep, and sheds not a tear at the prospect of cutting bleating members from the herd at his Master’s command, so that they may be shorn or their lambs slaughtered.

The domestic Sheep is not a creature of the Wild, but rather a creation of Man. Bred to be biddable and defenseless, it needs the Shepherd’s Dog to provide it with direction and safety, all at the behest of the Shepherd. Wild species of Sheep are another matter, for they are imbued by Nature with the ability to fend for themselves, and in this lies a similarity with the division in the education of children – the tug of war between the Natural necessity of teaching them how to think, and societal pressure toward supplanting this with teaching them what to think. Much treasure is expended in the battleground that is the minds of our offspring, predominantly by those who have a vested interest in their conversion into sheep. In his noble quest to claim heroic status among his peers – the other sheepdogs – can easily miss that as a product of the same society, his shepherds see him as little more than a sheep with teeth and claws. Certainly not a Warrior as I know the meaning of the word, for such as they pursue a Path convergent with the True Nature of Man instead of a meagre simulacrum.

In the end, being a Hero isn’t something you give to yourself,  nor does it come as part of a career choice, job description, certificate, or diploma, and real Heroes aren’t generally inclined to crow about it from every dung heap. The Soldier, the Cop, the Fire Fighter – each one of these wants nothing more than to come out of today’s shift alive, and while in it, to support his or her peers, and to never be found wanting in their sight. This is essential to getting the job done, and if along the way deeds of heroism also get done, it was because those who found it necessary to do them weren’t found wanting by anyone. To restate my own words, originally published here on Remembrance Day, 2010, “There are times and situations in history that few of us can even imagine, and those times raise the bar on who gets to wear the “Hero” badge. Some of those we recognize today are Heroes. That having been said, the fact that countless others simply did their duty without ever once meeting that moment of truth demanding of heroism doesn’t make their actions any less worthy of celebration, commendation, and the sincerest of thanks for doing everything they did.”

The job exists because it’s necessary to society, but it only works when those who do it wear the most important badge of all – the one that proclaims them as Human, with all the nobility that animal is heir to. The willingness to step in harm’s way between danger and something you hold dear is an aspect of character we all need to find within ourselves to whatever degree it may be found to exist, and for this to occur necessitates living for things that are truly worth dying for. Learning the skills to win the day and cultivating them in mind, body, and spirit throughout our lives against the day when they may need to be called upon to successfully argue a point in the full realm of human interaction running the spectrum from making a successful sales pitch to knowing when and how to make your point with an axe blow to the head.