DG's Journal: Attitude Towards Civillians

Answering a question posed by Ethelred:

There's a wonderful analogy used by Col Dave Grossman in "On Combat" that I really think captures it well. It might seem a little trite, even twee, but we're talking about archetypes here and it's hard to maintain one's sense of cool irony in such cases.

There are three basic types of people:

Most people, by far the largest proportion, are "sheep". Not "sheep" in the "sheeple" sense (stupid, ignorant, easily led by their intellectual superiors) but "sheep" in the sense of "utterly incapable of causing harm to each other except by accident and misadventure" (and to be meta for a second, in the sense of "making the rest of the analogy work")

By far the majority of humanity will go through their lives without ever inflicting any act of interpersonal violence on any other human being - or being victim of same. Most of the violence they ever witness will be false, stylized violence in the form of a TV show, movie, video game, or sporting event. When a person fromthis category encounters REAL, no-foolin', somebody got hurt violence, it is deeply traumatic and upsetting, because it is completely outside their experience.

Most of humanity is intrinsically good, gentle, kind, and HARMLESS. They may bitch, whine, and complain; they may be mean, spiteful, unfeeling, and cold, but these are mental and emotional charasteristics, not physical. When it comes right down to it, most people don't every really hurt one another. Think of two bighorn sheep butting heads and battering each other - yes, they are fighting, but it's all sound and fury and neither one ever gets hurt.

Then there are wolves. Wolves prey on sheep, and they do so without mercy. Wolves cannot be swayed with appeals to decency or humanity. Wolves kill sheep. Wolves torture sheep. Wolves view sheep as playthings, subhuman, and ultimately, irrelevant - except as food.

Wolves are, thankfully, rare. But they are dangerous well out of proportion to their numbers because sheep don't do violence and so can't mount any sort of effective defence.

Finally, there are sheepdogs. Sheepdogs fight wolves to protect sheep.

Here's an unpleasent reality - the sheep don't much like the sheepdogs. From a distance, a wolf and a sheepdog look much alike, and it can be hard sometimes to tell the difference between them. And like the wolf, the sheepdog works in violence (and some like it!) and violence is baaaad, m'kay? The sheep would much rather all that nasty messy violence stuff go away.

Until the wolves show up - then, the sheep all line up behind the nearest sheepdog.

Col. Grossman is not the first person to make this observation: http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Tommy.htm

I'm a sheepdog. I don't know if I'm a very good one..... but in my heart of hearts, I'm a sheepdog. I've been denying it for some time; I tried really hard to grow soft and fuzzy and eat grass and go "baaaaaa"..... but my sheepdog nature kept rebelling and resurfacing, and I can't fight it any longer. Certainly I'm much happier as a sheepdog.

Civillian life.... the corporate world is utterly lacking in discipline, honour, integrity, loyalty, and courage. I have a very hard time understanding why it is I or anybody else should burn our lives away slaving 8-5 so that somebody else can get stinking rich, and they can turn on you on a heartbeat and kick you out the door... but that's the kind of society all y'all have built. My job is to try and make sure you have the freedom to do it, by keeping the wolves away.

I honestly can't say that I've accomplished much in that direction. I honestly can't say that I have stopped or deterred so much as a single wolf, which I suppose makes me a pretty shitty sheepdog. But I intend to keep trying, and maybe someday I'll get my chance.

DG

Some

[Philip K Dickhead]

are Bodhisattiva.

Bah roar

[FidelCatsro]

You can only chase of wolves if there are wolves around. So I wouldn't feel too bad
Which brings up a funny analogy about certain politicians and Boys who cry wolf

Stretching the analogy

[Ra5pu7in]

... but that's the kind of society all y'all have built.

This society isn't something the sheep built. It is something they have become resigned to from long experience - particularly in what happens if you try to change things. Consider when sheep have sheepdogs around; it's not a natural condition. Sheepdogs are part of a "domesticated" flock kept by a shepherd. The shepherd - that's the guy who puts a fence around the flock (declares national borders, perhaps) and protects them from outside dangers (t

Please don't stretch the analogy

[DG]

The one real flaw that Col Grossman's analogy has is that the term "sheep" is somewhat metaphorically overloaded, and people seem to naturally want to extend the metaphor to include things like politics and society - at which point, the metaphor breaks down.

No shepherds in my metaphor, thanks. Sheep, wolves, sheepdogs, that's it.

Once you start trying to extend it, you start introducing things that just aren't true - introduce a shepherd, and like you say, the sheepdog becomes somebody who not only protects

question

[sparky4]

I read that analogy in one of his books and asked " why is the wolf always portrayed as such a mean bastard " ? I mean, damn, cats tend to be anti-social creatures, loners, and play with their food before eating it. I like wolves and dislike their name being tossed about to describe the darker side of human nature. Predatory, retiring, or in between, so many adjectives that can be used. How humans treat one another is disntinctly human in nature and should be described as such. Yea, my animal lover / tre

I like it.

[Tsunayoshi]

I like the analogies. With anything where you try to draw clear cut lines you will always get crossovers or those that don't fit the mold entirely, but I agree with the whole post for the most part.

A while ago I was asked a question by my wife's family (all sheep, definitely) something along the lines of at what point would I ever threaten someone with my weapon. Background, I was US Marine Corps at the time overseas with the State Deparment at US Embassies doing security. I basically explained to them t