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...
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, cannot and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog 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...
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. ~ LtCol Dave Grossman
This is an amazing analogy. Thank you for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteI thought it appropriate for the "real" Memorial Day.
ReplyDeleteSam, I accidentally deleted your comment (sorry).
What's always interested me is the capacity for sheep to become sheepdogs in times of crisis. WWII saw millions of farm boys taken off the land in several countries and turned into soldiers of a sort in a very short period. Once peace was restored, most were happy to return to their former placid lives.
ReplyDeleteThose who enlist and serve between wars are the sheepdogs. Perhaps the others are as small birds who flock together to protect their nests and themselves from a predator?