Of Sheep and Wolves

I keep seeing this Sheep, Wolf, Sheepdog meme bandied about, and I don't like it. I developed this theory independently back when I was about 15. About the time I hit 21 or so I discarded it. It's too simplistic, and demonstrates a juvenile view of both social dynamics and biology.

People are not sheep. People ofttimes display sheep-like qualities for one simple reason. We (as a people) have been lied to. We have been told that it is OK if you fail, so long as you try. We have been told that life should be fair. We have been told that the world owes you a living. We have been told that "If you follow your dream you too can become an astronaut and the president of the United States." People behave like sheep, because we do not require them to behave as adults.

Criminals are not wolves. Wolves are social pack animals that rarely inflict harm on each other and hunt only for survival. Criminals hunt out of desire. They kill each other as readily as they kill the civilians they hide amongst. Again, criminals are often the way they are because at one point in their development no one required better of them than robbery, rape and murder. Some can be rehabilitated, most can only be put down like mad dogs.

I am not a sheepdog. A sheepdog is a creature that herds the sheep in accordance to the will of the shepherd. What is most likely meant when referencing a "sheepdog" is a Livestock Guardian Dog. And even they obey the will of the shepherd. And don't give me that "society is the shepherd" crap. The sheep exist to sustain the shepherd. He is no less a predator than the wolves, he just hides it better. the closest you'll find to the sheepdog analogy are LEO's and the military. Cops that do a piss-poor job of guarding the "sheep"; fairly dandy at finding out who killed Gilbert Lamb, but that's not defense, is it? The military does a bang-up job of defending the "sheep" but a military is really meant to savage the other shepherd's sheep until he agrees to quit letting his sheep eat our flock's clover.

So what are we left with? People that act like sheep, unless you demand more of them.
People that act like rabid dogs unless you demand more of them and kill the ones that cannot or will not.
People that are set apart from us because they serve the one that keeps us around to provide him with a living.

And then there's me, and those like me. We are not sheep, we are not wolves or dogs, rabid or otherwise. We obey no master save ourselves and we urge those around us to do the same. We require that we rise to the challenge of adulthood. We require of ourselves that we act as the guardians of ourselves and our kith and kin.