"The View from the Flock"

I was first informed that I was a sheep by one of my very favorite people--a retired U.S. military officer of considerable rank.  I truly love this man.  I admire him both personally and professionally and enjoy, beyond measure, his wisdom and humane advice.  So, when he introduced me to the philosophy that there are but three types of people in the world; wolves, sheepdogs and sheep [ an idea popularized by Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Dave Grossman], I was.... well... nonplussed.  I respectfully pointed out that to be described as a sheep was rather condescending.  He replied "Not at all!  Our society needs sheep!"  Being excellent friends with this good-hearted fellow, I decided to defer my more vigorous counter-arguments to a time better suited to my purpose (which, at the time, was truly unknown to me for how could I have anticipated such a label?) 

Well, this original exchange occurred approximately three years ago on a worksite where I was one of the lone civilian professional technical senior staff members.  And although I took a few weak stabs at my friend's position, I really had no idea how to present a composed retort.  In his presentation, indeed, I fell into the category of "sheep" --despite my denials.

Years have passed since I first learned of my sheepiness and it still rankles, but for the most part I had put it out of my mind.  That is, until about three months ago when it reared its head in a series of very ugly Facebook exchanges prompted in the aftermath of the tragic deaths at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  But before I try to summarize my thoughts on these exchanges, first let me introduce you to the man who popularized the "Wolf, Sheepdog, Sheep" model and how it has come to be embraced by so many and unknown to so many more...

The following is an excerpt from LTC Grossman's website http://www.killology.com/bio.htm

"Biography: Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman

LT. COL. DAVE GROSSMAN, U.S. Army (Ret.) Director, Warrior Science Group, www.killology.com: Member, American Board for Certification in Homeland Security; Member, American College of Forensic Examiners Institute

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is an internationally recognized scholar, author, soldier, and speaker who is one of the world's foremost experts in the field of human aggression and the roots of violence and violent crime.

Col. Grossman is a former West Point psychology professor, Professor of Military Science, and an Army Ranger who has combined his experiences to become the founder of a new field of scientific endeavor, which has been termed “killology.” In this new field Col. Grossman has made revolutionary new contributions to our understanding of killing in war, the psychological costs of war, the root causes of the current "virus" of violent crime that is raging around the world, and the process of healing the victims of violence, in war and peace.  He is the author of On Killing, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

Col. Grossman is an Airborne Ranger infantry officer, and a prior-service sergeant and paratrooper, with a total of over 23 years experience in leading U.S. soldiers worldwide. He retired from the Army in February 1998 and has devoted himself to teaching, writing, speaking, and research. Today he is the director of the Killology Research Group, and in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks he is on the road almost 300 days a year, training elite military and law enforcement organizations worldwide about the reality of combat."

[I do not own, claim ownership, or derive any monetary or other benefit from citing this section of LTC Grossman's website and include it here in order to recognize his extensive and admirable resume.  Please visit http://www.killology.com/bio.htm for the complete bio  he offers there.]

Now, in his well cited book:

Grossman, D., On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, Little, Brown and Co, 1995 (hardback), 1996 (paperback, in 18th printing as of 2008). Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, 1995. (Published in German, Japanese, and Korean;On the USMC Commandant's required reading list.)

and in more detail in an article for the online magazine "The Daily Caller" at http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/29/on-sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs/

LTC Grossman expands on the idea of Wolves, Sheep, and Sheepdogs":

Article Title: "On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheep Dogs"

Article Author: LTC(Ret.) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D., author of “On Killing.”

[Excerpted here for brevity: For the full text, please see http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/29/on-sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs/. Again, I do not own, claim ownership, or derive any monetary or other benefit from citing and/or excerpting this section of "The Daily Caller" website and include it here in order to provide the most accurate definition of the model.]

"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.......

....... 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 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. 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......"

~~~~~~~~

Ok, so now you know what my friend meant when he said I was a sheep.  Does this explanation satisfy emotionally or factually?  It is a question worth asking because most likely you, dear reader, are a sheep too.... according to this model anyway.  So, to make one more commentary that I have been told but have not been able to confirm, "the lesson of the three types" is an integral part of LTC Grossman's educational programs and lecture series, primarily aimed at military and police forces, i.e. the Sheepdogs, or at least the governmentally sanctioned part of them... (See http://www.killology.com for a listing of his speaking and educational offerings).  Funny though, that for the most part, those people who I have discussed this with and who recognized the philosophy were in fact all military, military retired, police or police retired.  The sheep amongst us appear to be wholly unaware of the categorization.  Perhaps we cannot read... or.... may there be another reason? Are we in denial?  Is this model functional and/or constructive? Well, I surely didn't know any details until I faced my first Sheepdog... and it was in that confrontation that I began to sense a most distasteful inkling... that the Sheepdogs might be maintaining a barely disguised contempt for us sheep.  The words from LTC Grossman's own writing wherein he states "the sheepdog must not, can not 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" apparently only extends to bodily harm.  In my personal experience of late, there are precious few other restrictions applied.  To be fair, the ex-officers I encountered first appeared to honestly have no idea that a sheep might have more than a modicum of consciousness or have any capacity for self-determination.  The discussion was horrific and when I objected to being reminded that I was a sheep and they were sheepdogs and retorted against what I believed were under-valuing characterizations, my ideas were identified as "irrelevant", "thin-skinned", self indulgent and, in so many words, cowardly.  I exited that conversation completely devalued, most certainly harmed, and terribly confused.  And I was furious--completely enraged.  

My first response was to swear.. quite loudly in fact.  My second response was to post on my own feed a more thoughtful retort... a short body of text where I could wield my swearing in a more dignified yet indignant fashion.  In fact, I'm surprised the Facebook Police didn't censor me, at least temporarily.  My third response was to pack up my toys and go home... so I set a date and time at which I would disable my Facebook account (at least temporarily) and posted my Facebook epitaph in advance, so as not to alarm my many friends there, but I didn't go into specific details about why I was leaving... at least initially.  In response, my friends deluged me with pleas to stay.  Again, to be fair, some of those supporting me were beloved, cherished sheepdogs... but most were sheep, like me.  Most of the pleas came as written entreaties but one was an 11th-hour personal and direct request.  By the time my intended Time-of-Facebook-Demise had arrived, I acquiesced and didn't pull my own plug.  I decided to get back up and get back in there... If sheep were capable of butterfly-like metamorphosis, I was emerging from a (rather short-lived) chrysalis.  But what does a sheep metamorphose into exactly?  To my eye, I still looked exactly like a sheep, if the model was to be hypothesized for later testing.  I wasn't a wolf, surely.  And I had no badge or epaulets...  Yup, still a sheep.

Being back in the ring now, there came a series of additional confrontations that continued to shake my resolve, but a germ of coherency was growing.  The conversations were almost conveniently consistent in form and content and I began to notice those detractions that niggled me the most and I began to form words and then partial sentences!  Good heavens, a talking sheep!  Who woulda thought!?

So, with my new found capacity for erudition, I set about to write a Facebook "Note".  After much thought on substance, construction, respectfulness, and tone, I composed my masterpiece and published it to my feed.  And..... exactly nothing happened.  Oh, there were a few comments of general support, but nothing longer than a sentence.  But then, a week later, I learned the hard way what it feels like to hurt someone unintentionally, someone very special. A very cherished friend took offense to one line of my note and I crumbled like a week-old cookie.  Yes, I make light of it for the moment... it still stings.  And again, I withdrew, but this time I gave no warning.  No wiggle room.  Just ... gone.

In my note, I had made a good faith effort to communicate why I objected to "The Three Type" model but I had failed.  Here is what I wrote (including what failed--see contents of curly brackets):

According to me: 

"We, as a society, have adopted many levels of defense that are (over the long term) ensured principally by committed volunteers.  Those volunteers provide civil and national defense plus humanitarian aid in situations where the loss of life is a distinct possibility, yet those champions persevere and deserve our lasting gratitude for which there can be no doubt.  In the service of their chosen contribution to society they learn a variety of methods to defend against our enemies, including the recognition that enemies do exist and in many forms.  We, the defended, are generally spared the constant exposure to physical and mental traumas seen by the defenders and again, we are indebted. We can not deny the daily peace these men and women provide us, even if we did not actively seek out their services.  They are mostly anonymous and their efforts often deep gifts of the heart.  They are our physical defenders; they watch, they listen, they intercede, they fight and they die: forever conditioned for unremitting vigilance.  For some, this burden leads to a life of nightmares while others carry the burden at a less damaging personal cost.  I have witnessed first hand the damage that can be wrought: damage to the warrior, damage  to the spouse, to the children... to the friends.  Again, the gift can not be overstated.

That being said, it would (at first glance) suggest that two things must also coexist with the defender; first there must be an enemy or a reasonable expectation of an enemy and secondly, there must be the defended.  The defenders are trained to detect and guard against enemies... {that is their job}, and for the vast history of human kind there have indeed been enemies.  Unfortunately and as much as I might wish it were otherwise, I doubt this is unlikely to change any time soon.  So, it seems quite reasonable that defenders are a requirement.  As such, they deserve the finest tools of the trade-tools of violence that we the defended are spared from much consideration, except as potential hobby activities or as a focus of our contempt. While we the defended may gripe amongst ourselves about the applications, rights, circumstances, etc surrounding these tools, it is doubtful that we would be sustained long in this world without them.  

This, rather conveniently, brings us to the second necessary coexisting player: the defended.  In my recent discussions with my detractors, I have been surprised and rather disappointed to discover how seemingly homogeneous a people the defended are perceived to be-- by all sides-- including 1) the enemies and predators, 2) that portion of the defenders who (perhaps rightly) feel disrespected, unsupported and justifiably bitter and 3) almost unbelievably, segments of the defended population who see other members of the defended as a homogeneous mass of "those other guys".  To be pointed about this, I refer to the self appointed civilian defenders who, for whatever reason, are not formal militia but affiliate themselves with the defenders anyway.  In my discussions with members of all of these groups excepting "the enemies", a common thread appears to bind their positions together.  Specifically, they hold tightly to the philosophy that physical acts of self defense against inevitable threat is a civil imperative, a responsibility that, if shirked, relegates a defended to the despised class of "coward". Worse, they may be characterized as social leeches, living the good life while the volunteers suffer in their defense.  In truth, I have heard one defender suggest that defenders are entitled to more voting rights than the defended because their service and exposure to hazard has earned the extra privilege.  And it is at this expressed perception (and in my opinion dereliction of duty) that I part philosophical company with those who have adopted this stance.  It seems that the argument stems from the premise that the defended are passive bystanders, void of conviction or character or the will to risk the self in defense of an ideal.  I hold that this is a wrong-headed idea entirely.  I put to you that it is quite plausible that a member of the defended class may, quite consciously, elect to risk bodily injury, torture or death before doing violence to another being, even if that being is a known enemy.  Our government recognizes the philosophy of the conscientious objector and while it may be a reprehensible position to some minds, it is not one indicative of a lack of courage or commitment to ideals.  If I tell you that I have enlisted in a branch of our county's military and serve valiantly, I am a hero.  However, if I die defending my constitutional right to pursue happiness as a non-violent individual, I apparently have allowed myself to be "victimized" and am a coward, perhaps a traitor to community.  I ask you to consider that one can be valorous in peace.  That one can be courageous in ridicule.  And one can be just as much a value to the ideal of a moral and civilized community as any physical defender.   

So, do not call me coward because I do not wield a gun or a knife or a sword.  Do not assume the mantle as my defender because you assume that I am weak.  Do not conclude that I fear death or that the fear of becoming a victim enslaves me to a life of never ending vigilance. Because I do not feel empowered in victory by superior fire power.  And if I die naive... if I die by surprise... if I die seeing it coming with my eyes open.... feeling it taking me... know that I knew it might come and went anyway.  Because I am willing to commit my body, my blood and my pain in an effort to treat others with a gentle hand.  It is not cowardice, it is as much a patriotic act as any defender makes in pursuit of our nation's highest ideals.  If you feel your path requires a gun, you have that right and though I say "go in peace", I know that you may choose not to.  But as you go please also know that I have the right to carry our flag too.  There are many types of defenders in this world and I am one."

~~~~~~~

I had purposefully avoided using the comparison to animals in this note in an effort to avoid offending, but I failed anyway.  I failed because I did not understand or convey in the text the conviction and sense of purpose with which many defenders carry out their dangerous efforts.  This failure to understand was surely my own and I felt the pain and regret of getting it wrong.  In retrospect, I wish I could have written it differently.  But along with this lesson came another lesson and yet another after that.  The first extra lesson was about the existence of evil in the world.  The second was that there exists an expectation of how evil should be dealt with once it is found... or rather, once it finds you.

The first extra lesson directly addresses the perception that sheep are in denial about the existence of evil in the world.  This seems to me, a significant over simplification.  I will admit that there are likely to be many people who simply accept the benefits of having a formal military and civilian police force.  Most of us simply grew up with them being there and we became complacent.  But, to apply that assumption to all is not only unfair but misses an important component of a civilized society.. another kind if warrior-- a warrior whose tools for change are words.  Words that teach, words that persuade, words that compel.  This warrior stands in equal measure with the physical warriors in resolving conflicts.  For instance, where in "The Three Type" model would Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. fit?  Sheep both (by model rules), but hardy sheep in reality.  The model fails by over simplifying (or simply ignoring) the contributions of other key players.  The model is not only unbalanced in its representation of the players for good but it is equally unbalanced in its representation of evil.  Bernie  Maddoff committed evil acts without even a nod to hand-to-hand combat.  Yet, if Maddoff were to be categorized as the wolf that he is, it is quite possible that the armed combatant would never register him as a target.  Evil comes in many forms. A truly prepared defense force recognizes this as a fact and employs Human Intelligence as adeptly as it does physical or armed prowess.  The model casually wastes potential resources from its very midsts by under-estimating the capabilities and potential contributions of the non-combatants.

Additionally, "the Three Type Model" effectively conditions the so-called sheep to be increasingly unaware of the world's worst atrocities.  Simply by being protected, the blinders go on.  This is easily seen in today's policies of not permitting media broadcast of graphic images of casualties and victim remains of violent crimes.  When it comes to facing reality, even a little repulsion goes a long way.  So, when one considers that the accusations of denial and/or cowardice comes from the very sector that enables it, one should immediately clear the acrid stench of hypocrisy from ones nostrils.

Thus, the first extra lesson is that the apparent denial of evil is (at least in part) a convenient social construct that maintains the status quo.  The so-called Sheep become ever more sheeplike and sheepdogs stay sheepdogs.

The second extra lesson focuses on how evil should be put down.  Here again, the inherent bias in favor of violent suppression is obvious from the start.  As the model has no other categories of contributing skill sets than "sheepdog", there will never be a consideration of alternate solutions.  In my opinion, this model is inherently maladaptive.  The behemoth social structure that it prescribes can never hope to achieve lithe controlled counter measures because it is structurally unsuited to paradigm shifts or strategic cleverness.  An opposing force with an engaged analytical unit and strategic counsel will ultimately emerge victorious, even if significantly out numbered.  Waste not, want not.  

~~~~~~

In my view, it is a fundamental premise that ANY citizen of a community infused with the  idealism of OUR jointly held and beloved Constitution, made logistically practical by OUR Bill of Rights is bound by honor to bring their particular gifts to the table in defense of our nation and its people.  I think the line goes something like "WE the PEOPLE, in order to form a more perfect Union....", not "SOME of the PEOPLE...".