srothstein wrote: ...
My theory gives me some hope if I am right because it implies that with education, they can learn to understand and not fear us. The sheep-sheepdog theory implies it is a hopeless cause if it is right.
The "sheepdog" theory is really more of a parable, a teaching tool. Sheep are significantly different species from dogs and wolves, which are close relatives, and in some taxonomies the same species. Well, except for little yappy dogs, I think they are closer to rats or squirrels or....
Anyway, animals are closely bound in their actions by their inherited behaviors, and while dogs are marvelous creatures, dogs are still predators and sheep are prey. Sheep are probably right to worry about whether their sheepdog (who has enough oomph or aggression to tangle with a wolf) might get confused between his genes and his few thousand years of domestication!
Humans are all the same lot, and they do get to choose to act like a sheep, a sheepdog, a wolf, or maybe a 'possum. Very recently we've had a run of civilization so successful that significant numbers of people are shielded from starvation and violence and disease and all kinds of Hobbesian wonders. There are a relatively small number of people designated to do the dirty work of raising food, chasing bad guys, and fighting lunatics on some other continent. It's easy to forget, or not even learn, that society and civilization and law and order are based on force and violence. So it's easy to look at the designated dirty-work people, especially the armed ones, as a necessary evil that must be closely watched and corralled and god help us all if anyone is willing to do his own dirty work without benefit of permission of the State! In such a society many choose, mostly unthinkingly, to be sheep and are mystified and scared of anyone who begs to differ.
People can be reeducated, but for something as deeply ingrained as "sheep-hood" it will probably take something emotionally and physically violent enough to shatter their basic conceptions. Not pleasant.
