Writes Sarah Jones in "The Sheepdog Defense" (NY Magazine).
This animal analogy is awfully facile. Is anyone really thinking about the case by likening human beings to these 3 kinds of animals? It seems to me that nearly everyone regards Jordan Neely as mentally ill. Wolves aren't mentally ill.
Seems? What evidence is there that people think Penny was herding the sheep-people of the subway? He was restraining Neely. That's not like anything a dog does to a wolf.
It gets much worse:
Aspiring sheepdogs face a dilemma, however. In the animal kingdom, it’s easy to distinguish a sheep from a wolf; among humans, it’s more difficult. “Faced with this problem, how can you tell a wolf from a sheep?' asked Michael Cummings and Eric Cummings in Slate. "The easiest way is race."
It's racial because the dog-humans need an easy way to distinguish human wolves from human sheep? But Neely was singled out by his own words and behavior.
In the Neely case, it matters who was doing the killing but also who was being killed. And if Penny is a sheepdog, then Neely, a Black man, is a wolf....
Yes, his words and behavior were assessed by a person who could see that he was black and that may have affected judgment, but talk about doing what's "easiest" — you're assuming racism.
While Neely is dehumanized, Penny is valorized.... Penny’s defenders populate the world with vicious caricatures. If there are only sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves, Neely had no chance to be a human. Neither does anyone else....
If there are only sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves.... Yes, well, there aren't. The author is criticizing other people for being simplistic and unsophisticated while being absurdly simplistic and unsophisticated.
Posts
77 comments:
"It seems to me that nearly everyone regards Jordan Neely as mentally ill. Wolves aren't mentally ill."
Ok- so he's ill. Is it a bad thing when a rabid animal preying on the innocent is put down?
Asking for a friend...
As usual, Trey Parker and Matt Stone do a better job of explaining the concept than the mainstream media. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32iCWzpDpKs
everyone regards Jordan Neely as mentally ill. Wolves aren't mentally ill.
okay, don't think of him as a Wolf.. Think of him as a Mad Dog. He's STILL after the sheeps
Primary error here is taking David Grossman seriously in any regard, and then having the temerity to quote his stupid ass.
The man is eminently unqualified to be pronouncing on anything he has been, over the last thirty years. I first encountered him back when he was a mere starter-set pundit, selling his book "On Killing". He was signing copies of it, and since I'd bought it and read it as soon as it came out, I buttonholed him and asked some questions. None of which he answered.
First off, he's not a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist. He's a well-read layman, in those fields. Second off, he's another one of those Army officers selected and sent to teach at West Point, who often are no more than run-of-the-mill intellects with no real academic qualifications. The scholarship in his books is exquisitely bad; he cherry-picks his data like a fruit bat, with great delicacy and exquisite selective care. Anything that contradicts his basic thesis, which is that there is some innate human "reluctance to kill" resident in every human being...? LOL. Dude actually believed the BS that S.L.A. Marshall spouted off incessantly, and had no idea that any of Marshall's "seminal works" had ever even been questioned, let alone refuted.
Grossman is a guy who parlayed his ideas into a decent income, all of it based on BS. He was around during Columbine, talking about video games being "murder simulators", and a bunch of other stuff that's entirely specious. He is not an authority on much of anything, and Special Operations Command specifically banned him from talking to their people. Ever. Mostly because they figured out that his work was doing more to actually encourage PTSD than prevent it, because he tells people that they should have a "natural reluctance to kill", which ain't at all true. That "reluctance" is only really present in very well-socialized members of Western societies; you don't see too many Somali pirates angsting over the terrible, terrible things they had to do, nor do you see too much in classical literature from the Romans after they did unto one of their enemy cities the way they were wont to. Likewise, the Mongols? Who stacked pyramids of skulls outside Samarkand, and who spent significan amounts of time pawing through the guts of their victims, looking for hastily-swallowed jewels in their entrails? Ya don't see too much being written about those guys having PTSD, or demonstrating any "innate reluctance to kill", either.
Grossman? Charlatan who only the credulous pay heed to. I happen to think that he's actively dangerous, because his ideas are so far out of whack with reality combined with the fact that he's such a glib spokesman that people who don't know squat about that world listen to him. The reality? He has no qualifications, has done zero basic research in his subject area, and is far from an authority on anything. Not only that, he's a lousy scholar; you can find scads of references contradicting his cited sources.
Even if there are, Neely's actions identified him as a 'wolf'. Seeing race as his major identifying attribute is racialism.
And as a followup to my earlier comment, I don't see a problem with segregating people with mental/violence issues from regular society. Unfortunately, that appears to be a bridge too far for leftists, who are insisting that their deranged pets be allowed to roam free and if they happen to harm someone, that's just a price that needs to be paid. By others, of course.
Odd, don't you think, that when their pet is on the receiving end of an ass-kicking (or worse), it makes them unhappy. Rules for thee, but not for me, amirite?
Who says wolves aren't mentally ill. If you're a sheep, your sheepshrink's DSM calls ferocity in killing and eating other critters mental illness.
Maybe a wolf with rabies, or a brain parasite, attacks. Is there a difference between that attack and one by a healthy wolf? Do you try to figure out which one with an eye to calling Animal Control's social worker hotline?
Start an analogy, somebody may run with it.
Point is, Neely may or may not be a wolf in this situation. But Penny might as well have jumped onto the tracks to rescue someone who fell off the platform. The question is about Penny versus danger to others. In this case, the danger was another person. And the question is the technique used.
OK, Althouse, the wolves are rabid. Better?
OK, Althouse, there are sheep, sheepdogs, and rabid wolves.
No analogy is perfect, just as no model is perfect. The sheep-wolf-sheepdog analogy has a specific application: it is intended to indicate the motivations and actions of people in situations where some human(s) cause(s) a threat to some other human(s). And, it's intended to illustrate why a person who is ready to do violence may not be evil (a psychopath, a sociopath, pick your term): if a person with the capacity to take a life only exercises that capacity in the defense of others, that person is not the same as a person with the capacity to take a life who is willing to exercise that capacity for his own gain, pleasure, or whatever.
I think probably the shepherd is generally more reasonable for defense of the sheep - for killing or driving off a wolf - than a sheepdog. (David and his skiing, for instance - he was skilled with that weapon because he was a shepherd. The shepherds in the nativity story were "abiding in the field, watching over their rocks by night" because the flocks lived in their pasturage in the warm season, not in a barn or shed or own, and the shepherds had to keep watch for predators. Shepherds are not Little Bo Peep.) But everyone knows what this analogy is trying to say. And it'd be worse if only the LEO or soldier appeared in the analogy as a human being, wouldn't it?
Neely might not have been a psychopath or sociopath, or at least his sociopathy may have been situational and related to his mental illness. So liken him instead to, I don't know, a brush for that's racing toward the sheeps' pen - it might stop on its own before it gets there, but the shepherd can't take that chance; he has to try to divert it or put it out.
I don't want to live in a society in which people with the capacity to do violence on behalf of the vulnerable are vilified and their impulses so circumscribed that they become like the British police, charging homeowners for defending their homes and encouraging them just to give the bad guys what they want rather than putting themselves on the line to defend the public and enforce the law.
Wow, that was a really long sentence.
Grossman wrote some briefly noticed books--On Killing comes to mind, and had some interesting things to say, but I'm not buying what the others offer.
Ever heard of rabies?
Ever heard of rabies?
Steve Stransky
I think it is a pretty good analogy but I can see that liberal white women who live in safe suburbs will disagree. At least until they are mugged or killed.
"“We sleep soundly in our beds, because rough men stand ready in the night to do violence on those who would harm us"
Orwell cited Kipling's phrase "making mock of uniforms that guard you while you sleep" (Kipling, Tommy), and further noted that Kipling's "grasp of function, of who protects whom, is very sound. He sees clearly that men can be highly civilized only while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."
Eric Blair, also known as George Orwell.
Since the USA is now ruled by women or men who want to be women, we will lose the next war.
I think many people see Penny as person capable of defending himself and Neely as a person that threatened harm. I didn't even know the race of either until the decision was made to arrest Penny. To me, it was just another story of violent people on the NY subway, except this time the would be victims fought back.
Althouse writes, "The author is criticizing other people for being simplistic and unsophisticated while being absurdly simplistic and unsophisticated."
But of course. It's NY Magazine, not a nuanced and sophisticated periodical like The National Inquirer.
Really, Althouse, sometimes you expect far too much.
Thanks for the fisking.
"If there are only sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves.... Yes, well, there aren't. The author is criticizing other people for being simplistic and unsophisticated while being absurdly simplistic and unsophisticated."
Isn't that how it goes with prog smears?
Just a man. Apparently with some sufficient combination of balls, skill, and strength.
This sheep/dog analogy has always bothered me. It might make more sense if the hero class identified themselves as "rams" instead of "dogs." That would imply some actual kinship with the flock. I'd like to think that's the role--ram, or alpha sheep--that Penny was filling: protecting his fellow sheep from an unruly sheep with his strength and ability.
When I consider the sheep/dog analogy, it occurs to me that "sheep dogs," are select mercenaries, and are not members of the flock (or species!). They work directly for the shepherd*, who is the person who shears the sheep and either slaughters or sells the sheep off when they are no longer of use. Yikes!
Being a sheep of one sort or another, when I hear someone proudly calling himself a "sheep dog," I get a really awkward feeling about his loyalties. But maybe I'm over-thinking this.
* not to be confused with The Good Shephard
Sarah Jones calls this the "conservative defense", which prompts me to wonder what she means by conservative. Daniel Penny certainly applied the most conservative level of force to restrain Neely, but I doubt Jones uses conservative as a synonym for dispassionate and circumspect. Instead, she hopes to tar him as one of the mythical "rightwing extremists" who march hither and thither in her fevered dreams. If Penny was one of these, he have just pulled out his fully-automatic murder boomstick with the thing that goes up, and have blown Neely's lungs out of his body.
Critical Racists' Theory (CRT) presumes diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. "people of color"), color quotas, and affirmative discrimination.
Maybe he was a sheepdog or maybe he was one of those pitbulls that mauls the neighbor kid. This is another one of those cases where everyone seems to have already made up their minds, but I'm waiting until all the facts come out. Honestly, this one could go either way. This is Trayvon Martin 2.0.
This is a relatively old analogy. I remember reading columns about it at least ten years ago. (Bill Whittle?)
It seems to me that nearly everyone regards Jordan Neely as mentally ill. Wolves aren't mentally ill
No, but wolves are threats to the life of sheep, and violent, homeless mentally ill people are threats to everyday people.
What evidence is there that people think Penny was herding the sheep-people of the subway?
That's not the primary job of all sheep dogs. The primary job of some sheep dogs is to live with their flock of sheep and protect them from wolves and other predators. A sheep herding dog is an entirely different dog. In fact the dogs who do these two different jobs are different breeds entirely. It's very telling that your mind went to herding instead of protecting.
In the animal kingdom, it’s easy to distinguish a sheep from a wolf; among humans, it’s more difficult.
A criminal with 44 arrests including violent offences has pretty much proclaimed himself to be a wolf. A mentally ill man shouting at subway riders and threatening them is a snarling wolf, pretty easy for most of us to recognize.
If there are only sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves, Neely had no chance to be a human. Neither does anyone else....If there are only sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves....
In the English language we have this thing called a metaphor, in which we compare certain things with other certain things in order to describe them. This metaphor is saying that humans act like sheep, sheep dogs and wolves, not that they literally are sheep, sheep dogs and wolves. Stop clutching your pearls, no one is denying anyone's humanity.
The mere fact that you are so clearly outraged at this entirely sensible metaphor says so much more than you realize.
Repeal the 19th.
The left seems to have realized that trying to address Neely's death honestly is not a winning proposition for them.
I have to think that Penny's fate depends on the social class of the jurors.
Two things come to mind. The first is that this is a very self-serving metaphor for soldiers and police. I can see why they like it. The second is that all metaphors are inherently flawed. They might work for some aspect of the comparison, but they are always susceptible to being pushed too far by people who don’t like the metaphor, at which point it breaks down and they can dismiss it as inapt, problematic.
"Wolves aren't mentally ill."
Some of them are rabid.
Analogy still works.
I think most of us can envision being confronted by a crazy, ranting person in a place we can't escape. I would be grateful to the healthy young man who tried to protect other passengers, and to the two others (neither of them white, I think) who helped him. I wouldn't have the courage to do that or the ability. (I'm 71, female and not very large.) But if someone was threatening a child, and I was the only one who could take action, then I would do my best.
you know, restaining people is dangerous. We stopped using restraints in hospitals because some people got wrapped up in them and suffocated. And physical restraint also carries a risk of killing the person (a small risk but a risk nevertheless).
Those of us who have seen the mentally ill or those high on drugs know how violent these people can get. They can't help it, but the alternative is injury to themselves or those around them.
Here, the marine and others helping him were not trying to kill this person: They were trying to restrain him. It's not like Bernard Goetz who shot the thugs: it was physical restraint, done wrong, but nevertheless it was not done with the aim to kill the guy.
When I consider the sheep/dog analogy, it occurs to me that "sheep dogs," are select mercenaries, and are not members of the flock (or species!). They work directly for the shepherd*, who is the person who shears the sheep and either slaughters or sells the sheep off when they are no longer of use.
You have a basic misunderstanding of sheep dogs. Sheep dogs live full time with the sheep and spend all of their time protecting the sheep and warding off predators. They definitely do consider themselves to be a part of the flock.
@Althouse, every once in a while you really don't seem to get it at all.
It's a simple analogy, and there are levels at which it works, and levels at which it stops working. My own takeaway is that Sarah Jones -- and you -- would have been much happier if Neely had actually attacked someone before Penny intervened. But that's because the two of you are women. And sheep.
I don't understand why it's considered a "conservative" defense of Penny, this sheepdog story, which I first heard in the movie "American Sniper". I guess it's along the lines of Jack Nicholson's speech as Colonel Jessup in "A Few Good Men"? .."we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns". Because conservatives think in this reductionist, movie clip sort of way, not about the evidence or what the law requires for a finding of culpability. Just sheepdogs and wolves and men with guns standing on walls.
Neely was a predator. Why wasn’t he in custody?
Neely was a perpetual predator. He wasn’t having a psychotic break on the train he was threatening people for money.
Seriously? American Sniper / Chris Kyle: "There are three types of people in this world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. Now, some people prefer to believe that evil doesn’t exist in the world…those are the sheep. And then you got predators who use violence to prey on the weak. They’re the wolves. And then there are those who have been blessed with the gift of aggression, and the overpowering need to protect the flock. These men are the rare breed that live to confront the wolf. They are the sheepdogs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sniper
A sheepdog makes mo effort to determine the mental state of the wolf.
It simply identifies the wolf as a threat and acts on that basis.
If he has the necessary size/skill the wolf loses. If not the sheepdog may become the victim. But it’s what he’s been bred for.
Test
Kipling's "Tommy" was mentioned earlier.
I've been struck by the threat implicit in the last two lines.
"An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool
You bet that Tommy sees."
Or, "Love to help you, buddy, but I'm white".
Going on non-expressways in the high country of Utah and Wyoming, frequently saw a sign saying "Herd Protecting Dog Area Do Not Feed".
Those aren't the herding dogs and, no, I'm not only not going to feed them, I'm not going to get out of the car.
"Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war."
True, Jordan Neely was not a wolf. He was a fugitive violent felon.
Some total idiot of a judge looked at a guy with over forty prior arrests who had just broken the facial bones of a random woman on the subway, and decided to go along with sentencing him to a diversion program instead of confining him to prison. And then this violent felon failed to adhere to the diversion program, making him a fugitive violent felon.
It is wondrously good news that the only person who died because the system failed to keep this fugitive violent felon confined was the fugitive violent felon himself.
If Neely had been white, all else equal, he would still have died that day. It wasn't the color of his skin that got him taken down by Penny- it was the mad raving threats he reportedly made (according to the witnesses who were on the train) that got him in trouble.
Penny had no way that I have seen of determining whether or not Neely was simply full of shit, or an actual deadly threat. Had Penny not acted, and Neely ended up seriously harming someone on that train that day, people like Sarah Jones, or Jones herself, would have written essays lamenting the fact that no one, even a healthy young former marine, were willing to stand up to protect the victims from Neely.
The term sheepdog usually refers to border collies, etc who work for the shepherd, herding and controlling the flock according to his commands. A better analogy would be LGD, livestock guardian dogs, like Great Pyrenees, etc who live with the sheep and will take on any predator. We have 2 for our sheep. they are not particularly friendly but fearless with coyotes and mountain lions.
If we're going to use animal metaphors, Jordan Neely wasn't a wolf. He was a rabid dog. In every instance you have to take one of those down when they start acting erratic and threatening other animals.
“… Althouse writes, "The author is criticizing other people for being simplistic and unsophisticated while being absurdly simplistic and unsophisticated."”
Sheep have been used in human thought &verse as being simplistic and unsophisticated. In the event being addressed, that’s not the case. It’s the vulnerability of the sheep that is being highlighted. They are prey to the wolf. Gahrie brings up the different qualities of the value of the sheepdog. He mentioned a Guardian aspect not found in the article. Guardians are raised as puppies w/in the flock, if I’m not mistaken. They aren’t pets. They work w/in to keep the flock safe. Llamas and donkeys are guardian animals, too.
If I were to ever ride a subway, having a Mr. Penny as a fellow commuter would be a blessing in my life. His instincts were to protect the vulnerable &himself.
People who are dangerous need to be somewhere they can be helped and prevented from harming unaware and vulnerable people. This has been the message ever since the closure of mental hospitals around the country. Written in blood.
Jordan Neely was on a list of the top 50 homeless threats encountered on the NYC subway system. As such, he should have been involuntariy committed to a treatment center, simply to get him off of the subways and make them safer for everyone else.
I'd be interested to know the current status of the other 49 people on the list. I b not a single one of them is currently in custody and away from the subways.
Only the Left would assume that a Black man is a wolf. It's not skin color that makes a sheepdog.
The wolf in this story is our government - the sociopath and thief.
It has abandoned all of its responsibilities.
But kept our money.
https://www.wcax.com/2023/05/16/graphic-man-who-attacked-congressional-staffers-has-violent-history-authorities-say/
Just read this story in the news this morning…
Parents always trying to get help for increasingly ill adult(ish)(20s) children and hitting walls…
Distraction. Paperback psychologist uses bad analogy. Hero still arrested. NYC still letting dangerous people threaten strangers on public transportation with no consequences.
If anyone should be insulted, it's the sheepdogs.
I think that a 67 year old woman just might consider Neely a predator after her nose was broken along with her eye socket.
The coyotes who attacked Casper's flock were not crazy, but were predators. Daisy instinct helped corral the flock. Casper's instinct drove the action killing 8 of 11, driving them off, saving the flock.
Street parable: You fuck with the bull, sometimes you get the horns.
Roll the dice, or not.
sarah jones is a professional idjit, it was explained very clear in one seen in American sniper, that informed chris kyles career,
You have to live a long way from the subway (culturally) to believe that there are lone unarmed racist white men riding the train, just waiting for the opportunity to kill mentally ill black people who get out of hand, with their bare hands.
Or you are just a hack peddling the "white supremacist terror" meme that the Dems are putting forth.
Great fisking, people. In exploring the metaphor of sheep/wolf/guardian, where do we put the social workers —not one of whom seems to have had any knowledge of, or responsibility for, the quite-mad and obviously-mad and dangerously-mad Mr. Neely? He was “failed by the system?” Is there nobody in the “system” who owns that failure? Is that story not worth telling? Well, yes, it’s important; but it’s not convenient. It would hurt the Narrative, and break rice bowls of senior members of the Nanny State. So it won’t be told, and instead we get a straw-man argument, a metaphor about wolves that can be attacked as a right-wing fantasy used by racist militants as a kind of…dog-whistle.
If the sheep/wolf/guardian metaphor were properly applied, we would ask why there were no guardians with the flock; why the guardians had not sent hunters to the flock’s hinterland to chase off or capture the wolves before they could attack; why the flock was left defenseless, having to hope that a dog might happen to be present and willing to put himself in harm’s way for the sake of others.
Wayne Kyle explained that well to his son Chris
@ken
I think C.S. Lewis did a much better job. For one thing, the very first premise in the clip you posted is incorrect. Most P*s like D*s very much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV0TEqK0KlM
Ron. Looks like an officer and a gentleman, right?
So, the writer chooses a simplistic analogy and then criticizes it for being too simple to fit the actual story line? Hmm. In my experience, sheepdogs recognize a danger to the flock and take action. That fits, doesn't it? Was the perp a danger to the flock, strutting up an down the subway car announcing his intention to do harm and serve a life sentence? Or course he was.
As it happens, I am with Gahrie and my liver experience is it’s a pretty goddamn good analogy. But two binary choices lead to foir outcomes and we have labeled only three. What do we call people with neither empathy nor capacity for violence?
As others have noted, there are herding dog breeds, and then there are protection breeds. In addition to the Great Pyrenees noted elsewhere in the comments, I give you..., the Komondor:
"History
For many centuries the Komondor has been the king of Hungarian flock dogs. Koms guard sheep at pasture. They’re confident and tough enough to run off wolves and other ferocious beasts of prey. The dreadlocks give the dog a cool, funky look, but they aren’t for show. They provide protection from extreme weather and sharp-toothed predators. The cords also let Koms blend in with the sheep, giving them the element of surprise."
https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/komondor/
@Richard Aubrey
Lewis explains the concept far better than I ever could, but he posits that chivalry, which is an unnatural state of being, needs to be cultivated in order for a civilization to continue to exist. He defines chivalry as a state of being where the naturally warlike are encouraged to restrain their impulses and put them to use only in service to others while the naturally timid are encouraged to be brave, also in service to others.
God how I hate this Leftwing obfuscataion and wordy Bullshit.
Neely wasn't just mentally ill. He was criminally insane. He commmitted actions of violence, threatened people and was arrested over 40 times. He should have been locked up and treated.
Penny thought he was being a good samaritan by restraining him. He's a braver man than I am. I would've minded my own business, and if some of these leftwing NYC chicks got harrassed or attacked, well that's the world they wanted.
The racial angle is just more Leftwing bullshit. Basically, they want black criminals to be a protected class and use them as a weapon against everyone else. Too bad so many on the Center-right fall for their nonsense.
There are some people who think when others are endangered, it is right and imperative to intervene. Then there are those who would just stand around and do nothing to stop others from being harmed. Then there are those who would attack the intervenor-defenders.
As for the latter, when it is they who are endangered -- don't anyone help. That would be justice. To reap what you sow.
If you think there is a higher calling than justice, to do good for someone even when they don't deserve it, go ahead and help this third group. Then resist the urge to punch them in the mouth yourself.
As it happens, I am with Gahrie and my liver experience is it’s a pretty goddamn good analogy. But two binary choices lead to foir outcomes and we have labeled only three. What do we call people with neither empathy nor capacity for violence?
You can watch these videos on Twitter and YouTube of people walking into some store, shoving lots of stuff into a bag, and then just walking out. And the store clerks and store security guard just standing there doing nothing to stop them. And people strongly criticize and condemn them for doing nothing.
The Penny arrest and prosecution justify them not trying to stop the open and brazen shoplifters and looters. It justifies all the police across the country who now won't go into some neighborhoods to confront violent crimes as they are happening.
What a load of crap! The leftmediaswine perceive this as a political issue suitable to divide the nation further. "Conservatives think, blah, blah, blah ...."
It ought to be viewed as a legal issue: Was Neely's conduct sufficiently threatening to cause Penny to reasonably believe that it posed an immediate threat to himself and others. Was Penny's response proportionate to the threat.
The incompetencs of Democrat governance is clouding the issue because their media pimps won't focus on that issue as they should. Neely should not have been there at all.
What do we call people with neither empathy nor capacity for violence?
Autistic.
Donkeys and llamas also make good sheep dogs.
He was a mentally ill wolf. Ask his victims. He should have been locked up.
Daniel Penny shows how much the right loves white vigilante violence.
Penney should have at least waited until Neeley assaulted or killed someone before he acted.
What a stupid column.
No one on the subway was thinking about the words "dog" or "wolf." Writers like this prefer to talk about words because the reality causes too much cognitive dissonance.
Neely broke an old woman's face, failed to appear, and had a warrant as a result.
But if you want to talk about metaphors instead, fine, I guess it gets clicks.
There's nothing pernicious about this analogy.
We've all seen videos of violent attacks in public places, in which bystanders, bystand. These are metaphoric sheep. They are incapable of violence, even as the empathize with victims being victimized.
In nature, there is no moral component to wolves wanting to eat sheep. From the standpoint of sheep, wolves are terrifying monsters. People who prey on other people, may be thought of as metaphoric wolves. To the extent that people are sheep, the wolves can prey without risk.
Some people look just like other people, they have empathy for their fellow person but are also capable of violence. These are metaphoric sheepdogs. Sheepdogs often look a lot like sheep, with long fluffy fur--perhaps this was so that the sheep and the sheepdog would bond, or to prevent the sheep from being afraid of their guardians. Maybe it was a way to make it harder for predators to tell from a distance if there was a guard dog around. In whatever case, when the flock is attacked, unlike actual sheep, the sheepdog goes full-on dog and springs into action to protect the flock.
gahrie said:
"What do we call people with neither empathy nor capacity for violence?
Autistic."
I think that most of us prefer the term "high-functioning sociopath", because while we've learned to follow the rules of society, we don't really feel the need to follow them. We just do it in order to blend in with the rest of you lot, and when you finally convince us that there's really no point to us being the only ones playing by the rules...?
Yeah. Most rational people can probably do the math.
Frankly, in a few short years, guys like Neely will just be shot out of hand, and likely left for Public Sanitation to pick up. Won't be nobody that sees anything, either. No witnesses. Too much trouble, see? That's what a world with "de-funded police" actually looks like, but the fantasy-belief systems of the de-funding types can't grasp that.
Nature, red in tooth and claw. You do away with civilization at your peril. Bunch of y'all are about to learn that the hard way, in a few years.
The analogy is plain stupid. Subway safety normally depends on the law and those charged with enforcing it. Those who do that are not sheep dogs, they are normal human beings with, I would bet, a pretty normal range of aggressiveness, some more aggressive than others. The problem with the NY subway is it has reverted somewhat to a state of nature, where no law and law enforcing institutions are operating. In the condition, the people are still all one species and one kind. If you want to understand what happens then, I suggest a much better source would be the Netflix four-part documentary "Chimp Empire." The chimp society has no rule of law and its enforcers. What it does have is a hierarchy with the Alpha male on top. Perhaps for that brief time on that subway, Petty was the Alpha male. Lucky one was around.
The analogy is plain stupid. Subway safety normally depends on the law and those charged with enforcing it. Those who do that are not sheep dogs, they are normal human beings with, I would bet, a pretty normal range of aggressiveness, some more aggressive than others. The problem with the NY subway is it has reverted somewhat to a state of nature, where no law and law enforcing institutions are operating. In that condition, the people are still all one species and one kind. If you want to understand what happens then, I suggest a much better source would be the Netflix four-part documentary "Chimp Empire." The chimp society has no rule of law and its enforcers. What it does have is a hierarchy with the Alpha male on top. Perhaps for that brief time on that subway, Penny was the Alpha male. Lucky one was around.
This is Trayvon Martin 2.0.
Nobody - and I mean nobody - would've ever hard of Trayvon Martin if Obama hadn't needlessly opened his fucking piehole, and threw gasoline on a fire he started.
And do recall, a jury of six women acquitted the white Hispanic.
Ms Althouse has often observed that writers have a deadline to meet and a quota of words to submit. In the circumstances, naturally, a great deal of nonsense gets written. Like the article in question.
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