Kyratshooter, you are very correct, and that's the danger of any analogy - the danger of being carried too far. It's the danger of any logic device. But devices of logic are important tools. We can't live without them.
Analogies are necessary devices for discussing subtle elements in our surrounding that are hard to phrase in our extremely materialistic, linear language. It's not the flaw in any logic device that people misuse them - the flaw is in the user who doesn't know how to use them.
There are predator and prey personalities and more humans are prey animals than predator. I walk the streets of Selma at night with impunity. I have for 8 years. We have all together too much murder, theft, and rape in this town for a town it's size and my acquaintances here are afraid that I will be hurt wondering around at night. Gunfire is common down the street I live on. I'm a predator and I can sense the difference on other people. I know who's "ripe for the picking" and who's not.
I was recently stranded at the Texas/Louisiana border trying to get home from Colorado because when my credit card (which I was using to buy gasoline) was frozen - my credit card issuers didn't like my buying pattern and thought that someone might have stolen my card. I couldn't get them to free it up so I could get home. I had to give them every purchase I had made for the last two days. I didn't save my tickets for candy bars and such. They told me I had to find a bank of the same kind as my issuer so I went forward into Louisiana, burning up my remaining gasoline as I went. I couldn't find the right kind of bank in Shreveport or Bossier City so I was hot when I went into a Capital One bank to see if they knew where I could find one of my banks. Turned out there were none in Louisiana. I finally got the issuers to free up my card over the phone.
The point, though, is that I was furious and, although I was very intentionally restraining my desire to tear into people, I wasn't rude, I thanked people for information, I opened doors for people, walking through a crowd, you would have thought I was Moses walking through the Red Sea. They were sheep and I was a very angry wolf and no one had to tell them. And they acted exactly like sheep around a wolf.
The analogy is correct, as far as it's intended to be used, and it doesn't pay to ignore that fact. The sheep in the analogy are not sheeple and the author made it a point to emphasize that. Personally, I would think the sheep are more important than the sheepdogs (I say that as a sheepdog) because, after all, they're important enough to be protected. That's also why it's so important that our sheep learn to be the Dahls that will stomp your brains out and that can help the sheepdogs in their work instead of the dumb Suffolks and Merinos that are coming to populate our cities. Dahls have work to do and that's why they don't need to have to put all their time into protecting themselves from wolves.
This analogy is not just to "put sheep in their places" (which is to say, to point out that they have responsibilities as sheep), but even more so to put the sheepdogs in their places. The analogy can be extended. The Shepherd loves His sheepdogs but if one ever becomes dangerous to the sheep, it will be put down, and that is the way it should be. Protectors should not be allowed to betray their positions.
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