Saturday, July 7, 2007

"For all their variety of appearance, people were as predictable as the plot turns in a film that he had commited to heart. A man whom [he] admired had once said that human beings were sheep, and in most matters, that was true.

In [his] experiences, however, as regarded his most intimate work with the species, human beings were inferior to sheep. Sheep were docile, yes, but vigilant. Unlike many people, sheep were always aware that predators existed and were alert for the scent and the schemes of wolves.

Contemporary Americans were so prosperous, so happily distracted by such a richness of vivid entertainments, they were reluctant to have their fun diminished by acknowledging that anything existed with fangs and fierce appetites. If now and then they recognized a wolf, they threw a bone to it and convinced themselves it was a dog.

They denied real threats by focusing their fear on the least likely of Armageddons: a massive asteroid striking the Earth, super hurricanes twice as big as Texas, the Y2K implosion of civilization, nuclear power plants melting holes all the way through the planet, a new Hitler suddenly rising from the ranks of hapless televangelists with bad hair.

[He] found people to be less like sheep than cattle. He moved along them as if invisible. They grazed dreamily, confident in the security of the herd, even as he butchered them one by one."
-The Good Guy (Page 52) By Dean Koontz

What do you think? Are Americans more like sheep or cattle?

And even if you agree with Koontz, that Americans are cattle, do you think this is necessarily a bad thing?

Is the fact that we may be neglecting what is around us enabling us to focus on our progress?

Or are we never going to achieve progress because of said neglect?

Post your thoughts or comments if you wish.

Hope I've left you with something to think about.

-Shosetsu
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