Rev. Paul W. McNellis of the fine group blog Democracy Project discusses Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie, which I've been avoiding for obvious reasons. But Stone surprised him by actually making a movie for a change. The review, worth reading in full, ends with this:
"Courage as a virtue is increasingly misunderstood in our society, especially among the keyboard class. As our lives become more comfortable and protected, we forget who does the protecting. A better understanding of this might bring solace to those family members whose lost loved ones are not explicitly mentioned in this film.
McLoughlin and Jimeno are courageous not because they survive under the rubble. They are trapped. They don't want to be there. One of them even wonders if the whole day was pointless: they saved no one. But it was their courage that put them there, back when they still had a choice. For the many who didn't survive, their "yes," their "I got it, Sarg," began when they became one of those who protect the rest of us.
By choosing a narrow focus, Mr. Stone has done well something Hollywood almost never does. He's given us a glimpse, a reminder, of people like those we all know, people living good lives by doing the little things day after day that good people do: Loving your spouse, trying to be a good parent, doing your duty. We are surrounded by such people but tend to take them for granted. Often, they're no further away from us than the next room."
Ah, Sheepdogs....
AFAIK the "sheep, wolves and sheepdogs" classification is Dave Grossman's:
http://hobbes.ncsa.uiuc.edu/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
I very much enjoyed both articles referenced here. However, I tend to classify people into four broad, general groups.
Sheep
Wolves
Sheep Dogs
Wolf Hounds
The first two are the same as Whittle's. The sheep dogs and wolf hounds are where we differ. Sheep dogs protect and guide the sheep and live among the sheep. Sometimes they even look like sheep, white and cuddly, until the wolves show up.
Wolf hounds, on the other hand, never look like sheep. In fact, they more closely resemble the wolves, except for their moral devotion to the sheep. The wolf hounds do not live among the sheep, and they do not wait for the wolf to show up. Wolf hounds go out into wilderness and hunt the wolves. They prey on the predators. And for this reason they are feared, and sometimes even hated, by the ones they protect.