Categories of Humans

At some points in life, a man begins to ask some tough questions. As he gets nearer the end of his life, the questions get tougher. Instead of holding the questions inside his head, he casually fling them out into the open for all to see, welcoming dissent and comment. In a way, he is brash and confrontational. In other words, he forever is in search of facts and truths. The farce of the Viet commie "congress" just drew to an end. Some appointments were announced. And the Viet populace yawned and seethed in anger at the same time. And that triggered the following musings:

There are four types of men: the sheep, the shepherd, the jackass, and the thinker.

We all know who the sheep are. They are always in the majority. Men and women of no distinction and no brains of their own. They are the followers. They are afraid and in awe of authority, either secular or otherwise. Their mission in life is to live as long as they can. Whether or not their lives have meanings or not, really make no difference to them. To them, life is the striving for longevity. As simple as that. From that standpoint, they are not much different from lower forms of life. In them, the suffix in the term "human animal" is gravid with meaning. Sure, they have disquieting moments when they ask themselves if all these sufferings and heartaches and brief interludes of joys are all there is in life. Unfortunately, those moments of introspection are brief and few and far in between. In the end, they take comfort in the belief that they will go to "heaven" or have a better life in "next" life.

Whenever there are sheep, there are always predators who prey on the sheep, who call themselves with an euphemism "shepherds" ("leaders"), those who herd the sheep and keep them in line. The shepherds are cunning and driven by a lust for power, whether or not they are qualified to wield it at the service of the sheep is of no interest to them. They invented myths to explain the workings of the world (and the universe) when science was unknown or still in its infancy. The myths still have a very strong hold on the sheep, even to this day. They came up with rules with strong emphasis on law and order and scant regard for civil liberties. Slowly over time, the shepherds realized that totalitarianism was not the optimal way to govern sheep if the society wanted to make lasting progress and to slouch towards stability. The 21st century sees a trend towards democratization and pluralism in governance where the shepherds could compete and vie for leadership. Those societies that remain autocratic get stuck in low or no economic development and general, pervasive "sheepish" (pun intended) discontent. The single exception so far is Red China where vast and cheap sheep resources have been utilized in combination with Western technology and investments to produce stunning economic growth, with no regard for the environment and civil liberties. How long the Chinese are content to live as unfree sheep remains to be seen. After all, sheep do have a need to roam free now and then, don't they?

There are those who aspire to become shepherds, but they are not good enough to do so. In the end, they turn into jackasses. These are the despicable organisms which follow the prevailing winds to get some crumbs of benefits. They have no political principles other than to kiss the ass of whoever in power. Some of them even fancy that they are educated because they hold a paper saying they completed some university education. A properly educated person is the one whose mind and whose heart are both developed. He knows right from wrong  and walks on the right path. He does not lie and he does not resort to sophistical reasonings in a desperate attempt to prevail in a debate. Of course, the shepherds are too smart to make use of the jackasses other than to have them serve at tables where the jackasses are forced to eat the leftovers, of which the jackasses are happy to do so, even under full contempt and disdain of the shepherds. Jackasses have no sense of pride.

The last category of men belongs to the thinkers who are neither sheep nor shepherds nor jackasses. They are solitary and few in number. They usually laugh at all the sheep, shepherds, and jackasses. Some thinkers even love to write. Occasionally some of their writings are known and have served as beacons in the night for humanity.