Why sheep are...well, sheep?!

 

My brother and I were once passing by a herd of sheep. I curiously peered through the car window at the obedient and uniform drove as they crossed the street in front of us. My brother stopped the car and impatiently waited.

“How weird is this, don’t you think?” I said, my eyes still following the shepherded group.

“What?” Replied my older brother while pressing the accelerator pedal and moving away.

“How come sheep are good at nothing else but providing us meat and wool?”

Puzzled, my brother threw a glance at me and asked what I meant.

“Think about it” I said “They eat grass the whole day, sleep, and mate. They are unable to work as oxen do, or cooperate as horses do, and even less perform for entertainment shows like seals do in circus! If left alone in nature they’ll surely be lost in the meaningless of their existence. They are exclusively born to be served on our tables, how come?”

  My brother laughed with amazement at my thoughts and said: “I actually don’t know, that is a good question indeed, I too wonder how come!”

I smiled and looked back at the distant herd, and then I murmured: “Well, it’s their bad I guess; being that useless!”

This occurred 8 years ago; at a time when I thought that everything around us existed in a way because it meant to exist in such a way. And at an age where causality in the universe was completely little known to me; there was absolutely no way I would’ve had the lightest doubts that we, humans, had the major role in making things the way they are today.

Why sheep are sheep? Why are they the pioneers of the herd mentality? Why are they so submissive, stupid, and hollow? Why are they so useless to the point you can clearly hear a lamb saying: “Feed me and then slaughter me please, because honestly, I’m good at nothing else!”? Could the answer possibly be that a mighty creator out there shaped those animals exclusively to meet our greedy needs and serve our economy?

I thought so at the beginning, and esteemed ourselves lucky, until I realized later how actually cruel we are!

12 000 years ago, when our ancestors decided to have an easier life by securing their food supply instead of living a day-to-day life hunting wild animals and gathering nuts and mushrooms, domestication became human’s main job and unique mean of survival. This ‘luxurious’ lifestyle compelled our kind to settle in villages, and altered them from free hunters-gatherers to mere farmers; slaves to their land and harvest. Humans were therefore arduously domesticating and tending for plants such as wheat, rice, and corn. But the domestication wasn’t limited to those wild seeds only; it covered animals such as sheep, goats, and cattle as well.

And here the story begins! In order to tailor a herd of wild sheep to their specific needs, humans put together a careful selection to achieve that. Just like in the natural selection where nature eliminates weak and non-adaptive beings whereas the strongest and advantageous ones thrive, shepherds adapted a similar mechanism; a twisted one to be precise.

Within one drove, the most aggressive and impulsive rams; those that manifested the greatest resistance to human control were slaughtered first along with their rebellious trait. The same tragic fate befell the skinniest and most inquisitive females; shepherds were not fond of sheep whose curiosity took them far away from the herd. In contrast, the agreeable and compliant sheep were allowed to live longer and procreate along with their compliant character. In consequence and with each passing generation, the sheep became fatter, more submissive and less curious. The happy ending was then a herd of domesticated and obedient sheep.

This applies to the other farm animals too. In order for instance to turn bulls and horses into docile draught animals, their natural instincts and social ties had to be broken, their aggression and sexuality contained, and their freedom of movement curtailed. Farmers developed techniques such as locking animals inside pens and cages, bridling them in harnesses and lashes, training them with whips and cattle prods, and mutilating them. The process of taming almost always involves the castration of males; this restrains the male aggression and enables humans selectively to control the herd’s procreation.*

Why sheep are sheep you say?

 Simply because we made them that way! We forced them to quit their natural habitat and their wild way of life, and shoved them into crowded and locked spaces where they can barely move. No, they were not divinely created for us, and they definitely were not born to dutifully fulfill our avaricious demands. Sheep haven’t always been ‘sheep’. At some point in history, humans deemed it convenient to enslave them. They deliberately interfered in the untamed and peaceful life of these animals and awfully manipulated them in a way that suited their desires.

The domesticated animals are among the most miserable beings on the planet. We enslave species and blame them for being good at nothing else but obeying and serving us. We arrogantly consider ourselves the masters and the chosen ones, it’s time though to realize that we are the cruelest species that ever existed on this globe.

     

  *Extract from Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari