So long -...but thanks for all the sheep.

A. J. Hall reviews Brokeback Mountain. While he doesn't say so, it appears it's an allegory about the state of the post-conciliar Church. Hall has some relevant experience and notes a certain lack of realism about ... the sheep.

Oh, yes. Driven up to the mountain they are. They do not stray. They do not wander. They do not sit down on the job. They do not set out to find the only tarmacced road in the place so that they can practise their skill at ambushing passing cars. They do not suddenly decide that the other mountain looks much more interesting and they will send out a small expeditionary party to recce it. They do not, in short, indulge in any recognisable sheep behaviours. What we have here are the Stepford Sheep.

Even when we get them to the mountain the same eerie pattern of conspicuous and unnatural virtue is maintained. Do they wander off in order to conceal their partially decomposed corpses a few upstream of the point where hikers have choose a refreshing drink? Do they indulge any inclination to go up every rock face short of vertical, and then decide that they have no idea how to descend again, and panic?

No: they do not. They sit around under the trees in close-packed groups, looking stuffed.

Someone has been feeding those sheep Prozac.

Us city folk can miss the point of the Gospel shepherd and sheep analogy because we think real sheep act like Hall describes these movie sheep. For example, I see some of our brethren's letters to the editor saying they will longer act like [movie] sheep, unknowingly meaning they are going to start acting like [real] sheep.

In recent decades, many of our shepherds have this same illusion. They formulate intricate plans and procedures which might work with preternatural sheep. As I've probably said, I've been at church meetings where The Plan is defended, despite a lack of results. The lack of results is blamed on "the way people are," meaning they aren't acting according to The Plan. One of the unstated planning assumptions is Stepford Sheep.

(via The Rat, via Eve Tushnet