Some have complained that my use of the term “grass-eater” in recent posts may unnecessarily offend vegetarians. Well, it ain’t vegetarians that I mean to offend.

I picked up the term “grass-eater” from the esteemed John Farnam, but I didn’t pick up a concrete definition of what makes a grass-eater. (Here’s a hint: Mr. Farnam often uses the term interchangeably with “sheeple”. Jeff Cooper might also call a “grass-eater” a “hoplophobe”, though the term seems more widely applicable.)

If you’re familiar with George Orwell’s novella Animal Farm, you can think of grass-eaters as the bipedal equivalents of the sheep. The term is intended to remind one of a herbivorous herd mentality, rather than simply munching green things. Grass-eaters are known for their passive-aggressive approach to life, society, and morality.

If your first reaction to a law being horrifyingly broken is “we gotta make more laws”, you might be a grass-eater. If you believe in angels — or the Just World hypothesis — you’re probably a grass-eater. Both of these delusions indicate a desire to give up responsibility (and, therefore, freedom) to a faceless “higher” power. Grass-eaters are perfectly happy to give up liberty for a little safety — even if the only safety they get is from the consequences of their actions.

In fact, you can ward off grass-eaters simply by shouting “consequences!” at the top of your lungs, or waving a copy of Sartre’s Existentialism is a Humanism. They hate that.

Grass-eaters are deathly afraid of anything resembling personal responsibility. They are prohibited from assigning blame to any human being — such an act, after all, would imply that they themselves might someday be blamed for some transgression! Therefore, grass-eaters blame just about anything that isn’t animate for society’s ills — weapons, rap music, video games, black trenchcoats, money, red meat, or the hormone testosterone. They’ll put the blame on ephemeral concepts, too — generally liberalism or conservatism, but masculinity, feminism, globalization, religious fundamentalism, and secular humanism are also popular favourites. Under no circumstances may an actual human being be held accountable for his or her actions by a grass-eater.

That said, grass-eaters fear and despise people who accept — worse, seize — responsibility for their actions, future, and well-being. If you study awareness for personal security, grass-eaters will call you paranoid. If you study combatives in case your awareness fails, grass-eaters will call you a vigilante. If you store clean water in case — oh, just hypothetically speaking — runoff from heavy rains contaminates your city’s main drinking water reservoirs, grass-eaters will call you a survivalist nutcase. By taking responsibility for (gasp!) your own well-being, you threaten the grass-eater lifestyle of perpetual buck-passing and recrimination. In fact, decisiveness in any form infuriates grass-eaters — but that doesn’t stop them from complaining when their company (or their government) bogs down in endless committee meetings.

In retaliation, grass-eaters demand legislation which half-assedly provides for the lowest common denominator of common good at everyone’s expense. If you’re lucky, grass-eater legislation will take your money to buy services and provisions with no practical utility beyond making the grass-eaters feel good about “doing their civic duty”. (Guess what that means? You get to pay for it a second time, doing it right on your own dime, and thereby inviting scorn from the grass-eaters.) If you’re unlucky, the grass-eaters will still take your money to provide inadequate service, but they’ll also prohibit you from providing for yourself.

Grass-eaters, then, are those who seek to absolve themselves of responsibility for the conduct of their own lives. Alarmingly, they tend to force others to abdicate responsibility for the conduct of their own lives. Be wary.