| One of the many holes in DHH's claim about wolves, sheep, and gypsies is that wolves are not the sort of low-dimensional archetype he uses to support his narrative. If you're very literal like me, you take that to mean wolves, the mammal; a predatory animal living within a food web, fulfilling a particular role at its trophic level which is ultimately beneficial to the system it's a part of. Wolves don't independently get 'out of control' such that they need to be shot. This has been demonstrated across North America and Europe. The perception of wolves being out of control is largely subjective and misguided, and the result of 1. humans encroaching on wild land, 2. human activity limiting wolves' access to food, and 3. humans fearing wolves and wanting there to be fewer of them. Through this lens, comparing immigrants to wolves is absurd. It becomes clear that DHH is discarding a lot of context in order to weave a fearful narrative which uses invalid, fictional mechanisms to make his point. The use of the terms gypsies and sheep also comes with issues. It's a poor piece of writing, lacks any compelling substance (assuming you aren't swayed by him), and largely demonstrates that he's not particularly thoughtful about this while lacking the self-awareness and comprehension to notice how weak his position is. It's okay to want reduced immigration. It's okay to want to preserve certain things in your society. It's not necessary or reasonable to do so through this lens, however. There are plenty of compelling arguments to make for regulating these systems in local, regional, and national government. It's okay to want that. When you start describing immigrants as dangerous animals, you've gone many steps too far off of a sensible path. I also understand the use of fables to communicate moral and ethical stories, which seems to be a component in his narrative. However, he steps out of that bound when he talks about literal wolves (and the need to shoot them). Yet fables are a coarse tool, not an intricate one, and they're far too reductive to support an argument against immigration across a continent. It's an absurd position to argue from, and in terms of narrative, it makes DHH seem either obtuse or very hateful and disingenuous. I've never read anything of his since this piece. |
The wolf population development has been known to exceed every prediction in Western Europe, and while it's fairly inoffensive for humans the economic consequences are much higher than most anticipated, for economic/ecologic benefits that are hard to defend. And the wolf population are still fairly low.
In my opinion maybe the money spent protecting wolves (hundreds of millions per year in Europe) would be better spent on homeless shelters and similar policies.
Still this article should remind every European of the Nazis comparing the Jewish diaspora dispersal with the historical dissemination of black and brown rats.