I hear stupid sayings all the time. I mean, come on, who hasn't heard someone complain at how drastically different two siblings are, particularly if one has landed in jail and the other is a rocket scientist, and that they just can't understand how the two are so different? Well, we can obviously consider the source. Most of the time it's someone who hasn't had kids or has one. It's a stupid saying nonetheless. I mean most of these people have siblings themselves, and please, no two siblings are completely alike. Of course, stupid sayings aside, people in general seem to be more and more likely to say stupid things like they are facts. Another stupid saying is "people are like sheep". First of all, people that say it are usually insinuating that people are stupid, and sheep are not actually stupid. Recent studies have proven that sheep are extremely emotional and intelligent creatures. Yet, because of their extreme herding instinct, they tend to follow each other around regardless of whether it's the smart thing to do or not. Their failure to act independently is what makes people assume they are stupid.
Still, you've got to be scratching your head at this point, why is their herding instinct that strong? Well, sheep have figured out that if the herd squishes together (yes, squishes) that the majority of the herd will be safe against predators. A pack of wolves will only be able to pick off the outer edges of the herd and the predators will only take what they need to survive, not the whole herd. Yes, sounds a little stupid as a human being who has the capability to think for ourselves. I mean afterall, why don't they protect themselves and fight back? Then consider what would they fight back with? Their wool?!?! They don't have hands, guns, knives, or any other way a human being might ward off such an attack. They don't have teeth, claws or even the body frame to ward off a predator like a wolf or mountain lion. So, instinct might have nothing to do with it. It might simply be common sense. If you have no way to protect yourself, the mass should circle and tighten its ranks in hopes that only a couple will be picked off from the outside. Doesn't sound so stupid now, does it?
In fact, in England they've created metal grids that hurt hoofs to prevent sheep from entering the Yorkshire Moors. Apparently the sheep can do damage to the Moors and so some smart human thought this up to keep the stupid sheep out. Turns out people have witnessed sheep laying on the ground and rolling over 8 feet over the metal grid to the Moors. Turns out the stupid sheep figured out that they could use their wooly blankets on their bodies to protect themselves from the grid and roll over to the finer grasses of the Moors. They've also proven that sheep can recognize about 50 different sheep from each other (don't ask me how--some scientist has a lot of time on his/her hands). These stupid sheep can also "remember" things from 2 years earlier. Go figure, although frankly I'd be more impressed if the scientists told us they could remember a decade. But hey, two years definately proves that sheep aren't entirely "stupid". In addition, they've proven that most sheep recognize a leader in their group and there are now overtures that sheep may breed the "leaders" of the group (studies are inconclusive and only on one breed so far that I could find). So, turns out that stupid sheep aren't so stupid afterall.
Ok, well, then is it fair to say "people are like sheep"? I mean we use the term in a derogatory frame to insult the masses of people that seem to follow "like sheep". In honesty, we may be insulting the sheep. People that follow whatever they hear from other people and that are easily led may not be like sheep at all. The sheep do the herding thing for survival and self-preservation. Human beings certainly don't have to be following blindly what they hear without verifying the information that they have heard. Sheep don't actually follow blindly either. They have "leaders", but either by grooming or breeding, or both for that matter, they choose who they follow. So the idea that someone follows someone for only what they've heard from others may not be fair to the sheep. Sheep may or may not be able to communicate, but they're smart enough to think on their own and get over a metal grid designed to keep them out. Was it one sheep that figured it out and the rest saw and just followed? Perhaps, and in that case, well, then yes, people could be like sheep. One is smarter than the rest and the rest of the sheep follow. However, again, we don't mean it like that when we say it. We assume all the sheep are stupid. Therefore the leadersheep (hahaha...) is assumed to be as dumb as the rest of the sheep. Again, it's an insult to the sheep. An average sheep herd apparently is 70. Seventy is like a commune--not a country or planet of human beings. Seventy could be compared to Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the Jim Jones group. One leader and a bunch of stupid "sheep". But the reality is that the sheep will not likely follow another sheep off a cliff as eluded to in old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Even the sheep seem to think about whether that other sheep is stupid or not. So comparing the Waco or Jim Jones groups to sheep would be unfair.
More recently, the media has been leading most of us around by our noses. People in the middle, well, we're becoming an oddity rather than the norm. Polarization of the United States population over politics has reached an all time high. Really. The last time the country was this polarized ironically was when Lincoln was President. The middle of the road really wasn't interested in freeing the slaves. It's a fact that only wealthy country club types were interested in freeing the slaves. It's amazing how much easier it is in a human society to be outside of the norm if you are on top financially. Seriously. Most suffragettes were in fact from extremely well to do families. Who else could afford to be arrested and be bailed out? Have an attorney to represent them? Who else could speak their minds a little more freely than "spoiled" little daddys' girls? The "sheep"? Even sheep would probably recognize that we have an obligation to protect the whole, but in that day and age, only the priviledged had the ability to change anything.
So, the real question is now who is protecting our interests? If we take on that herd mentality, then the middle, the majority is protected by the outskirts of our populace. The problem is that we are not sheep. We aren't a small herd that has no way to defend ourselves or our thoughts. We are a large masse of various types--millions of people are in a conglomeration of one. All alike and yet all very different. We are not a herd. We are capable of picking up a book and reading, expanding our minds, and in that alone, each and everyone of us is capable of figuring out how to roll across the metal grid. We can decide to be different, because in reality in the big picture, we are all one. Like sheep, we used to have families of leaders and leadership. Kings and Queens, then families that were bound by their forefathers to service and leadership. The Adams were one of the first families to be bound to service of this great nation. The Gores and Bushes are a very keen example of that today. It is not uncommon for families to have generation after generation to have served in the military. The pride of service expands to our young. It is not that our children are "sheep", but that we are thinking and contemplating which leads us to wish to emulate that which we most respect. Yet, many of us don't consider how to not be this term used so incorrectly: "sheep". It is our responsibility given the great and wonderful gifts of thinking minds that can accumulate knowledge over decades and still remember and use it years later to think of ourselves as individuals that have the ability, the gifts and talents to exact knowledge that will benefit the whole.
I've heard people say over and over that they don't talk religion or politics. There's a slew of reasons that they give-- they don't want to argue or get into it. How far have we devolved? We are not "sheep". The only way that we expand is by learning and no single one of us could possibly take in everything--every newspaper article, every news reel, every book, every subject known to man--and then crunch it out for the perfect answer. Yet, when we start a conversation with someone we disagree with, many will start attacking the person for simply disagreeing. This isn't even sheep-like behavior. Sheep don't growl at each other and attack. That is not human behavior either. It's predatory, wolf like. If you can't listen to another opinion without cutting down the "opposition" with predatory behavior, then you've left the human race. Wolves live in a pack like mentality where only the alpha dog has any say. It is not sheep behavior, and it's unfair to call it "following like sheep". It's a violent nature and it's not what we are--or at least shouldn't be.
Human beings, we like to think we are on the top of the heap--whether we want to place the appreciation for this on a God or supreme being or just by our own egos. We like to insult the sheep, but it's not the sheep that we are acting like. It's the wolves. Ask yourself next time you assume that you are right, are you? Are you acting like a sheep? Seems like they're a gentle nature animal that apparently is capable of thinking. Or are you in fact acting like you joined the "popular" pack and as a wolf in the larger pack are thereby obsolved of all bad behavior--more like a "dog eat dog"? I don't like that one either...Dogs don't actually eat their own. They're not cannibals, but we "sheep" might be.
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