Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, May 15, 2008 4:10:15 PM
Has there ever been a more arrogant sentence than one starting "The sheep..." Whether it is a liberal complaining about the War in Iraq or a conservative complaining about McCain, I have a tendency to tune out once the word "sheep" appears.
To anyone who writes about "sheep" I have to ask, what makes you so special?
I am sorry to burst the bubble of every blogger, pundit and other who looks down on the "sheep", but most of the world is just like you. And, if you drop your arrogant attitude, you are a lot more like the rest of the world than you admit.
We all follow the herd to one degree or another. In many cases simply because the herd is right. Wearing clothes is functional, holding a job is functional, many things that could be classified as "conformism" make sense. So we all conform to some degree. But to the "individualist" who sneers at the sheep, their conformism is rational, while any conformism they don't like is just "mindless".
The one thing they fail to realize is that people who do something with which they disagree may not be "mindless conformists", maybe they just disagree. For example, while I think cross over voting did have something to do with McCain's victory, it is quite possible that the majority of the Republican party simply disagrees with my views and voted in McCain. That means we disagree, but not that they are "sheep".
It used to be the province of the young, this claim that anyone with which they disagreed was a "sheep", but sadly it seems older and older individuals are infected with this strain of arrogance.
I would just remind those who scoff at the sheep, though you may not realize it, there is someone out there who is calling you a sheep as well.
POSTSCRIPT
Just to make sure I wasn't making a fool of myself, I searched my blog for the word "sheep". Much to my chagrin I did find it once.
Fortunately,
in context, I think it is acceptable:
Think of it this way: Imagine you are Mrs. Canaanite, and Mr. Canaanite
tells you and Baby Canaanite that he is going off to war. Now would you
rather he were fighting the Pharaoh or Moses and his crew, who have
been told by G-d to slaughter not just Mr. Canaanite, but also you,
Baby Canaanite, your sheep, and maybe your house plants?
It is nice to find out you didn't stick your foot in your mouth.