Education >
Psychology
The Sheep Syndrome
Man has this incredible ability to copy, to follow, to be led or he
has a driving wish to be exactly the same as those around him.
It is called the sheep syndrome. The next door neighbors have
just got a ten speed lawnmower .. all the kids at school have
onethe dot.com bubble . fashionable/trendy .I want to
be the same ..and so on down the trail!
An immense example of misplaced sheep syndrome is the current
British mind set of buying of property in another country.
Millions of middle-class and average individuals have given over
their life savings in return for a square piece of land with a
debatable construction sitting on it, in Spain, in Cyprus,
Florida, et al! Not only have they handed over all that they
have ever had but given it in return for something that lies a
thousand miles away and that once the excitement has worn off
will become a costly burden that is visited only twice a year,
if that! Yet, it is fashionable; it is the sensible thing to
do, to purchase some property in rural Turkey, just like the
neighbors have bought. It is profitable to purchase a three
bed-roomed house in Florida, because the brochure said we could
rent it back out when we dont use it! The agent said that the
price is inclusive and so it goes on, each prospective buyer
convinced that it is a wise thing to do in life and nobody
saying otherwise because it is the trend, the sheep syndrome in
action!
Another large example of man following man was the YK2 period of
disaster prediction! Somebody casually observed that computer
clocks might not cope with the change over to the new millennium
because nobody had thought about it before, despite the fact
that it was only a couple of years away! So what happened was a
mad panic and had somebody said boo in a rather large voice
stampedes would have occurred, cities would have evacuated
themselves and wars would have started. But what happened was
that rumors and counter rumors spread like wildfire, rivers of
possible scary scenarios ricocheted around the world and the
public became so infused with impending disaster they just
didnt know which way to turn.
At least four years before the turn of the century the process
of panic indoctrination started and individuals rapidly became
suffused with fear. The US government set up a command center at
an initial cost of 50 million dollars to cope with the impending
crisis and throughout it all computer geeks and companies made
fortunes as they set up Y2K software companies and became solemn
experts on the subject! Billions of Dollars, Pounds, Dong, etc.
was spent on new equipment that had stickers plastered all over
them that read, I am Y2K compliant, and power station night
security guards lied without embarrassment to have their night
off starting on the 31st December!
Planes were going to fall out of the sky at midnight. Russian
missiles were going to arm themselves, to shoot across the
oceans and to land in the middle of Sunset Boulevard! And lights
would just switch off, water would stop coming out of the taps
and bank machines would never again issue another note simply
because the enormous hand could not quite get past the top of the
hour!
The end of the world is nigh.
When the actual turning point came, nothing astounding or
untoward happened! Planes did not collide in mid-air, nuclear
explosions from the local power station did not light up the
night skies and little aliens with green heads did not land to
take over the world! The only real tremors and aftershocks felt
were a direct result of the panic build-up of previous. Those
who had stockpiled food in their underground bunkers had years
worth of baked beans to work through; those who had stockpiled
goods suddenly found out that their life savings were now
invested in a worthless pile of batteries, torches and gas lamps
that nobody really wanted anymore. Banks had problems on Monday
morning as customers queued up to re-open closed accounts (money
withdrawn because banks vaults would never open again) and
portable bunker rental firms found it difficult to cope as their
goods were returned in quick order!
All the sheep should have felt very sheepish indeed but true to
form, and because everybody was in the same boat they just found
other sheep trails to follow.
The sheep syndrome is very much a deep rooted fear of being
different, of being the odd man out, to be an outcast of a
certain group whether it is social, work or family! This fear is
ingrained from birth, so deeply that for most the knowledge of
its existence is not known. For most individuals the eagerness to be
the same, to be an active and well-liked member of a group
overrides any thought as to why they really want this and thus
the fear is pushed and kept far away and dusty in the nether
regions of the mind. From the day that we are born the
conditioning starts. Parents give to their children what other
children of that age group have, for these children in turn to
want what those other children have and in time to give their
very own offspring what they feel that they should have. As
humans we tend to operate and guide ourselves through the maze
of life by copying, following and fitting in, our sole guide
being what is around us. We tend not to step outside of the
circle that we are in, we tend not to think alone or to act
differently because of that simple deep rooted fear of being
cast aside or ignored.
In some limited cases individuals are perceived by others to be
different. Neighbors may huddle and talk about the family that
lives at No29 because they just dont fit in with the street as
a whole. But the family at No29 has another agenda to follow,
they forsake the street circle for another social or work
group to which they will fit in very well and will thus be
sheep, tied to that group for their ideologies and trends.
There is a debatable 1% of society that manages to be different
and for them life is not so easy. The man who decides that he
doesnt want to drive a car, yet works as a car mechanic might
be viewed as weird by the rest of the world. He would also find
it totally impossible to find suitable employment in that field
even though he is the best mechanic available. He just doesnt
conform. The pregnant mother who tells the hospital staff that
she doesnt want a scan of her infant will be talked about in
hushed whispers by the nurses and doctors, treated at a distance
simply because she does not want that which is prescribed by an
establishment. But researching these acts of stand alone
behavior may at first glance seem worthy but deep down the sheep
syndrome will rear its ugly head. The mechanic who refuses to
drive might be an outcast amongst all other mechanics, with his
wife, neighbors, etc. but he will probably be a sheep of another
social group. He might be a member of the local cycling club, a
member of Greenpeace or the anti-car society! The pregnant
mother who refuses the scan may not be so alone after all as
back home is a mother and family that fully supports her
decision.
True individualism is hard if not impossible to find. At first
glance little acts of transgression do surface especially
amongst those who can afford to be different, who have the power
or position to ward off the sneers and snide remarks that are
synonymous with stand-alone behavior. Pop stars, actors and
politicians. The singer who first smashed his guitar on stage
did something unusual, yet he left that stage and snorted drugs
and abused groupies just like the rest of his social group does.
The actress who first bared her breasts on screen stepped
outside of acceptable moral behavior, yet afterwards she
returned to her mansion and the party that she was hosting. The
conservative politician that dared to suggest that he liked to
buy organic food went home to his three-up two-down detached
house where his wife and 2.3 kids awaited his return.
Individualism takes courage even if it is only a minute
transgression away from that which is deemed acceptable. But
what is notable about the 1% of society who transgresses briefly
is that their small wayward behavior breeds in time to become
fully acceptable behavior. That one crazy escapade on stage
with the guitar produced a horde of musicians queuing up at the
local shop to purchase spare guitars and the actress who bared her
breasts soon found out that every other actress was romping
naked and that she had been left behind. Oh, and that politician
that had mentioned organic food soon found himself at the back
of a very large queue at the local organic greengrocers.
The true individual who does something that is far-and-away
outside of the normal, that is not a copycat of any social or
work group and that is unknown or just plain different finds
life very hard indeed. Words are bandied around like hermit or
recluse. Prodigal sons and black sheep flit around followed by
scowls and hushed words and the more different these individuals are
the harder they find it to exist. Generally everybody has to
follow or be part of a social group just to be able to survive
even if at the very least the groups main existence is to be
different. Simply by joining the be different group its
members are conforming simply through agreeing to be different.
The only real individuals who are totally and independently
different are those who are dead or live in isolation wards at
the local mental hospital.
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Article Source: http://articles.directorygold.com
About the author:
Author and Webmaster of Seamania. As a Chief Engineer
in the Merchant Navy he has sailed the world for fifteen years.
Now living in Taiwan he writes about cultures across the globe
and life as he sees it
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Keywords:
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