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Herd mentality.
The herd mentality is the mentality we’re people try to form groups of people and follow everything the herd says or that the “leader” says, and tries to stay together with people they consider similar in order to have a sense of protection. This in and of itself is a useful thing, for herd animals, like cows and steer and deer and antelope who are simply mammals with no real strong suit and sit around and eat grass all day; they herd together for protection as numbers is there best means of defense, and the easiest. We as humans have a little bit of herd instinct as we come from mammals and have a long ancestry probably many of our ancestors being herd animals. But we as humans take this to the extreme. The problem with the herd mentality in one of today’s societies is that the real problem is that we push out people and things who are different, or who are strange. What this really is an OCD manner of trying to eliminate anything that is different and while considered OCD by many that you have to push out other people from “your” group who has anything, some things that could even be considered tiny, wrong or messed up and must be a certain way, the herd kicks them out for fear of change. The only problem with that is that the groups today are highly OCD, and through the complex thought of human nature we can find and classify more and more problems with other people, that though extremely similar to ourselves we actually consider to be different. Now being kicked out of the herd is actually no big thing but as of today we make it one; oh no, now I’m losing my protection and my way to fit in. That’s what the animals thought. Now we have some sort of deeper fear because “fitting in” is the way we base our whole society. If someone can’t “fit in” then they can’t fin it with society and therefore can’t succeed at life. So we try to teach everyone.
The problem with this is mainly that everyone is forced to “fit in” and therefore must be forced to do the same exact things and while in the animal life -eat, sleep, mate, poop, grow, die- is relatively simple and hard NOT to follow in human nature we must find out more about things, and so we find more and more ways to discriminate someone. This is easy to tell by judging others by hair colors, facial features, shapes of ears, mouths, teeth, skin colors, clothes that they were, fingernails, smile they have, eye colors, skin type, facial hair. Not a day goes by were any one of us say we can’t judge someone by their facial features- we judge “pretty people” by their face and complexion and the way they look- we have ways to alter our lips and noses and cheeks and eyebrows and tips of our hair (split ends) and every other little tiny miniscule thing we can possibly think of to give a name and a reason why it’s right or wrong.
llllllll But even this is not the true problem when we face the herd mentality. The true problem is that yes, we find this tiny miniscule things, but we tell others that they have to be just like this in order to succeed at what they must do. You’ve got to “fit in” not be a nerd, wear certain clothes, act a certain way, look a certain way, in order to be in this group. The problem with everyone having to be exactly the same is that no originality arises.
Now the herd mentality can be good in certain ways. For instance, laws, morals, being intelligent, and trying to work hard and not to be lazy are all in a sense good things that the herd presses on us, in some herds, we don’t seem to like lazy people or people who generally harm others, and so it’s a good idea that this kind of pressure or at least some kind of pressure forces people to act a certain way in order to not harm others or improve themselves in a decent way, not necessarily improving themselves as person as this is not possible but more or less something that we do.
llllllllThe only problem with herd mentality nowadays is that what the herd presses on us is not exactly good things. We want everyone to be “normal”, in a sense follow the herd. However media, television, magazines, the Internet, all kinds of advertising and publicity ideas have us running after the wrong things. Being stupid, wearing certain clothes, dropping out of school, taking drugs, trying to reproduce at very young ages and then listening to music or some other form of communication which is simplistic in nature and generally tries to persuade us to act in a rather sense of the word, bad. Acting these ways is actually lowering our intelligence as humans as a whole, and dropping out of school, fighting, stealing, swearing, drinking, taking drugs, being mean, having complete disregard for others, hurting people, being stupid, and trying to make it to the big time by in the sense being an idiot is not generally raising our populations ability as a whole. Trying to be stupid is definitely not a good quality that emerges from following the herd and definitely is not a good idea to try to follow.
llllllllHowever why would anyone be stupid enough to actually try to be stupid or take a harmful drug or thing that ends up hurting themselves? It is because the herd, or society, tell them that they must or else they will be kicked out of the herd- again, the only kind of pressure, oh no I will lose my protection and only sense of success in the world.
When these things are focused on bad things, which degrade oneself and society, we end up with a problem were everyone is trying to be stupid. Everyone is following the herd mentality for their own “protection” and fear of being kicked out so everyone follows a very strict set of guidelines were they must act, look, and be a certain way or else they are kicked out. In this sense, everyone is trying to be stupid or act a certain way in order to “fit in” a very basic need of animal acceptance to be in the herd. The human element is what classifies you to be a part of the herd, and so of the fear of not being the herd you follow all the little things you are told to do so you won’t get kicked out.
llllllllPeople wanting to be in the herd are actually a part of the herd too. They want to be in, they want to be a part of the herd, and therefore make the herd feel special and like the mean something- Hey, someone wants in!- sort of idea. It’s ironic because the people constantly trying to get in but failing to get in are a part of the herd. They play their part in the herd mentality that the herd is good and so therefore the herd ways must be good and it reinforces the herd’s stupidity with some idiot ironic idea that someone else wants “in”.
The herd mentality in general isn’t bad, just the fact that now a days were are so miticulate in choosing what’s in that we make each other stupid and focus on the herd too much and lead everyone to having terrible ways. There’s also always that little nagging voice that says something is dumb of that is doesn’t fit in. It’s there. Some people say these nagging comments and don’t really realize what they’re saying or doing; their primal herd instincts take over and they tell people what isn’t right simply because they have programmed themselves to do it, many deny they have ever done such things because they do not realize that they have.
llllllllIt’s cool though because we can blame the school systems for not inducing individuality. Parents, teachers, head ministers, and councilors alike are all trying to convince everyone to “fit in” and that high school isn’t as hard as it seems. They are readily trying to convince kids that it is a good thing to be stupid and be in the herd, it makes you feel better. As a matter of fact people think there are problems with people who aren’t in the herd and send them to psychiatrists- it must be some weird problem that someone is not a part of the herd not a simple act of self-choice. And not all teachers and not all school systems but we’re we should be learning we are blocked by the herd mentality and instead of actively engaging in stopping kids from believing what everyone else thinks and forming their own opinions the school systems we have today basically cause kids to act certain ways and a major problem today is with bullying and all kind of things we’re our way to overcome this is rapidly adapt to the herd and in the end some nerd kid turns into a super cool guy who goes and turns out to be a leading example of the herd and is “cool”, or a leader, which the “leader” aspect is a purely invisible self notification that unfortunately makes people feel superior to other people (as with what the herd mentality does yes) and so they must try to compete for an invisible title of being whatever, which means absolutely nothing and is simple a waste of time on an imaginary made up idea. In truth there is no leader to a herd so do not confuse yourself- randomly following a pack of animals around and thinking yourself large is hardly what it is to be a leader and the herd simply moves around and makes up ideas which doesn’t counteract what the general starting population of the group originally tried to do. When the founders of the herd are long gone the ideas are simply to be upheld and instead of following the herd founders they simply follow their ideals, leaving no leader. Just a large group of steer to walk around and graze on the grass.
llllllllIt is funny that I am not a part of any of these herds. I am a wolf. I am a predator. I stalk, pick out, and eat each little bit of the herds I can find and pick you out and eat you alive, while your herd scuttles back together in a huddle and I eat the rest of you until your herd is nothing. I eat your steer alive. While you sit around and eat the grass around you, never picking your meals, simply eating what you see you feeding on the ground, on the dirt, whatever simply comes your way while your head is down.
llllllllMe, I pick my meals. I pick out and choose who I want to eat and when I want to eat them, choosing my food and choosing what I want and not trapped in the herd ideas. Not being of the herd people like to come over and bother me. Uggh. Annoying people. I eat you alive.
llllllllNow one may argue that wolves are in a pack. Well it’s funny to mention that sense I am the only wolf that I am a lone wolf, and while hunting my prey and looking for more wolves for my pack I simply try to find those which realize or are willing to realize that the world is a herd and that we need to break away from such thinking to improve our world. Now the pack mentality, if there is a such a thing at all, consists of people helping each other and being for a team; not being for themselves in a large group of people but being for the people around them, being with the people around, understanding the idea of an idea greater than themselves and realizing what they must do to uphold such an idea. If anything, the herd mentality is a bunch of cows sitting around eating grass, you’re really indifferent to the people around you except for that cow of another gender you might like or those couple of cows you hate.
llllllllIn the pack, people like each other more so for just things but they hunt together, work together, form something beyond material and beyond eating grass is so plentiful everywhere and work for their food together, creating a bonding experience.
Being a lone wolf, I have no pack, but the wolf idea instead of a bear is to suggest that I am capable of social endeavors and am not a hermit who goes an hides, like many of the non herd are, but that I am willing to go and reach out to people in need, to other wolves, and try to turn prey into willing predators who want to fight.
llllllllIt’s to suggest the idea that social endeavors are not bad but rather that the herd mentality is, and that trying to follow the regular curriculum of what you can and cannot do is idiotic, not that having friends or being a hermit is extremely smart, though some hermits are extremely smart as they do not follow the herd mentality (not that all hermits do not have friends though as the two should not be confused). The idea is to remove this sense of unity we have by all of us acting stupid and create and new sense of unity by all of us acting the way we want to act, and not by one someone tells us, if it’s the herd mentality so be it but if it’s not then trying to take those people and allow them to grow as the individuals like they are instead of wasting in the muck of the society we have created today.
llllllllIt is more simple to state the herd mentality is leading our society to ruin by making people follow the wrong ways and that the idea of individuality should be spread unless we want our society as a whole to collapse and for everyone on earth to die. If we do not work, war will develop and we’ll all kill each other.
llllllllThe United States is in a state of economic decline with terrorists at our doorstep and hundreds of nations hating us. As soon as they think that our economy is weak they will attack us, and, the United States still having the strongest military will attack back. The world will engage in World War Three from all of us attacking the super powers of China, Japan, Russia, Europe, and all the other places and nukes will be launched destroying most of the world. If anyone is smart they will drop an EMP and totally decimate every inner working of every nuclear rocket there is as well as their guidance system making them crap, and destroying all the technology we have developed on earth and shutting down all communication.
llllllllEither way if we either kill everyone with nukes or kill half the people and then stop us in the middle in the only way possible by destroying everything we have built then humanity will be set into a dark age and all that we have worked for will be destroyed. We will fall into another herd mentality stage with tribes and band of people who place taboos on the technology and try to go and kill everyone and make everyone follow the idea of being dumb, making our civilization have a hard long time to recover from the situation we were in and possibly never fully recover and hold all the technology we have invented.
llllllllOur second option is to change this now and make all of our children and people smart enough to think for themselves and be able to make smart, individualalized opinions which are not influenced by some invisible meaningless worthless invisible code that some idiotic social group has developed in order to stupidify people but make rational decisions and be capable of creating a better world. Dumb people constantly flunking out of school and acting stupid will not lead us out of an economic depression and cause everyone to be smart and capable of saving the world, and forced ignorance with stupidity will definitely not make us much smarter. We need to cause people to begin to question and get them to start thinking for themselves, and wonder why they do what they do and why stuff around them is happening, so we can save our world from destruction. The other option is to let everyone around us slowly die off and then fall into an economic depression were everyone kills each other and the advancements made in technology over the last 2000 years will be completely demolished and we’ll be sent back to the dark ages with a group of idiots who solely believe in the dark ages, setting the humans into a state of terrible non thinking and sending the world into a state we’re the humans beings might be able to ever recover what we have learned and developed over many years.
Herd mentality.
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- by Suicidesoldier#1 |
- Non Fiction
- | Submitted on 10/17/2008 |
- Skip
- Title: The Herd mentality
- Artist: Suicidesoldier#1
- Description: An explanation of the herd mentality, a long story but worth reading >.<
- Date: 10/17/2008
- Tags: herd mentality herdmentality life awesome
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Comments (3 Comments)
- Suicidesoldier#1 - 10/18/2008
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I agree it's long. But come on, your on gaia, your supposed to be reading stuff and you've got nothing better to do, what else ARE you going to do >.<
Nothing so reading a paper that's semi long isn't too bad, you probably read more on 5 pages in the chatterbox than this XD - Report As Spam
- LunarViolet123 - 10/18/2008
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personally i think its just too long to read and why would anyone need such a long explanation on 'The Herd Mentality'?
but 4/5 for the efforts ^_^ - Report As Spam
- Cain The Play3r - 10/18/2008
- took me like 30 mins lol but its good. 5 for your effort mrgreen
- Report As Spam