Over and over again I arrive at the conclusion that Americans are increasingly turning into cattle. Like mindless four legged beasts, citizens of the United States trot along aimlessly in pursuit of the common necessities in life. With the media and politicians posing as the ever present shepherds of stability, the American public more closely resembles a flock of sheep than a population of innovators. The Herd Mentality has infiltrated all sectors of American culture in recent years. No facet of our society has been spared by the pervasive spirit of conformity. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt have caused millions of people to void their minds of rational thought in favor of pack leadership. For this reason, the Bush Administration was able to win 2 elections based on the scare tactics of gay marriage and terrorism. Furthermore, Americans casually shrugged their shoulders as the Bush Doctrine gave way to a dangerous, undemocratic dictatorship. As I watched W address the nation recently and emphasize the haste that is needed to confront the current financial crisis, I couldn't help but to hope that my fellow Americans would awaken from their zombiesque state and say "$700 Billion Dollars to bailout corrupt corporations?! Aww, hell nah! Where is my dang bailout?" But to my dismay, every news station continued to push the angle that the bailout was a good idea and necessary to prevent the Great Depression II. Even the Democratic Party seems to have fallen for another one of Bush's gaffes. You would think that after listening to this doof on Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Patriot Act that people would probably have sense enough to know that anything this Administration endorses needs to be examined threefold. But Herd Mentality prevails...
I ran across a recent article that amazingly confirmed my theory head on. Apparently there is actually someone out there known as a neuroeconomist (mind on his money, or money on his mind?) that conducted an experiment to prove why we indeed are in a current state of jockin-my-stylism. Gregory Burns, a professor at Emory University
Did an experiment in which they recruited actors and true volunteers. "One
real subject went into a (MRI) scanner," he said. They were asked to do a simple
task, assessing shapes."We had the group (of actors) tell them the wrong answer
sometimes," Berns said. The volunteers began to change their answers to match
what the group said. Perhaps they were merely overriding their own judgments for
the sake of getting along, Berns said. But the scanner suggested another
explanation.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080930/lf_nm_life/us_financial_psychology)
So apparently most humans are hard wired to follow the herd, no matter how retarded that may seem, during times of chaos and distress (umm financial crisis, etc.). I guess this also explains why every Hip Hop and R&B artist has to either slang rocks or use a vocoder to sell records these days (wow, it all makes sense now, LMAO!).
Fortunately, we homosapiens are smart enough to do the opposite of what our body's really want us to do. So from this day forth I urge you to declare war on Herd Mentality. It will get you nowhere far in life. Unless of course you enjoy stepping in your fellow cow's dung (or in the case of male's, bulls**t). In the words of my mama "Be a leader, not a follower!"
