The Sheep Syndrome

Man has this amazing 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 one……the 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 people 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 buy some property in rural Turkey, just like the neighbors have bought. It is profitable to buy a three bed-roomed house in Florida, because the brochure said we could rent it back out when we don’t 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 didn’t know which way to turn.
At least four years before the turn of the century the process of panic indoctrination started and people 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 big 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 year’s 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 people the eagerness to be the same, to be an active and popular 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 people are perceived by others to be different. Neighbors may huddle and talk about the family that lives at No29 because they just don’t 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 doesn’t 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 doesn’t conform. The pregnant mother who tells the hospital staff that she doesn’t 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 daring escapade on stage with the guitar produced a horde of musicians queuing up at the local shop to buy 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 people 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 group’s 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.