The Herd

I extended the term herd from Chomsky’s comment regarding US policy in his book “How the World Works.” Whilst he was referring to the political herd I’ve included this and made it deeper into a psychological and political herd. What he applied externally, politically, I turned inwardly to our herdish inner world.

Chomsky, (2011) said:
Modern “democratic theory” takes the view that the role of the public-the “bewildered herd,” in Lippman’s words-is to be spectators, not participants. They’re supposed to show up every couple of years to ratify decisions made elsewhere, or to select among representatives of the dominant sectors in what’s called an “election”. That’s helpful because it has a legitimising effect.

Democracy is effective when it allows ordinary people the meaningful opportunity to take part in the formation of public policy. Increasingly today ordinary people do feel like the bewildered herd, yet few take the position that this is wrong, but rather just accept that this experience is in fact democracy at it ‘is’.

But that is democracy & what of the world in general? When I was a student I drove Taxi’s for extra income. I learnt a lot! For one thing I was always trying to get to the destination asap. There were two goals; keep the wheels moving & keep the meter turning. At traffic lights I was amazed how many people were on the end of line-ups & I would sail through in the inside lane where there was noone! This puzzled me it was like they thought “well everyone else is in this line it must be good”? The thing I learned was never sit on ranks. As soon as I sat, my mind also sat. I let jobs go past rather than risk losing my position on the rank. Rot sets in. Be the solitary adventurer-it’s not scary its actually more fun!~ The wheels are moving.