It occurred to me today that it’s pretty damn frustrating when the crowd isn’t worth following.

My son is learning to drive, and while this has come with its own set of frustrations for his mother and me (an upcoming blog post, for sure), it has also allowed for us to have a different window into the the kind of person that he is and how he interacts with others.

A perfect example of this is my son’s frustration with other drivers and to what extent those drivers are, or are not, following the traffic rules. Having recently learned the rules, via Driver’s Education, my son is ultra-aware of what other drivers are doing and whether or not they are doing what they ought.

Now, admittedly, the vast majority of today’s drivers fall on a middle ground between A) a rigid adherence to all traffic laws, and B) a reckless abandon of safety and concern. My son, fresh out of driving school, has not found his way to the middle of the road yet.

Yesterday, he was getting frustrated with the number of people who were passing him and/or tailgating him. This regularly happens, because my son, who believes that the traffic rules are holy laws from up above, tends to obey speed limits in an unyielding fashion –unlike most people (including me). Earlier in the week, he got angry when someone honked at him, from behind, for taking his time making a turn off of the road.

And so, I explained to my son yesterday that people don’t follow the rules or obey the speed limits with the same loyalty that he does. I told him that he can continue to expect that, as long as he is following the rules of the road, people around him that don’t follow the rules are going to behave differently.

And then, I got to thinking…

…about sheep.

* * *

Someone called me a sheep on Facebook about a month ago –or maybe it was two; hard to keep track these days– because I was talking about wearing a face mask in public and that I thought it was the right thing to do. This person, who deserves to be nameless in this recollection, tried convincing me that I was just a follower and that I was only doing it because I was being made to do it by “the man”.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I don’t know if you know much about sheep, but they are dumb. They wander off, getting themselves into trouble, getting lost, and then they wind up in need of a shepherd.

Sometimes, that definitely describes me.

But, more often than not, I think a lot about the decisions I’m making and the choices that lie before me. Anyone who really knows me knows that I tend to overthink things, as a matter of fact. But, because I was making a choice that this person on Facebook thought was the wrong one, I was the sheep.

This idea, at least in my mind, is related to the concept of herd mentality, also referred to in social psychology as mob mentality, in which people tend to do what it is that other people around them are doing, just because everyone else is doing it, without much regard to the thought that should accompany all of our decisions to act.

I think you see a lot of herd mentality going on in the world these days, and the people who would prefer to think before taking action are becoming a rare breed. Additionally, introducing a layer of complexity that muddies the waters, there are many herds who seem to be rising up to offer individuals the comfort of having a group of people to follow in whatever behavior the group decides to espouse.

If you have any trouble thinking of an example of such groups working in our society these days, I’ll give you a hint: donkeys and elephants. If you’ve been paying any attention to the donkeys and the elephants lately, things are –or maybe they’ve long been this way– starting to get nasty. And this behavior, really all behavior where groups of people get nasty with other groups of people, reminds me of Bertrand Russell.

Bertrand Russell, one of the preeminent thinkers of the twentieth century, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1950), wrote about herd mentality; “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”

I’ve been noticing a lot of “ferocity” lately.

* * *

My son’s frustrations with the fact that people just don’t seem to obey traffic laws like they should is a reminder to me that I am often frustrated by the world and its failure to abide by certain previously agreed upon codes. I think that at least part of the frustration is that people who follow the rules don’t seem to get anything for doing so, while those who don’t follow the rules only rarely seems to draw any reproof.

Truly though, the strength that is necessary for anyone to make a decision to act contrary to what the rest of the world is doing, is a strength that has to come from within, even if that decision is simply a decision to follow the rules when no one else seems to be.

I think every parent has, at some point or another, encouraged their children to fight against the herd mentality approach to life with the world-famous, “Would you set yourself on fire/throw yourself off of a bridge/jump off of a cliff just because everybody else was doing it?!?!” argument. I know I have.

And, I’m actually proud of my son for following the rules when no one else seems to be. I hope he continues that throughout his whole life.