Further thoughts on Sheep - and what the clown says...

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The dear old Clown asks "What is wrong with people?"

He'll like this quote from de Tocqueville:

"It is vain to summon a people who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity."

...and I guess Fromm's take on all this is also relevent:

"Authority is not a quality one person "has," in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him."

We act as sheep because we desire to be sheep. Or not as the case may be?

And, if we stand alone? Proudly saying we won't flock? What happens? Ah, yes - that flock gets together attacks us, condemns us for difference. The flock may even break off from doing down another flock long enough to cast the lone ram out into the wilderness or worse still to pen that independent beast up safely away from any corruption that might come from actually thinking differently.

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