Since when did we become a society of lemmings? As in those little fur-bearing herbivores that purportedly commit mass suicide. Lemmings which have become the metaphor for people who go along unquestioningly with popular opinion, often with potentially dangerous or fatal consequences.
In the quarter of a century that I’ve lived in The Woodlands, I have never seen such a group of lemmings, (actually referred to as a ‘slice of lemmings’) as those trundling into the polls with pre-marked ballots in hand. I dare say that many didn’t even wait for the newspapers to print the candidates’ credentials. They took their marching orders from someone who probably didn’t bother to ask them how they stood on community issues, and what their major concerns were.
I personally witnessed individuals shoving ballots in the spouses’ faces and saying, “Here’s who you vote for.” As if they are not entitled to think for themselves. How can you devalue your significant other that way? What happened to freedom of choice in this country?
What I don’t understand is how the previous anti-establishment generation produced a generation that succumbs to an establishment dictating what they should think, what’s in their best interest, and how they should vote. It’s truly a paradox.
Are we too preoccupied that we can’t take the time to meet the candidates? Have we become so complacent that we’ll let someone else dictate how we should vote? Has our civilization evolved to the point of groupthink? A phenomenon that results in the loss of individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking. History is paved with civilizations that submitted to groupthink, and they were usually short-lived. Case in point…Nazi Germany goose-stepped into oblivion behind Adolph Hitler.
The consequences are that we find ourselves aligned with people who don’t truly share our values, who have hoodwinked us into compromising our ethics, and who never really had our best interests at heart. It’s simply become a grab for power using whatever tactics possible. What’s worse than the backroom deals, the covert emails, and purported threats, is a community taking a ‘slice of lemming’ with its tea.
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