Boris Johnson resigned as UK Prime Minister. I’m not here to debate whether that was a right or wrong move. I will say that his resignation speech was interesting. To me, at least. Maybe a few others.
In his speech, he noted some of his accomplishments. He did have some major wins and moved the needle on a few things. At the end though, some of his personal failings did him in. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get his party to stick with him. But some had enough. I’m overly simplifying the narrative in order to get to his resignation speech. And, who hasn’t thought of such a thing? Whether it was in fantasies or nightmares.
What struck me was his reference to herd mentality. As a psychologist, that has always fascinated me. He noted that the herd mentality was strong and when it moves, it moves. At the root of herd mentality, is that when individuals are affected by mob mentality, they may make different decisions than they would have individually. People can be influenced by others in such a way that their own individual rationale or understanding of right and wrong is subsumed.
If you ask me, herd mentality is everywhere and in every facet of our lives these days. And, that is frustrating, annoying, and somewhat scary in terms if what it means for us all. Workplaces are taken over, more and more readily, by such thought contagion. Social networks of friends can get infected and destroyed from the inside. Even families. Many point to the influence of social media. And, surely it is part of the equation. Yet, there’s more to it than that. The time is now, apparently, for such thinking whether right or wrong. I’m not casting judgment just noting a movement, of sorts. And, we would be justified in pausing and maybe (un)herding. Yes, I think I made up that term. Well, it’s probably out there already. So be it. Just unherd.
Categories: Culture, current events, identity, mental health, Psychology, society
psychologistmimi 
SMiLes Miriam
Social-Animal
Is One Word and
‘Normally’ One Feeling
One Sense ToGeTHeR
‘Normally’ Impossible
For Social-Animals Now
to Break Apart Removing
The Social Just Wild And Free Alone
More Like A Tiger in the Wild Yet They
Still Make Biscuits Warm On Mother’s Breast
And Feral Smaller
Cats are Felt and
Sensed to Be Reformed
As Once Wild Cats of the Hunt
Glued to my Wife’s Lap For That
Same Warmth of Making Biscuits
on Mother’s Breast That Removes All
Fear and
Yes Surely
Depression too…
True i Saw That Once
Wild Hunter With A Squirrel
Almost As Large As Him As A
Youngster Feral of the Woods i
Saw His Lightening Fast Dash Across
The Fence When my Eyes met His Yet True
Then Came a Drought And A Cry for Anything to
Drink at All Under Our Shed And Then Came A Morsel
of Food and Another And Another Soon To Be A Lap Cat
of Comfort in my Wife’s Lap Which Gives me Some Hope For Reforming
Humankind
So Cold
So Aloof
So Many
Have Come to Be
Ending Their Lives
With Only An Ice Cold
Grip on A Big Gun And
Taking Others With them
As They Went to A Place
Where Even Demons Fear to Tread
True it’s almost impossible to Understand Until
One Becomes the Truly Living Dead Unplugged
From All Warm Human Connections Smiles While
Neo is a Cool Story i’ll Stay Hybrid and Enjoy a Cat
and Dog’s World Free to Explore With Sails Again and
Free to Remain With Anchors Secure of Warmth in Tradition too
At Least Enough to Fit in Rome When i Leave the Countryside of Wild
And Eden Free Smiles my First Fascination in ‘Group Feel’ as that’s Really What’s
It’s About As Charlie Chaplain’s ‘Great Dictator’ Speech Shows As Long As Ya Can
Rouse the Togetherness Warm And ExubeRant of A Crowd Source It Doesn’t Really Matter
What DarKness or LiGHT is used in Common Symbols And Ideologies For it is the Essence of
The Feelings
And Senses
Together That
Bonds And Binds
The Newest Religion,
CuLTuRE, Society, Group-Think,
Matrix or Whatever Metaphor One May
Care to Use to Describe Human Nature
That is Classically Evolved And Plastically
Evolves Day-to-Day Through Changing Cultures
in Terms of What Bonds and Binds For All Symbols
And Ideologies That We Continue to Co-Create And Change
Oh Lord the Speed of That Change Has accelerated Almost to the
Point of No Return of Human Understanding of Where We Even Stand or Fall
As A Species Now surely Well ‘Behind’ the ‘PayGrade’ Of Intellect and Art of
The Common Human Holding Hands ‘Listening’ INTENTLY IN TERMS OF
EMOTIONS SHARED THAT MAKE ACTIONS HAPPEN NEXT FOR REAL
FOR whoever may
be making the Next
Common Bonding and
Binding Way of New Symbols
And Ideologies in the Next Great
Dictator Speech as that Applies to
Freedom And Safety And Overall Human Surviving and Thriving
And True When i Lost an Ability to Even Feel the Warmth of a Cat
Or A memory if i ever smiled Before as Pain And Stress Enough Over
a Number of years at Levels That Are Acute Will Basically Slowly Destroy
All Bodily Systems from Head to Toe Particularly as A REAL CANARY IN A
COAL MINE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM LIKE me in Yes Accommodating
Social Stress That For most Comes All Natural and Stays That Way for most
ACross A Lifespan for Real Yet it’s True The Coal Mine is Even More Complex and
Removed
From What
Was Once More
Than Bowling Alone
in 13.3 Screen Offices these
days, day-to-day with so much
of the Human-Kind Experience Left Behind
It Started With Email And Continues to Separate That Way…
Yet It’s True Humans Will Find a Way to Find Their Way Back
So Surprised i Was online in Autism Spectrum Communities Born
Online Again Just Trying to get My Mind off the Suicide Disease Second-to-
Second Starting on Thanks Giving Day of 2010 To Find A Whole Group of People
Who Were Stereotyped to Be Immune to the Fallings of ‘Group Think’ That Social
Animals Naturally Do For Togetherness Yet It’s true immune They Were Not As They
Developed A Conspiracy Theory Just Another Big Lie As We Currently See With the ‘Trump
Meme’ And Yes Long Held Tradition(s) That All Loving, Merciful, Forgiving Gods Torture Their
Enemies they Love Forever And In Some Cases Grow New Skins to Torture Them Even More in
Burning
Ways of
Suffering
Just Never
Ending As if We
Need a Worse Villain
Than That in Any World For Real…
Anyway Their ‘Big Lie’ was the ‘Autism Speaks
Organization’ Was Conspiring to Rid the World
of Autistic Folks in Some ‘Nazi’ Eugenic Way
And They Were Just As Attached to That Theory
As Folks are to ‘Trump’s Theories’ and Religion
That Tortures Folks Forever Unless One Will
Translate Myths into Reality For What Happens
For Real in the DarK Nights of the Human Soul
That No Longer Connect to Anything At All That Feels Human
There is Already Enough Hell in the World Yet Humans Continue to
Develop New Ways of Fresh Hell and The Good News Still is Fresh Heaven too
Sadly Humans Who Cannot Feel Oxytocin Connections of Warm Human And Other
Social Animal Classic Organic Love Are More Pre-Disposed to the Dopamine and
Adrenaline Addictions that come With Bonding and Binding Over Anger And Hate
Ripe They Are For
A Special Hell
Kind of Dictator
And Where Does it Start
With Big Daddy’s Who Demand
Boys Don’t Cry or Smile For No Reason
We Still Hear Them Yelling At Their Sons
in The Neighborhood This Way It is Truly
Still A Bible-Belt Tradition for the Parent
Who Tortures the Child as Just Another
Religion So Cold And Harsh Preparing
Another Son to Die in Some Unwarranted War
In the Name of God and Peace And Freedom
As What Justification is There to Kill Hundreds
of Thousands of Innocent Folks ThiS Way As Tradition
By God It’s True Live By Love or Die By The Sword Not Much Has Changed…
Choose Our Traditions Wisely or Not For How We Cut Others Down We Shall Fall…
A Fascinating Subject i Could Write 10.6 MiLLioN Words About ‘This Condition’ So i Just Did it…
And As Far As ‘The Psychology Field’ Goes No One in that Field Could Even Explain to me that
i Lost the Oxytocin
Biology Required
to Feel the Warmth
of A Cat And The Feeling
of Warmth Behind A Smile Shared
All They Could Do is Throw Pills
That Helped With Serotonin, Dopamine,
And Adrenaline at me Yet They Had No
Clue That i Was
Just Another
Kitty Cat
So far
Removed
From Mother’s
Breast And Lost
It’s True i Was Ready for
the Hunt and Kill Yet i Still
Had the Morals of A Kitten Warm And True…
i’ll Tell You This Much if ‘They’ Knew Where the
Human Soul Will Go There Wouldn’t Be Any Assault
Weapons Left on Any Shelves to Buy And Indeed ‘They’ Are
Finding Out as There Are Many Canaries in the ‘Coal Mine’
Who Don’t Recover…
Either The Village
Raises a Child
Of
Love
Or ‘They’ Do Not…
My Mother Did Her
Job Truly Enough Felt to Eventually Thrive Again…
Nah, Mama’s Don’t Raise Your Boys to Drown in Tears of Beers…
of a ‘Bible Belt’ County Here… Or the Meth Labs With The Suicidal
Additives Up in the Northern part of a ‘Bible Belt’ County even
More challenging… Yes
Forcing Women Now
To Bring Even
More Children
Into That ‘Mississippi, Texas, Etcetera,
And Even ‘LA’ Lower Alabama World of Hell…
As Always Be Careful What We Wish for Or Else…
i Surely Don’t Have Any Answers Other than Heaven
Works When
it Does…
for
me
at least…
-A Canary
Who Ain’t Going Back…
Yet i’m Not Fooling Myself
Public Dance Isn’t Gonna Catch On
And Even If it Did They Would ‘Outlaw’
It As Not Everyone Would Avoid Running Into Other Folks
And As Far As Long Form Poetry Goes if You Really Wanna Do
Neo And ‘The Others’ As Mythologized Through History You Become too
Big to See
And You
Don’t Compete
For Anything Anyone
Else Wants to Buy or Sell…
It’s True Hehe It’s Impossible
to Be Canceled This Way in More than one way hehe…
And As Far As The Public Dance GoeS AGAiN Don’t Harm
Anyone A Best advice
ever indeed
to continue
to Survive
And Thrive
Together Be
Free Just Don’t
Harm Anyone else Doing it For Real…
And The Reality is Without Technology
For Support Using it As Tool and Not Being
Mastered By it; Without a Country That Really
Does support Life, Liberty, And the Pursuit of Both
Group and Individual Happiness too; Without ‘FDR’ And
Unions Supporting Government Pensions to Free Someone
From the Almighty
God of Dollar Bills;
Just Another Starving
Artist Yet It’s True Heaven
Really Is Possible in These Days Still For Real Even Together
That And This Much is Real And Not Just A ‘Present Danger’…:)
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Yes, indeed, somewhat impossible to break apart. A little bit scary
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Indeed it is…
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The rub against herd mentality is also a good thing. It’s one of the great sources of our individuation.
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Herd mentality is the origin of the echo chamber and the social bubble. There was a survey by a reputable group that indicated a majority of Americans had changed their stated beliefs in order to fit in better with their social group.
I think the internet makes this sort of thing much easier and it is the source of our extreme polarization today. Fifty years ago politicians had to appeal to the middle because the country’s political leaning was a Bell curve distribution. This was encouraged by media that only had a few national outlets.
Today it is multiple Bell curves. Everybody gets to have a media source that caters to what they already want to believe. Then clustering into internet bubbles further reduced the variability one would normally see. The left-right paradigm is now a two humped camel instead of one and each of those is a cluster of single interest groups around the political party that pays lip service to them.
We only have a two party system still because the system is designed as winner take all. Minor parties don’t have much of a chance in it.
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to herd or not to herd. It typically happens without trying. Not unheard of.
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Haha. Unheard of indeed 😉
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I’ve always hated herds – it doesn’t help when you’re one of the odd ones who doesn’t fit in.
Herds scare me. Maybe they’re good when a lion is going after your pod of gazelles, and those who move quickly are more likely to survive, but I see only the potentially damaging side of mobs and masses.
Though I would have loved to be at the Women’s March on Washington, and a few other group events, the majority have such potential for exploding that I always feel unsafe, am always looking for the little corners where I could hide if things go sour. I don’t think you can get rid of that feeling.
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I’m with you.
Stephen King was quoted as saying that mankind may have been made in the image of God, but that large numbers of men were made in the image of His opposite number, and are always struggling to get back home.
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I must agree with Mr. King.
It takes forever to grow a useful educated citizen, a second to destroy one.
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Ooh. Well said!
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Let me just check in with the hive mind before I comment…
OK, I’m back.
I have nothing to say about Boris.
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EX-cellent comment! 🤣👌
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I like your new term! And we agree that the relinquishment of personal responsibility is a mode of being whose time has passed (it better have, or we’re all out of time)… 🙏
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Good post, for sure. Herd mentality is good when leaving a burning building, but not so good when heading over a cliff. People need to hear as much as they can on a subject from several sources, before making up their minds. Algorithms tend to eliminate individual thinking. I never really got the “being a life long political party supporter” idea. Supporting a group at all costs, whether they do good or bad does not make sense. Parties earn my support by doing the right thing for the right reasons. Happy Monday. Allan
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