February 19, 2023

“Always drink upstream from the herd.”

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—Will Rogers

Seems like good advice with a little humor. 

We are all members of a herd of one category or another.  A football team could be a herd, a marching band, a church, the armed forces, a riot or activist march, or a political party.  Herds that represent a cause can be liberal or conservative, radical or passive, loud or quiet, hidden or out in the open.  Ants run in herds, cattle, birds, fish, and people.

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Would you call “woke” a herd mentality?  I would.  It is hard to identify every woke action or statement as part of the herd.  Some woke demands are small; some are large.  Woke hits in every corner.  Without question, woke has followers in mass numbers.  I wonder if everyone who practices woke knows what he is representing.

The woke world is a classic mountain of sophomoric thought and high school mentality, but it must be taken seriously.   Find something to complain about, and the herd rushes in.  Remove a statue, rename a place, call people racist, use pronouns, forget history — or even worse, try to replace history with some made-for-today new history. 

Never have so few tried to control so many.  The danger in woke is the herd.  Are we built to just follow like a flock of birds?  Are we back to finding out how many people can stuff themselves into a phone booth, or how the nitpicking of words into new meaning?

Woke is the new hippie.  The hippie wants people to listen to his crazy ideas, wants to change the world, has a new and different campaign every week.  Woke is not leadership; it’s the opposite.  Woke is a bunch of wimps screaming at the top of their lungs for “justice.”  Woke will not be a career, woke will not feed your family, woke will not fix anything — woke is just a passing fancy with little long-term value.  Just like all the great fads of the past, woke will be a memory.   Why in the world does anyone take woke seriously?  But people do!

Woke is not L or C.  Woke is not R or D.  Woke is not socialism trying to get a foothold on young people’s thought.  Woke is just a fad.  How do I know that woke is just a fad?  Easy.  First, never underestimate good old competition.  Second, woke has gone too far with stupid ideas and has been caught in the lie.  It will die a fad’s death.

Today in America, more than 60 million people will go to work to support themselves and their families.  Woke lives on the fringe, running around promising that its ideas have meaning or will improve societal issues.  Woke does not improve anything, it’s just a bunch of noise.