Hello, it has been a while.
anyway, i have this theory which i believe in. and i am sure it has a real name, but i named it the sheep effect. about the saadism, while i was visting my undergrad friends, one of them said i have too many “ways of life” and theories so he came up with this way of life, the saadism. the guy next to him became my first follower 😀 a saadist .
anyway, the sheep effect. it is basically when people in group, not neccessarily know each other. if someone in this group, or a several persons in that group did something obvious. others will follow blindly.
Examples. when people are waiting to cross a street. and the walking light is still red. BUT there is no cars around. you will see people who want to be a law abiding people who are waiting for the walking lights to become green. NOW, if one guy crossed the street in that situation, most if not all the others will just follow him. sometimes the first person who moved is the only one should’ve passed because there is a far car. but others don’t think. they just follow.
this can be extended to almost everything. now knowing this effect is very useful. i think this where a natural leader comes from. a guy who realize this effect and can utilize it for its own good. and that’s where initiativity comes in hand as well, which basically means being the first person to do the thing that others are not doing.
another useful example. when a relatively large group of people want to eat somewhere. there is always the dilemma of where to eat. most of the people say they don’t care. but this usually causes problems and confusion. all it takes one guy who “orders” the other to go to some restuarnt. and to make people moving, all you need is to start moving, and hopefully 1 or 2 with you. then all the others will start moving, even if they r preoccupied by a conversation or something else.
the last example included two things. the first part, is telling the others where the group will be eating (you can do this by declaring, “let’s go to macdonalds”, instead of saying, “should we go to macdonalds?”)
the other part which convey the sheep effect more clearly, is start walking with 1 or 2 persons, then all the others will follow, even some of them won’t even know where you are going, but will follow nonetheless. like sheeps.
as a side note, some people don’t like to be called sheeps, so don’t rub it in. just use it silently
and from this theory i came up with the question form idiom.
Are you the sheep, or the shepherd?
or in the other form
BE the shepherd, NOT the sheep
this idiom is another wording for “be initiative”
hehehe! Nice theory! You are referring to us when we want to go and eat =)
Anyways, about the crossing thing, I have my contradicting observations about this one! Actually, we usually do not cross together! Take Yanal for instances, he marches toward the cars fearlessly, and I usually admonish him for that.
But there is a theory of the audacious pedestrian! This is the guy that all wait for to cross, so that the cars will have to slow down. Happens in Jordan a lot =)
And yes there is something that sounds like urs! It is called the “Group thinking”! It happens when a group of people set together and start discussing some issues! But it needs something called hypocrisy to work =) I usually see it on blogs!
People, who support the blogger for his ideas, will always support him for a stupid idea without thinking! And it is very dangerous in companies! It causes a lot of troubles and the lack of originality!