Herd Mentality

The 'Sheeple'

I found this in the recesses of my 'Documents' folder. It amused me. It was a speech that i gave in my year12 english class, on the play Rhinocerous, by Ionesco. I think i was on a slight rampage. I figured i'd share it...

Good Afternoon Girls. I'd like to offer you my sincerest condolences in this time of great stress. I sympathize with you, I really do – to be under a constant pressure to conform is no easy thing to deal with! Yet here you are, in the environment that you spend most of your time, with the weight of having to defy individuality pressing down upon your shoulders. Why? Because school, the place that is supposedly instilling in us the most important values in our society, places us, time and time again, in situations where we are made to conform.

The ‘Herd Mentality’ is everywhere we go. We have spent thirteen years in an environment where we’ve been told that individuality is the key. However, in reality, the school system is one of the main culprits when it comes to enforcing cohesive behavior, especially in impressionable young teenagers, such as ourselves.

Herd mentality is defined by Wikipedia, the common Walford-Girl-Guide to easy information, as being a situation in which ‘…a group of individuals react coherently without there being any co-ordination between them.’ Basically a group of people who, unknowingly, are following the same invisible guidelines as everyone else, without any direct command to do so. Herd mentality is the disappearance of the individual and the gradual emersion in a group that is reacting under the orders or influence of a charismatic leader (and I’m sure that we can all decide for ourselves who our charismatic leaders are here at Walford).

There is even an official name for people who practice such behaviors; 'Sheeple'. This ridiculous term is in fact quite appropriate, accurately implying that people who give in to the pressures of conformity are in many ways similar to the sheep, which does whatever it is told without processing the command.

I'm sure you can make the obvious connection between the tendency of a sheep to follow the herd and the way that these 'sheeple' follow the ideas viewed as crucial by society. I’ll again quote Wikipedia when I say that ‘sheeple’ ‘…acquiesce to authority and thus undermine their own human individuality.’

Girls, today I’m going to talk to you about the pressure to comply with a herd mentality that we suffer under here at school. We’re bombarded by it from all sides; your peers, your parents – but worst of all, by your teachers. The very people whose role is to guide you are, in fact, the main culprits when it comes to encouraging conformity and the herd mentality, whether knowingly or not. Worse still is the fact that, more often than not, people do not even realize when they are pressuring people into the moulds of society; following the pressure to conform has been a part of our lives for such a long time that we no longer recognize It for what it truly is - an attempt to quell our sense of self and individuality.

Our lives so far have been all about preparing ourselves for the ‘real world’; attempting to create and maintain an identity that will lead us down our chosen path in life. Our main adversaries in doing this are our teachers. While it is true that they may not realize what they are doing, it cannot be denied that they are the ones to enforce all of the things that encourage us to morph into a sea of faceless, compliant all-rounders.

While we are told to stand up for ourselves and that we can be whatever we want to be in life, this is not mirrored in the actions of the people with whom the pupils at Walford interact. At face value, it is in our appearance that we are first restrained in the quest for individuality. While we have been recently informed that Walford does not, in fact, have rules, but rather ‘guidelines’, this is often not the case. Should we chose to ignore the ‘guidelines’ for the uniform, perhaps adding a headband to restrain our fringes or a pair of tights to keep us from shivering uncontrollably throughout the day, we are not left alone. In disobeying this ‘guideline’ – which really seems to me to be more of a rule – we are disciplined.

No, I do not mean that the teachers whip out the cane and rap us on the knuckles but, should we not adhere to the strict and detailed dress code, we receive the modern-day equivalent in punishment; a detention. Or more recently, we may perhaps receive a lengthy spiel about how the ‘Walford reputation was handed to us on a plate and we mustn’t take it for granted…’ While these are hardly serious problems, the fact still remains that we are being forced (politely) to conform and be unified.

On a subtler note, while attempting to outwardly turn us into a mob of kilt-wearing lemons, the school does also push the average Walford girl into a certain manner of thinking. How many of you have felt distraught in the past because you have received a B- or, god-forbid – a C on your report cards at the end of a grueling semester? Why is it that we feel such distress when we are achieving marks that are officially defined as ‘average’ and ‘above average’? I can tell you that it is because, over the years we have spent here, we have been slowly manipulated into thinking that anything less than an A just isn’t good enough. Now, this is, in actual fact, ridiculous, because a B or a C isn’t a bad mark, especially at many other schools, where students receive Ds and below regularly.

So how is it that we have come to believe that we’re ‘failing’ when we come home with a B or a C? It is because of the pressure to excel across the board that we are faced with everyday. It is this pressure that forces us to overload ourselves with extra-curricular activities or to push ourselves to the limit in sports… say, for example, in rowing? We feel inadequate when we don’t participate in these things but we still are expected to maintain incredibly good grades, while doing the hardest subjects. When we don’t fulfill the expectations set for us, or opt for subjects that suit our skills instead of the traditional ‘smart’ subjects, we feel like we have failed or that we aren’t good enough.

This intense pressure to become a genius is placed on each and every girl at Walford. Again, it is not intentioned to make us feel stressed, rather the teachers are just trying to get us to ‘achieve our full potential’ and ‘apply ourselves’. Nevertheless, the pressure is still there and the Walford girls, especially we poor year twelve’s, must strive to achieve against the talented girls who went before us.

We have already faced out greatest foe yet when it comes to academic pressure; an enemy in the form of a giant banner, half the size of the building, proudly displaying the results of the masterminds of 2005. However, even after defeating this foe, the pressure to come up to the bar, to exceed expectations, to continue the trend of improvements in TER scores every year is intense. Here at school, we are being poked and prodded into becoming an emotionally stunted, but educationally exceptional group of single-minded achievers. To conform, to fit into the demands placed on us. And the terrible thing is that we have begun to let ourselves believe that to achieve less than an A or less than a TER of 90.0 is failure. Deep down, we know you don’t need a 90.0 TER to become a success, but we still feel the need to achieve these outstanding grades, simply because out environment is telling us that that is what is needed! We have fallen into the herd mentality; the collective thought that we aren’t trying hard enough, even though we know this isn’t the case.

As dismal as that may seem, I assure you, all hope is not lost. Despite the overwhelming pressure we are faced with everyday to look and act the way that the school wants us to, we do not have to give up the fight for individuality. We have to swim against the tide of conformity that tugs at us from every direction! Even while we are slipping into the herd mentality, almost unknowingly, we cannot give in. We are almost so close to freedom! In these last few months before escape, there are opportunities to break the mould and take a stand against the odds.

For example, we didn’t let the evil banner just stay there and stare us in the eye everyday, as if saying; ‘you’re never going to achieve marks this good, you know. You might as well give up!’ No! We took a stand and won! The banner was removed and some of the pressure was relieved. We pushed off the herd mentality, struck out against the system and against our reputation as a compliant and obedient year level. Exactly the kind of behavior that keeps us from becoming ‘sheeple’!

Our school, our main environment, pressures us to conform to its ideals and its beliefs. However, should we simply give in, we will lose our happiness and ourselves. Although it can be difficult at times to go against the grain and flaunt individuality, it is what must be done. We don’t have to become radically rebellious, so long as we are aware of the subtler pressures we face. There is no point in ambition if you’re just going to be one of the followers. So girls, here it is. We’ve been encouraged all our lives to be ourselves and here’s our big chance; if the school places to much pressure to conform on us, we are perfectly within out rights to fight it! The herd mentality creeps among us but, so long as we keep trying to stay true to ourselves, we will be fine.

Annie