My wife Ashley and I have a dog who is part Border Collie and lately we’ve been trying to train her to be…well, a little less intense. Anyone who has had a Border Collie, or a mix of one, can tell you they are extremely intelligent, VERY high energy dogs. Our dog Phoebe is no exception. Border Collie’s are herding dogs by nature and because of their working dog instincts they are used all over the world as top of the class herding dogs, especially for sheep. I started to do some research on how to give a herding dog a job, since that is what is recommended for a dog like ours, and was amazed when I watched video after video of these dogs singlehandedly moving hundreds of sheep toward a target. And it was then that I had an epiphany.
Before I get to the epiphany, we need a little bit of understanding about how a single herding dog can move over 100 sheep with a few simple commands. Believe it or not, there is science and mathematics behind this ability. One article I found explains this very succinctly:
Researchers at Swansea University, UK and Uppsala University in Sweden built a mathematical model that explains how one single sheepdog can round up herds made of up to 100 sheep. Their conclusion suggests that the dog needs only to follow two simple mathematical rules. One causes a sheepdog to close any gaps it sees between dispersing sheep – in fact this is sort of where the key lies; the dog doesn’t see the sheep per se. The dog doesn’t distinguish the fluffy white balls in front of him as individual sheep and what it notices are only the gaps that form in an otherwise white sea. The other rule results in sheep being driven forward once the gaps are sufficiently closed.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/math/sheepdog-herd-432432/ (and, no, I haven’t overlooked the comparison of sheep flocks to human “herds” later in the article. We will get there!)
In order for a dog to control hundreds of sheep, the dog cannot focus on individual sheep, only the gaps where sheep begin to break off from the herd. When that happens the dog only needs to correct that, close the gap, and bring the straying sheep back into the flock. Once the herd is cohesive and all thinking the same then they can all be moved toward the target.
Now to that epiphany…
For the last several years, when I thought about what our country is becoming, I used to say: “The government exploits our differences, keeps us fighting amongst ourselves so that we ignore the abuses they are perpetrating upon us.” Now, I am not so sure. What if the opposite is happening? What if instead of exploiting our differences, they are identifying the gaps in our “herd”? Then, by using subtle language, they are “closing” those gaps so that we begin to think more alike. Even the aforementioned article above says:
Humans sometimes need herding, too. When coupled together by the hundreds or thousands, masses of people are no different from flocks of sheep in many respects, so authorities might want to use these findings for better crowd control.
As we talked about in our podcast, language can and does change the way we think and it also is used to shape our perceptions.
Recently, while reading through posts on the elementary school parent group we are in on Facebook, Ashley came across this post:
As you can see the parent on our parent page is very excited about this idea. The letter is not from the elementary school our son attends, but it got us thinking about how something that seems completely innocuous could be used to manipulate people’s perceptions. Look at the language there! Instead of Mother’s and Father’s day we have “Grown Ups Who Love Us Day”! Is this to remove that gap where some people don’t have Mothers and Fathers or some people don’t want to celebrate those days? We can’t have that! We must all think alike and all be able to celebrate the same.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World , he imagines a world where the terms “Mother”, “Father” and “family” are actually disgusting “smutty” words. The idea of living with a family was described:
Home, home—a few small rooms, stiflingly over-inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls of all ages. No air, no space; an understerilized prison; darkness, disease, and smells.
Families were dangerous in Brave New World because they bred individuality and ideas. If you were an individual or free, you could not be controlled. Sound familiar?
I could go on and on about the connections to current events and Brave New World, but there are plenty of real examples happening around us. Let’s take three buzzwords that bandied about quite commonly now: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. These words, superficially, seem idealistic and virtuous. We need a diverse community where we have equity of opportunity and we don’t exclude anyone from those opportunities. That is the language the proponents of this movement want to invoke in your brain, but that’s not what happens in real life. Look at the terms closely and you will see the herding algorithm right there: Identify the gaps/differences(diversity), move to close those gaps (equity), bring the “herd” together as one (inclusion). The goal is not to celebrate diversity at all. The goal is to treat everyone the same to try and guarantee “equity of outcome” not opportunity. The language used, however gets us to think that we are moving toward celebrating that diversity, but in reality we are destroying it.
When those words are used individually and in lower case, they are powerful. We are all diverse: diverse ideas, diverse experiences, diverse cultures, etc. Those differences should be celebrated not quashed. Where they come together naturally that is great, where they wish to stay separate, then we should let that happen and respect that. Inclusion is a personal choice, never mandated by any authority.
We should all have equity of opportunity. That doesn’t mean we all start at the same starting block. That’s not how life works. What if tomorrow every single human was told that they are now a CEO of a company and will make $10M a year? We would all agree that is equity. What would happen? First, massive inflation, second natural leaders would begin to buy out other CEO’s and increase their wealth, another group would run their companies well, but never do anything else or grow and yet another group would just spend their money and be broke shortly there after. To ignore this is ignore human nature. There will never be equity of outcome because of those exact differences that we should celebrate. Additionally, we should never want equity of outcome as your desired outcome may not be my desired outcome and vice versa.
All the gender language changes we see happening today: “Birthing person, chest feeder, lactator, gestator…” the list goes on, are designed to remove ANY differences between us by labeling their gender specific terms as offensive (smutty?). By removing the differences through language, we begin to think the same, we become more herd-like and easier to move toward the target, easier to control. Remember, your language affects the way you perceive your world.
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
In my opinion, the elites, on the left, on the right and everywhere in between are like the Shepard. They want to control the sheep. They want to move the sheep toward a target that makes the elite more money, more power or both; the New World Order. They use their sheep dog, the Government, to close those gaps of freedom and keep the flock together and moving toward the target. As we always say, its not left nor right, it’s us against them. 3
I’m sure many people have heard of The New World Order but have you heard of the New Word Order? I don’t think you can have one without the other.
Change your words, Change your world.
Thank you. Really blew my mind with the herding analogy. Great observations