Sheeple

I really hate the word ‘sheeple‘.

Let’s say I’m a nutjob with a theory. Here it is: Katrina was an inside job. The CIA controls the weather. I’m not sure if the White House let it happen or made it happen, but the whole thing is prophesied in Revelation (somewhere). You can’t prove me wrong. If I don’t have any evidence, it’s because the secret cabal has covered its tracks so carefully.

The likelihood of most people adopting my idea is low, though I’ll get a few other nutjobs to believe it. But at some point, I’ll have to answer a question: if my idea is so great, why don’t people believe in it?

That’s where the ‘sheeple’ idea comes in. I can blame people for being lazy, complacent, unthinking, and dumb. Anything but accept that my idea sucks.

Now these things may be true. Sometimes people aren’t good thinkers because they aren’t trained in critical thinking, and our existing ideas seem to make so much sense to us, especially when we only look for evidence to support them, not challenge them. I’m constantly seeing these tendencies in myself.

But conspiracy people like the word ‘sheeple’ because it’s easier to criticise people than to educate them, and it’s much easier than learning how to evaluate ideas and challenge them. Why do that when you can pretend you’re the misunderstood noble genius, like Galileo or Prometheus?

For its lazy and cynical misanthropy, I hereby exclude the word ‘sheeple’ from my vocabulary.