There is a human malady, newly come to light. This one is worse than Nazism, Communism, racism, religious bigotry, wokeism, lynch mobs, or any other examples of group hysteria. This malady is a deeper problem than those because it is the one that enables all those other problems. The malady in question is our human propensity to be herd-able, our willingness, indeed eagerness, to allow ourselves to be herded around. I recently came to realize the importance of this problem during a discussion with a friend at a local coffee spot. During the same encounter it became clear how much of a role jingos play in enabling this human herding.
Before relating the incident at the coffee spot, let's take a closer look at jingos, and the jingoism that has long affected our thinking. There is nothing new or old fashioned about jingos, but the name has been changed over the years to protect the crafty. These days of the internet we call them memes, or the slightly older terms, T-shirt sayings, or bumper stickers, or sound bite logic. Political slogans of all stripes fit this description. Jingos. They are pithy little phrases which are used as a kind of shorthand, to sum up a position, to let other people know where we stand. They can be used for or against any particular cause.
In olden times jingos like “manifest destiny” or “that's progress” were a couple of favorites. “Fifty four forty or fight” was used to insist on American territorial expansion, while “free soil”, “peculiar institution” and “states rights” were used around the time of the American Civil War. Many dog whistle code words are also jingos. Of course, a thorough look at jingos would include some racist phrases, such as Sheridan's “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” or phrases more common folks used like, “I don't mind colored folks, it's N-words I can't stand.” All were jingos in older times, and all used, in their times, to keep folks in easily controlled herds. Consider how effectively folks could be kept in line by hinting that they were “N-word lovers.” That jingo usually ended any discussion and ended many germinal friendships between Black and White.
Which brings us to the discussion I had at coffee the other day. I mentioned a recent New York Times article which asserted that President Trump's ban on birthright citizenship might have a leg to stand on in court. This had surprised me, since it came from the normally left leaning (anti Trump) New York Times. I mentioned it because I favor such a ban, although I can see the case against it has merit. My conversation partner said that the proposed ban was wrong because, “it is in the Constitution.” I responded to her that it wasn't so cut and dried as all that and started going in to the particulars of the article.
She responded, not with anything substantive about the Constitution or birthright citizenship, but with a string of anti American jingos.
“Well, we didn't let Natives be citizens. We held Japanese Americans in internment camps,” and such like remarks. Courageously fighting long ago battles. All delivered with an attitude of you have to accept what I am saying or I am on the verge of losing all hope in the country, and it will be your fault if I do.
Instead of being a dialogue, I realized these jingos were being used to herd me, to silence my thinking and make me stay in line. It was the end of the discussion, as she “had” to leave, but I felt, as I often do in such cases, defrauded. I wanted to ask her if she was saying, as she was implying, that the United States of America does not have a legitimate right to exist. I see that implied in her remarks, and the jingos she used to deflect the conversation. The idea seems to be (and I hear it implied a lot) that we really shouldn't control immigration because we really shouldn't even be a nation.
There are a slew of similar negative-toward-America jingos around these days, and they are often used to keep the herd together. Jingos like “White supremacy,” or “Misogyny” or “capitalism is evil, or “stolen land.” On the other hand, there are more positive sounding jingos in use today, such as “inclusive,” or “tolerant,” which are also used to end discussions and either reject the other person, or keep those on one side in line.
On the conservative side, the jingos start with the word MAGA, Make America Great Again, with the addendum being the assertion this is “the greatest country ever” and that those who complain should just “buck up, and get jobs.” Once again, these, and similar jingos serve to cut short any real discussion, to keep the herd (or at least one side of it) in line, and to reject those on the other side.
This is all very disturbing to me personally, because I have seen, and been the victim of, the herd mentality gone bad. My first experience with it was in the second grade, playing four square, a playground game played at recess. The first time it happened, I must admit I was in the wrong, kind of.
We were playing the game, taking turns. I saw that some of the kids were cheating (popular kids it turned out) and getting away with it. I got into the game and hit it slightly out of bounds. Since I had seen others arguing their way back into the game, I tried it, firmly standing my cheating ground. Before I knew what had happened, I was surrounded by the rest of the kids pointing at me and chanting, “the majority rules you're out.” Their jingo. So I retreated to the back of the line.
However, on subsequent days, when I would enter the daily game, every time there was a close call, (I was never again in the wrong) the same group, led by the same chubby girl, would surround me and herd me out of the game with the same chant. I realize, in retrospect, that they must have felt so good in doing that. It must have felt so powerful acting as a mob, with that same chubby girl leading the way each time, that those moments became more important than the game itself. I got to where I found something else to do at recess.
I ran into the same mob mentality in the sixth grade, at a different school. In the middle of the first semester, a new kid came into the class, which was a magnet class for gifted students. His name was Doug, and I got along fine with him. One day, one of the popular kids (it is always them, isn't it?), who must have been in a conflict with Doug, was asked if he would fight him. He answered, “No, I ain't going to fight no N-word.”
This shocked me, because even though Doug was slightly dark skinned, I didn't realize until that moment he was African American. Without thinking about it, I let the popular kid know that he shouldn't have that attitude. Doug withdrew from the class just a day or two later, undoubtedly due to racist harassment. I ended up being the enemy of the cool kids for the rest of the year, who would chase me around the school yard, and ostracized me from their company. They also influenced (herded) the rest of my classmates to do the same. I then had almost no one to talk to, except for a couple of nice girls.
This essay is not, however, about me. Don't cry for me Argentina, especially over long resolved childhood trauma. Rather it is about the propensity of us humans to use half thought out ideas, communicated via catchy jingos, to allow ourselves to be herded so easily. Especially because that herd instinct can so easily morph into a mob mentality.
That is what went so wrong with the Nazis, and with Mao's Red Guards. We saw it in operation during the BLM Summer of Love, where mobs felt emboldened to harass and humiliate strangers on the basis of their race, all in the name of ending racism. The wilding and larceny gangs have to be included in this herding gone wrong problem as well. Black Lives Matter is, in fact, another jingo used in the way they all are, to herd humans, reject the other, and possibly justify violence. The same could be said, with less accuracy, about the January 6 rioters with their chants of “stop the steal.” In those, and many other instances, (lynch mobs, etc) normal people can feel a great empowerment in a mob. Especially with agreed upon jingos dancing in their heads.
I think about my friend in the recent coffee conversation. She was on fire to win the battle of the Cherokee “trail of tears,” now that it is safely in the past. But at the time, when Davey Crockett spoke out against the illegal actions of President Andrew Jackson, I wonder if she would have spoken up. The folks back in Tennessee, his constituents, voted him out of congress for his straying from the herd in that way. His last words to them were, “Y'all can go to hell, I'm going to Texas.”
Similarly, when Abraham Lincoln spoke out (with his “Spot” speech) against the Mexican American War, a war which many today see as unjust, he got voted out of congress in 1836. Not many normal people, obedient members of their herd, approved of his truth telling.
Keeping us in tightly controlled herds is not, however, the work of the elites who would rule us. Even though they probably facilitate the herding by using their media power to open the window about what is acceptable to use in our jingos. It is called the “Overton Window”, and it is a highly controlled opening in what is acceptable public dialogue. But the herding is done by us, in our little gatherings, ostracizing, ignoring, huffing the oddball off.. Making it to where only certain opinions can be viced if one is to be admitted into polite company.
This phenomenon goes across all peoples, groups, nations and times. Almost all nations can be defined by whatever consensual delusion (jingos) they agree on, and herd themselves with. Their Overton windows, and their local jingos. God save the Queen, Deutchland uber alles, Viva la France, Viva Mexico, God bless America. Our king, our land, our culture. This thinking reigns over the entire planet.
It is not that this social cohesion is all bad, but that it is easily misused to keep us in tidy, obedient herds. What we must always keep in mind is that it is all always on the verge of mob rule and riot.
The antidote is not to just hate Nazis, or racists, or Wokeism. Rather the antidote is to look to our own souls, and minds. The antidote is to make ourselves, as individuals, not herd-able. To no longer accept the soft oppression of silencing, of ostracism, of ourselves or others; to not allow the popular kids, or influential adults, to set the agenda, and subtly ensure no other point of view is voiced in our groups.
In other words, the way to avoid this malady is to become truly human. To work toward building a truly humane, reason based society,. We must nurture up, educate for and develop the strength to stand alone as individuals. To stand for the truth as we see it, and not allow any thing other than a stronger, deeper truth, arrived at through open debate and discussion, to change out stance. Certainly don't allow the social ostracism of some fools who refuse to even look at the truth, who hide behind half thinking jingoism, to in any way dissuade you from seeking it. Not in school, not at the coffee group, not at church, or work, or at a political rally. Be willing to stand alone for the truth, as you see it, regardless of the latest jingo. If you don't do that, then realize that you will probably, eventually, find yourself swept up in some new form of Nazi like mob rule.
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