(no subject)
Oct. 8th, 2003 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zana16"Society in itself is composed of two types of people and always has been- leaders and followers. And sadly enough, it is mostly followers aka 'sheeps' which make up a large percentage of the numbers."
This comment was posted as evidence for a completely unrelated topic [apparently Depp fans who came to fandom only because of Pirates are "sheep", a view stated with all the self-importance of a True Fan], but it started my mind off in a completely different direction.
First, naturally there are more followers than leaders. Otherwise the leader/follower system wouldn't work. But simply because I can't be bothered to lead the Town Council on Cleaning Up Graffiti and inspire the masses to hatred of all those devil-worshipping taggers, does not mean I am a sheep. It means I don't care. Similarly, I am not going into politics. Not, in this case, because I am a sheep, content to follow the public opinion, but because I do my part as a citizen, and I wouldn't be able to sell out to the extent that becoming a leader would require.
But this whole leader/follower thing doesn't sit well with me. Probably because I have a streak of rabid libertarianism to balance my socialist tendencies [aside: I've been reading Marcuse--love the man! except he couldn't write a coherent sentence to save his life]. The leader/follower dichotomy falls into the area I reserve for most dichotomies (male/female, good/evil, cheap/expensive, wrong/right, peace/war, capitalism/communism): utter BS if you look closely enough and expand your definition of each to more than just a narrow slice of reality. In short, I see the leader/follower distinction as a product of a patriarchal system.
Oh. So that's why they say feminists bitch about everything. Ah, well, I will proceed with my bitching:
The traditionally male view of human relations is hierarchical; the traditionally female view, consensus and cooperation. Why, if someone is not a "leader" in the male connotation of the word (ie, top-down visionary who makes people fall in line with his vision or leave the movement), must s/he be a follower? Why can't leaders be someone who helps to organize the thoughts of the group, propose ways to move ahead, make sure that all the group shares this vision, and help organize the implementation of a plan? I ran up against this barrier at Smith. Smith may be a womens' college (insert a gender-neutral term of your choice here, if you take "women" to mean more than biological sex, which the college doesn't), but its view of leadership falls into the traditionally male view. It hires leaders, not consensus-builders. I think both methods, and perhaps some combination thereof, are valid. Smith does not.
And, Ms. True Fan, the plural of "sheep" is "sheep". No 's'.
That is all. Comments are welcome, since I expect nobody will agree with me about this. That's okay. I will not try to impose this vision of the world upon you, as a leader in the traditional sense would do. I'm just stating my vision of leadership, so it's out there to be questioned, modified, etc.
/pretentious intellectualism
This comment was posted as evidence for a completely unrelated topic [apparently Depp fans who came to fandom only because of Pirates are "sheep", a view stated with all the self-importance of a True Fan], but it started my mind off in a completely different direction.
First, naturally there are more followers than leaders. Otherwise the leader/follower system wouldn't work. But simply because I can't be bothered to lead the Town Council on Cleaning Up Graffiti and inspire the masses to hatred of all those devil-worshipping taggers, does not mean I am a sheep. It means I don't care. Similarly, I am not going into politics. Not, in this case, because I am a sheep, content to follow the public opinion, but because I do my part as a citizen, and I wouldn't be able to sell out to the extent that becoming a leader would require.
But this whole leader/follower thing doesn't sit well with me. Probably because I have a streak of rabid libertarianism to balance my socialist tendencies [aside: I've been reading Marcuse--love the man! except he couldn't write a coherent sentence to save his life]. The leader/follower dichotomy falls into the area I reserve for most dichotomies (male/female, good/evil, cheap/expensive, wrong/right, peace/war, capitalism/communism): utter BS if you look closely enough and expand your definition of each to more than just a narrow slice of reality. In short, I see the leader/follower distinction as a product of a patriarchal system.
Oh. So that's why they say feminists bitch about everything. Ah, well, I will proceed with my bitching:
The traditionally male view of human relations is hierarchical; the traditionally female view, consensus and cooperation. Why, if someone is not a "leader" in the male connotation of the word (ie, top-down visionary who makes people fall in line with his vision or leave the movement), must s/he be a follower? Why can't leaders be someone who helps to organize the thoughts of the group, propose ways to move ahead, make sure that all the group shares this vision, and help organize the implementation of a plan? I ran up against this barrier at Smith. Smith may be a womens' college (insert a gender-neutral term of your choice here, if you take "women" to mean more than biological sex, which the college doesn't), but its view of leadership falls into the traditionally male view. It hires leaders, not consensus-builders. I think both methods, and perhaps some combination thereof, are valid. Smith does not.
And, Ms. True Fan, the plural of "sheep" is "sheep". No 's'.
That is all. Comments are welcome, since I expect nobody will agree with me about this. That's okay. I will not try to impose this vision of the world upon you, as a leader in the traditional sense would do. I'm just stating my vision of leadership, so it's out there to be questioned, modified, etc.
/pretentious intellectualism