The Importance of Being a Sheep … by Martin Willett

Calling you a sheep is a real insult. Nobody wants to be thought of as following the crowd with no mind of their own. But we are all sheep at times.

Being your own person is particularly important to the young. That is why they are also the most sheeplike. Young people express their rebellion and nonconformity by conforming like sheep to an alternative culture. They smoke because their mates smoke. They take other drugs for the same reason. They know it is harmful, addictive and wrong but it is cool, that is all that matters.

They listen to music that is loud, raucous and with excessive bass, because they know they are supposed to like it. They have so little mind of their own that they don't even know if they do like anything that they know they should. Only time will tell, a dozen or so years later they may look back and know if they did enjoy it or were just keeping up the pretence, to themselves.

How do we express our personality? By wearing clothes with somebody else's name on them. And paying MORE for the privilege of advertising their products. Is that crazy or what? If I want to get extra web space I can get some on a site that puts banners on my page, for putting up with the inconvenience of that I get the webspace and the advertiser pays for the costs. That's a quid pro quo. But Tommy Klein, Calvin Hilfrigger or whoever charges more for the products with his name that you wear out on the street advertising his products, at your expense? So he gets the advertising and your money. You get an overpriced advertisement telling the world that you are gullible. If that is what you want I will run off a poster on the old inkjet for you for half that price.