Monday, July 23, 2007

Stupid Sheep

So let me ask you a question, and then I'm going to answer it for you since of course this isn't really a conversation. Would you say sheep are hopelessly stupid or insanely intelligent?

Your answer of course is that they are one of the dumbest creatures on the face of the planet. In fact they are practically a synonym for stupid.

Why would you say they are dumb?

Because they follow each other around and would follow each other off of a cliff it that's where they were led. I've seen them repeatedly walk into a fence to try to get to the other side when the door is 3 feet away. Not the brightest animal in God's creation.

Now I live with a bunch of farmers and shepherds here in Morroco and I've had the same conversation and answered much the same way that you did... that sheep were dumb... and you would have thought that I had just spit on their mother. They insisted that sheep were incredibly intelligent and when I asked why enough times for them to give me an actual explanation they gave me the same exact reasons you gave for them being dumb. They follow the leader and don't deviate from the group. All you have to do is lead one and the rest follow.

The sheep here are the same sheep in the rest of the world, the only difference is what the people deem praiseworthy. I'm going to let you draw your own conclusions about what that says about our cultural differences.

2 comments:

Ann said...

damn.

Anonymous said...

Easy there with the generalizations. In many parts of Morocco, calling someone a sheep (kab'sh) is typically used to ridicule them as "a dumb follower". Morocco, even though a small country, is very diverse. I noticed that you use a lot of "in Morocco". I hope that you realize that many things you observe could well be related to the region or even the sub-region in which you live. At times, I feel like a foreigner when I go to places in Morocco. As you know even the spoken languages are not the same in this small country of 30 million people. Best of luck.