BANDWAGONS - ad populum

3 March, 2012

Houston, TX

It's lots of fun to follow along a bandwagon during a parade! There's merriment in the throng, and pleasure hearing the tunes the instruments strike up. One gets caught up in the moment. I loved doing that at Carnival as a child growing up in New Orleans.

Political, religious, and social causes are very much like bandwagons. They play such merry tunes that many are compelled to follow and sing along - mesmerized by the Sirens' song!

In life, entire parades of bandwagons continually pass in review, and here and there they play such enchanting melodies that we are drawn towards them, often without thinking. We want to jump aboard, and more often as not, there are smiling faces with outstretched hands, all too eager to help us join them.

Jumping onto the bandwagon means you like more than just one or two melodies - it means you buy everything they have to sell - an entire, possibly obscure agenda, without thinking, without reasoning, --- following blindly. You belong.

Sometimes I see a post or hear a speech espousing a particular point of view. In most of them are many points that ring true or move me.

But I am both cursed and blessed by being able to see a much bigger picture. In every story, there are at least two sides, and more often as not, there are MANY sides. Sometimes seemingly opposing viewpoints can be all right. They just as easily can be wrong.

Changing a viewpoint or opinion is sometimes seen by some as a weakness. Refusal to change a viewpoint, or at least to consider another's opinion, even when presented with overpowering evidence is blind stupidity.

So whenever you see something I post that seems contradictory, or I seem to be "back-peddling" on an issue, it is because I have given the matter considerable thought, and I am seeing other viewpoints.

☞ I cannot, and I WILL NOT jump onto anyone's bandwagon!

I'm a freethinking man, and
I WAS NOT BORN TO FOLLOW!!