Bandwagons

I have a problem with bandwagons, of any form. This includes bandwagons that are ‘for a good cause’.

Bandwagons force people to stop questioning and to stop thinking. When everybody is thinking, saying and acting a certain way, a lot of people seem to make the mistake of thinking that that way must be the right way.

The foolish, subliminal justification that is made, I believe, is that if such a large group of people are doing something, those people must’ve thought it through and accepted it. The problem is that when everyone thinks that someone else is doing the job of thinking, no one actually does the job of thinking.

Bandwagons ‘for a good cause’ come into the picture by way of sites like Blackle, which take advantage of the ‘Environmental’ bandwagon. Despite what your Toyota Landcruiser driving, environmentalist neighbour who lives in a fully air-conditioned house tells you, using Blackle instead of Google doesn’t make a bloody difference to helping conserve the environment [1] [2].

Now obviously, apart from the stacks of money the Blackle creators are raking in through Google AdSense advertising, this particular breach isn’t hurting anybody. However, it is symbolic of people not thinking or questioning anything: in this case it’d of been as easy as asking ‘where’s the proof this website conserves energy?’.

In another case: ‘where’s the proof that this political party is a better economic manager than its more progressive alternative?’

I believe that if less people jumped on bandwagons and instead asked questions and thought things through, our society would be an even more enjoyable place.