An independent confirmation of the independent origins of words, esp. neologisms.
Yesterday I was driving back home from an independent jog at Snyder's Grove, a local wooded nature preserve where I also ski during the winter. Perfect when the winds are high on the prayeree.
Less than a mile westward on the Troy Grove blacktop there's an old fashhioned homestead with "clean animals" including a hillside of black- and white-faced sheep. I was again impressed and comforted with this now uncommon sight, so I said to myself, "Hi, sheeples!" I wrote this down immediately in my usual risky fashion, and intended to write more. As often happens though, when I consulted Ste. Google, it appears that this has been a word used rather regularly by some columnists.
The origin of it seems obscure, but not the intent--it's a derogatory term to refer to people like sheep rather than the reverse--although it could technically go the other way. But Orwell and many others have a long tradition of despising at least their definition of "sheeples"--more indicative of a satirical attitude than of all the term implies.
The fact of the matter is this doesn't really apply to all thoughtless followers. Are Islamicists sheeplike? No one I have ever read terms them, "like lambs to the slaughter" So while columunists are careful to use the sheeple term mostly in other contexts, it is really in essence a swipe at Jesus' frequent use of sheep to describe His children. Very few people will take Christ or His words directly on. But since Christ always referred to sheep and their offspring in an entirely positive way, one can progressively get in sideways digs at Christ by in essence mocking His children, i.e. His "little flock."
I doubt I can do justice to this subject off my cuff links; but I think it does run a parallel course to the almost exclusive use of Jesus Christ as a slur, never a blessing; as alluded to in my comments about "Cold Souls."
I first became acquainted with the term “sheeple” some 30 years ago before the internet evolved into the world wide web. I always had a fascination with shortwave radio since I was young. My father became a ham radio operator while I was in grade school and I guess I caught the bug also.
ReplyDeleteBack in the 70s I bought a shortwave radio and discovered a whole world of alternative radio broadcasts. Of course there were many southern christian broadcasts blasting out the word of the Lord but there were also many political talk show broadcasts. Some of these programs were pretty radical and ultra rightwing conservative and anti socialist.
One particular radio host Milton William Cooper used the term Sheeple daily on his broadcast “Hour of the Time” back in the 80s. The show's intro theme music was the sound of hundreds of jack boots marching and marching reminiscent of Hitler's marching army. If you have heard the old Lyndon Larouche speak you have some idea what Mr. Cooper was like. Sheeple was definitely a derogatory term for the mindless subjects adherence to whatever their political leadership offered them without question.