herd (noun)
1 a: a typically large group of animals of one kind kept together under human control a herd of cattle
b: a congregation of gregarious wild animals herds of antelopes
2 a (1): a group of people usually having a common bond a herd of tourists
(2): a large assemblage of like things herds of cars
b: the undistinguished masses: crowd isolate the individual prophets from the herd—Norman Cousins
herd (verb)
1 a: to gather, lead, or drive as if in a herd herded the children into the car
b: to keep or move (animals) together dogs that are trained to herd sheep
2 to place in a group herd us with their kindred fools—Jonathan Swift1
The concept of a herd has many permutations; at core, it describes a company of living things suggesting some form of shared existence. It is also a concept that often implies this companionship is directed from the outside. Among its permutations is the use of the term to refer to a mentality that designates a kind of non-thinking. Yet, the concept endures in numerous fora and for a variety of reasons. Its historical association with the figure of a shepherd to ensure the survival of the herd exposes a morality of care that involves a relation of otherness. A wild herd has no intrinsic need for such a carer; its gregariousness sustains it. Added to these is the notion of a herd familiar to us as a source of commodity value, where the survival of the herd is short-term and the price of exploitation is high for the members of the herd and for the planet. There is a further permeation that arises from the biomedical importance of herd immunisation by vaccination that is understood to depend on training bodies into defending a company of bodies (population) against a microbial threat. Differences between bodies requires a scaled herd achievement. Training here has a moral value for biomedicine while designating the body as a passive other. ‘Herd mentality’ is evident in both the success – and in the questioning and rejection – of this notion.
Herd provokes thought in relation to many different contemporary concerns. We think with the figure of the herd to grapple with not only transformative global changes affecting health, but also, and more broadly, to explore potential for resistance amidst the here-and-now of our present planetary condition. We think with ‘herd’ as both noun and verb, enlivened by the term’s multiple and sometimes incongruous invocations of humans and non-humans, domesticity and wildness, sameness and difference, gatherings and crowds, stability and movement.
What if we were to recast ‘herd’ as a company of ‘us’ on this planet? How do we reconcile our individual bodies with the company of us, and ideas that imply that they are in the first order apart? Is there something to learn from those notorious for not complying with the herd? In what ways might we want to problematise the herd? To the extent that our civilising ways are under challenge in a radically new way, how is the notion of herd relevant, if at all?
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1. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/herd
