Sacred Cow

A “sacred cow” is a negatively charged term used to describe something we don’t dare criticize. Ever. Even if we want to, or maybe should. It can be an idea, a process, a philosophy, etc. If it’s a belief that can be held, and it’s held in such high regard that others don’t feel they can question it, it’s a sacred cow.

Sacred cows aren’t necessarily bad ideas, processes, or philosophies. For example, let’s say we work for a general contractor, and one of our CEO’s big things is that he only wants to do business with subcontractors that are women-owned, minority-owned, and/or veteran-owned. On its face, that is not a horrible position to take. The issue is that that position is not up for discussion. Like...if we find a new window installation company that does better work for less money than the company we’ve been using, but it’s not a women-, minority-, or veteran-owned business, then we know we’re never going to be able to hire them. We probably shouldn’t even bring it up, because all it’s going to do is offend the CEO and annoy our own boss. It’s a sacred cow.

We see sacred cows in every area of life. All we have to do is look around for the things we can’t reasonably question or criticize, and there’s a good chance we’re looking at a sacred cow. One man’s sacred cow is another man’s treasure (or something), so the important takeaway here is that the term “sacred cow” has a lot less to do with whether or not the idea or philosophy has merit...and more to do with the fact that we can get some serious flak for questioning it.