More Stoics, Less Contrarians
Well, maybe we need more of anything other than contrarians... let's start there.
I could put a picture of a famous contrarian or two up as part of this post. Were I to do that, I would run the risk of the contrarians dismissing the weight of this post (and its author!) based on the first and only premise of the contrarian lifestyle:
Rule 1: My opponent = BAD. Oppose at all costs.
The contrarian invests in the candy store of logical fallacies, led by the granddaddy of them all, the ad hominem—against the man. Contrarians live by a negatively driven ethos. The badness of the other defines the parameters of the contrarian. If the opponent loves ballet, then there must be something fundamentally wrong with ballet and the contrarian will have no part of it. The contrarian self-removes from anything having to do with ballet, and regularly will jump fields to extend the hatred. As lovely as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is, the art is associated with the accursed practice of ballet and likewise, we must be suspect of Tchaikovsky, its composer.
“Ahh, he is also Russian. The Bolshoy! Baryshnikov! I knew there was something inherently evil about the Russians!!!”
The contrarian suffers from an illness of being fixated on the outside opponent. It is a commitment that the contrarian has made to letting an external force define oneself. It is a sad, sad way to be.
I think that stoicism is more appealing because it accepts the world as it is and uses this understanding of reality as a fundamental basis for engaging with others. There is no value judgment placed on the other. The other simply is what he is, and that is something worth being dispassionate about. Maybe it’s just my way of asking people to kindly shut the hell up. Yes, I’d prefer those espousing that virtue is the only good over those who define the good as what their opponent is not.
END of rant.