The opposing viewpoint

I am a very opinionated person, but also consider myself very independent. Sometimes I feel the need to do a double take, and really look at the other side of things. It is a tough thing to do, especially when the other side is full of zealots. The problem is that even though 90% of what they say is unsubstantiated rhetoric, there are usually a few valuable pieces of information hidden within.

In addition, we all have a somewhat natural tendency to try to gather in groups with like-minded people. In some cases, this can be a good thing. For example, if you are trying to build something, or design something, it is a very difficult thing to do if no one agrees upon the basic principles. But in many other cases, it can be very damaging. On very heated issues, when groups separate into two groups, overtime they often diverge further and further, until both sides are wrong. I’m not going to try and offer up any specific examples, because that’s not what this post is about, and any good example of this would quite obviously draw a lot of criticism on whatever my viewpoint was, or if I failed to offer my viewpoint, criticism from both sides.

And that itself is perhaps the biggest problem in polarized issues. At some point the zealots of both sides start to be uncomfortable not only with the other side, but with the people who are semi-neutral. It is not that neutrality is somehow superior to strong opinions, it is that being invested in any point of view, including neutrality itself, is a bad thing. A good mind is an open mind. This does not mean you should not have opinions, but that your current opinions should not be what shapes your future opinions.

Once you begin down the path of polarizing yourself, you start to loose the ability to think rationally, and even if your out to prove a point, because you feel that point is very important, an inability to think rationally can only harm your goals. Even worse is you may eventually find you have stepped over a line in which you are now as great a problem as the one you initially set out to resolve.

One of the best preventive measures is to force yourself to listen to the opposing viewpoint, no matter how ridiculous it may sound to you initially. While you are listening, pick it apart in your mind, rather than trying to throw back witty retorts. If you immediately begin with retorts, the conversation will quickly devolve and you will never see beneath the surface of the argument. This surface may be divorced from reality, but if you listen long enough, you should be able to spot where this happened, where an initially rational objection was replaced by dogma.

This admittedly can be a very difficult thing to do. You will be tempted to react, afraid that if you don’t you’ll be viewed as actually accepting the viewpoint. Not wanting to increase the confidence of the opposition, you will feel an immediate need to attempt a conversion. There is a time for debate, and a time for research, and you should view this as research.

One great thing about the Internet, and bloging is that it is relatively easy to expose yourself to some of these opposing viewpoints without having to get caught up in the whole system and community of the true radicals. Even this can be frustrating, as you may have to dig through a lot of repetition of unfounded, non-rational writing, but if you try hard enough you can find valuable ideas you never would have if you had stayed within the confines of those like minded to yourself. Maybe you will find you are at least a little wrong, maybe you will find the reason for the opposing viewpoint (Hint: It rarely is that the other side is evil, criminally insane, or functionally braindead). Or, possibly best of all, maybe you’ll find a compromise that is better than either radical viewpoint.