More Than What You Hate
Thoughts on determining your opinions
Have you ever had a friend who, for whatever reason, had very poor judgment in restaurants, or home contractors, or something like that? Or at least, it seemed like that in your experience? Someone who’d rave about some new store or place to eat or something, and it would always be awful? Eventually, you might half-joke, “Let’s ask so-and-so if they can recommend any new restaurants, so we know where not to eat.”
In other words, you would treat their opinion (on such a matter) not just as likely to be useless to you, but as reliably the opposite of what yours should be.
I’m thinking about this because I see this phenomenon in politics. Some people think of this habit as trolling, “owning the libs,” etc. But I think it’s more than that. What it really amounts to is outsourcing your thinking to the people you disagree with or dislike. And I would ask: why should their opinion on a matter be all you need to know? Why would you let people you don’t like determine your views for you?
Now I know what some people who, probably inadvertently, do this would say: it’s not that I’m outsourcing my views to people I disagree with. It’s that I’m assuming it’s a good rule of thumb that if those people are for something, it’s probably bad, and if they’re against something, it’s probably good. Obviously this is not operable once you get to “Hitler was a vegetarian” territory. But is it completely wrong?
Yeah, generally I think it is. At best, it’s akin to a stereotype or generalization. At worst it ends up being circular reasoning, and it cuts off critical thinking. If you find that someone you generally disagree with makes an interesting point, you should wonder “Maybe this person is right about this thing” or “Maybe people’s views on things are idiosyncratic and don’t always line up the way I would expect,” rather than “That idea sounds good, but I know it must actually be bad because of who’s saying it.”
I’m leaving this general, so that you can think of your own examples. But here’s a hint: for a long time I’ve been meaning to write a piece probably titled “‘I Agree With Urbanists, But I Don’t Trust Them,’” about this question of how to deal with good ideas being held by people you might generally be skeptical of.
A lot of our opinions are not derived from abstract reasoning or critical thinking or consistent principles, though that’s what we’re taught in college. Most of us outsource our views on things we don’t care about very deeply. On some level, we have to, because we all have lives to live. (Of course, you can also choose to have no opinion, which in some ways is more thoughtful than outsourcing it.)
Anyway, I’m curious if you can give an example of this phenomenon, especially one where maybe you’ve changed your mind or thought differently about an issue. Leave comment!
Related Reading:
“I Like My Opinions, Why Would I Want New Ones?”
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I've always been the sort of person to have no strong opinion on issues I don't know much about. This is probably why I have never been registered with a political party - for either party, it seems there's a lot of nonsense that is expected to be swallowed along whatever actual good policy there is.
I find it really odd how so many people will adopt a default of "if my team is for it, I'm also automatically for it!" or "if the other guys are for it, I am automatically against it!" I guess it's a basic human instinct to be tribal. Perhaps I'm abnormally low in groupishness or something and that is why it seems so illogical to me.
I believe you make an excellent point here, Addison. So much of our political discourse these days boils down to, "Well, that person I don't like is for this issue, so I'm against it" (or vice versa). Besides being lazy thinking, it leads to a number of negative effects.
For one thing, as soon as an issue is deemed "political," the idea of bipartisan cooperation becomes virtually impossible. And since the American political system is generally set up to thwart changes that don't have bipartisan support, very little gets done.
This thinking is also behind a lot of the circular-firing-squad debates on the left. Progressives treat moderation on any issue as tantamount to surrender or abandonment of a key ally, while moderates tend to be deeply suspicious of embracing progressive positions on any issue, regardless of the individual merits of that position. It leads to the bizarre position where an awful lot of members of the Democratic Party seem to hate what it stands for.
I've always tried to make a point of understanding the views of ideological opponents so that I can at least understand where they're coming from. And I find that even viewpoints I strongly disagree with often have important insights that should be taken into account. I'm certainly not perfect about it, but I'm at least able to defend my opinions on their merits, not just by pointing out that someone I don't like disagrees with me.