I was wondering the other day whether or not a lack of knowledge/intelligence encourages people to simply take the opposite side of what’s suggested. When people have nothing to stand for, they stand against others.
What do you guys think?
I think some take on the opposing side of a proposition just to argue or to partake in a battle of wills or both… I have found that people feel alive when they argue, or get amusement from it.
There are many scenarios this are displayed.
Through the years, demagogues have deluded people with their nonsens, and many people have blindly followed.
It’s only when words attacks people core value that there will be a negative response, even if the words are valid and follow logic and reason.
If I think it’s not the case will you think I am stupid?
OK, well I think stupidity also leads people to go along with things. So it leads people to go along perhaps for no (good) reason and then also to not go along for no good reason. But I am not sure stupidity makes one contrary. Maybe. I would think you would need some other trait. Like if you are stupid and a little paranoid about being misled. Like stupidity alone could take you in either direction, but it could be a strong co-factor in contrariness.
Those include people that like to answer with ‘that maybe true, but…’ or ‘that maybe true but it doesn’t change the fact that…’
Some people just like to have the last word in… I usually let them, because if it’s about having the last word or sounding smarter than you, or just sounding smart outloud to themselves, then challenging them may only make it worse and turn a discussion into vicious circle of contradicting each other for the sake of contradicting each other, and that will quicky deteriorate the quality of discussion.
It may even lead one to attack the person’s character insted of his
arguments.
Of course there are some people who really enjoy doing this, on both sides, and to each other, but I don’t think it would involve a sincere interest in the topic, as they won’t really be listening to the other party, or where the opposing view is coming from.
For most people of the type you mention, it would be compensating for their feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.
Little dogs don’t have a big bite, but they sure bark a lot.
Contrarianism as relates to questions of intelligence is an interesting question. For me, it’s about the phenomenon of signaling – believing something because that belief is a sign of your intelligence, as opposed to believing it because you neutrally reasoned to that conclusion.
Eg. perhaps a lot of people who call themselves atheists may do so not because they neutrally reasoned to atheism, but because they see that a lot of the most intelligent people or groups in our society are atheist or related to atheism, and so they use atheism as a means of signaling their intelligence.
[disclaimer: I’m an atheist, so obviously I don’t believe that all atheists are merely signaling their intelligence]
Read here for more thoughts on signaling.
I can’t see how less knowledge breeds contrarianism… as you present contrarianism as arresting the opposite… it takes a intelligent mind to grasp what the opposite is, as there isn’t a inherent dual opposite to a thing, or a position… it took philosophical effort in the past to arrive to that conclusion.
A example:
I say ‘I want to live on a Hill’
and then Smears says ‘I want to live on the Plains’.
Living on a flat surface is indeed in some ways the opposite of living on a elevated surface, but what if he said"
‘I want to live in a valley’.
Living in a valley assets a topographical delimma, as he can evoke a series of opposites here… a valley can be NOT HILL in the sense of a flat surface in between two hills, such as where I live in the Appalachian Plateau, or a place ajoining a hill on a curvature… one that can be the inverse or not the inverse of the hill Smears is idealizing me living on.
Or… Smears can say ‘I want to live on a lake’ which is indeed in many cases the exact opposite, given water flows downhill, and lakes tend to be below hills… however, even here, some lakes are ontop of hills, and the Resident Contrarian Smears (who is indeed a dumbfuck) isn’t precluding from being my closest neighbor in this scenerio, despite in ways of apparent intention he seems to be the opposite. Lake Tahoe, for example, is onto of a massive crater… he could live on a lake, and I can live on a hill side by side.
Or, Smears can say ‘I want to live on a airplane’ which is indeed potentially the opposite of living on the ground- both are indeed up in the air, but a plain can fly higher, assuming his plane he lives in can fly higher.
Or Smears can say ‘I want to live in a submarine’, or ‘I want to live in the international space station’, or ‘I want to live on Mars’, or ‘I want to live on a hole on Mars’ or ‘I want to stripmine the hill you live on and destroy your home’ which is definitely contrarian, or ‘I want to be in your momma’ which though is not contrarian, does hit some of the demeaning psychological effects of a generic contrairian attitude’. He can even say some Zen stuff, like ‘I want to live on the inside of the outside of your hill’… which though absurd, can cause one to think of Hillness, and then collapse into a Heideggerian trance of non-compliance with reason- which is all the rage in Europe, and I am informed is suppose to be quite intelligent and philosophical.
However, the contrarian is able to go though the alternatives, and say something that both you and he knows to be the contrary balance to your proposal. This means he has a theory of mind in regards to you, and is able to allocate within himself, through the boolean array, a counter-proposition that acknowledges and disregards your position. It’s a assult on the conception of free will vs conditionality… and is a rejection of the second while mocking the underlining reason that lead us to our conclusions in the first place… it’s man at play, asserting and evolving beyond the logic that formed the closed logic loop that lead to the finality of judgement by using a judgemental assertion, encouraging us to re-engade into thought… but it puts the Onus of the identity issue on the interlocutor… at first, my statement ‘I want to live on a hill’ would be judge critically by the persona of ‘dumbfuck Smears at it again’… much as Faust perceives me… but as I undergo the process of evaluating my hurt feelings, as the emotions ratchet down… the memory of the pain of the interlocutor, Smears, comes into play, and I have to ask myself, in part 'Why Hill, why did I focus on hill. If dumbfuck can live on NotHill, why can’t I live on NotHill? What are the variables inbetween?
This forces a process of reevaluation, and I may dance amongst the many possibilities, and find my original position was infact a inferior judgement to begin with.
This is a integrated cognitive play. The means to rejection isn’t necessarily a sign of inferior intelligence, but on of a superior nature… it’s easy when we’re classest- attributing the finer and more rareified aspects of economic or social status as inherently superior over those who possess less and are feral in their looks and thinking as being less intelligent… however, the exact opposite is more likely the case… they survived in their position and even thrived, whereas you had the coattails of others to ride on. You might use better, more elongated and smoother words that tinge with harmony… but you were taught it, and there is no evidence you were taught any better than the dirty feral, contrarian that you are actually smarter- just inherited a better position, and that you are more liable to adopt the forms of a otherwise decadent and alien culture. The economizing wisdom of a survivalist, a feral person, likely makes their language use more efficient. The evidence that the bother to reply at all to what you are saying suggests they know your game, and are calling you on it, making a conscious effort to align their meaning with your understanding of the opposite.
This suggests within our genepool, intelligence can operate not just merely via brutality and masochism as in the Nietzschean framework, but also through interdependent alturism… honestly, if both sides of a contrarian discussion survive to produce offspring, how long can their lineage be expected to remain aloof from one another? Fortunes change, attraction works unexpectedly. When we show a willingness to communicate to one another, it’s a sign that a altruistic layer is hiding in it… when a contrarian bothers to do so, it signals he is investing in the genepool, and cares to waste the energy to do so…
at root, all genes are just as altruistic as they are selfish. The need to make statements of a contrarian nature shows that on a societal level, our cognitive typologies are at play, despite forms of segregation, and that they are having a effect, and that we may be more closely interdependent upon one another than the reasoned reflection of our memories, via our identity, allows us to admit. If we walked through life videotaping one another, 24-7, over a week… and had sociologists and cognitive psychologists analyses the data, they may come to a very different conclusion about the nature of your week than what your asserting it to of been. They will see countless, unexpected people picking up the cognitive slack for where you dropped the ball… that we’re all really just walking around in life largely blind, relying on the cues of others to pick up our slack and redirect. They do this as much for themselves as for you- because in the long term, that’s much and the same thing.
In otherwords, U a dumbfuck, cause your breed the stupidity in not realizing contrarians are naturally smarter than you and are doing you a favor…
It encourages people to disagree.
For them to actually take the opposing side requires that they also choose to attack… hate/fear/manipulate.
…assuming that they are not agreeing to debate for sake of hypothetical resolution.
I think what FJ said about signaling is interesting and pertinent. Aside from that, I’m not convinced that ignorance motivates people to disagree. If you think about it, taking a contrary position without any means to support it is risky and probably won’t end well. You’ll end up looking like more of an asshole than you would otherwise. I think ignorance tempts people to take comfortable positions and generally avoid disagreement.
How could it not?
But an ignorant won’t know that or think about it.
Not if they hate/fear/manipulate.
Or inversely when they love,dare, and are impressed by the other side of a hidden argument.
I’m talking from an internalist, not an externalist, perspective. Believe me, I understand what you’re saying about signaling in context of community, but I’m assuming that people are being honest rather than trying to be impressive. That is they’re contrarian because they have nothing else to express, not because they’re trying to get on someone’s nerves.
Contrarian “positions” don’t necessarily need support though. They can just be skeptical of what’s originally proposed.
I think everyone should be skeptical. That is by no means a sign of ignorance.
Well I’m not saying ignorance never breeds disagreement, to be sure. I’m just saying that ignorance breeds complacency and assent as much as it does disagreement. In short, it takes effort to disagree with certain things and not look foolish for doing so.
…but skeptical people are ignorant of what to assert.
If they knew what to assert, they would commit their attention span to being assertive, not being skeptical.
That’s a very bizarre generalization.
Dak’s generalizations often seem quite bizarre to me.
I don’t think that’s the case. I think skeptics are critical of what is being asserted. People who are ignorant of what to assert would remain neutral and wouldn’t take a side either way. Disagreement involves making assertions that oppose, or call into question, the initial claim. Even if you’re being a skeptic simply for the sake of disagreement, you are asserting something - that the initial claim is probably wrong or mistaken somehow.
i would like to know what dak means by that…
Skepticism is neutrality. You’re drawing a false dichotomy.
Say you draw a marble out of a bag of unknown color. The skeptic doesn’t agree with it being red, blue, black, white, or any other color. The skeptic is neutral in asserting which color the marble is, waiting for sufficient proof to be provided.
By default, the marble doesn’t have any particular color. It has an unknown color which the skeptic is ignorant of.