Contrarians

You probably know someone who relishes in striking up pointless arguments all the time.  I sure do!  Every statement, however innocuous, is met with a quick rebuttal.  “It’s pretty cold this morning.”  “It’s not cold, you should go to Winnipeg!  This is nice.”  “Shawshank Redemption was a great movie.”  “I hated it, it was stupid.”  Followed by: “Pulp Fiction was a great movie.”  “I prefer Shawshank Redemption to that crap.”  And so on.

I’m all for people not following the herd and using their own minds, but being a contrarian is exactly as pointless as  following the crowd.  In either case your opinion is based solely on how others feel about things – you are either blending in and agreeing, or reflexively rejecting whatever is said.  Being a contrarian doesn’t make you smarter than anyone, or more capable of independent thought, it usually just makes you an asshole.

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It’s no accident that our language uses the word like to mean both “similar to” and “fond of.”  Things we enjoy are “agreeable.”  Which isn’t to say we can’t also enjoy a good argument or having a little fun with someone being the devil’s advocate, but when it becomes a person’s automatic reaction, that person is to be avoided.  Trail blazers and innovators like Steve Jobs are sometimes described as contrarians for opposing norms and expectations.  That may be true in a sense, but I doubt Steve Jobs went around starting arguments all day long just to be a social irritant.  He would likely be better described as the independent thinker contrarians aspire to be.