I’m naturally contrarian.
I don’t try to be. In fact, I’d enjoy to be on the winning side more often.
But that’s not in my nature.
Take any philosophy to excess and it breaks down. If a society is too conformist, it breaks down. If it’s too individualistic, it fractures and loses scope of time.
No individualist society would ever do anything that takes more than a generation, maybe two.
Too puritan is corrosive. Too permissive is the same.
So when society marches down one path, my instinct is to throw my weight in the opposite direction.
Does this mean I have no values, no consistency, no moral core? Somehow, no. Take someone who is in favour of artistic expression, fairness and prosperity. Those are their most important values. Is that person left wing or right wing? Individualist or collectivist? A radical or a traditionalist? You can’t be certain. In fact that person could change their mind, entering each camp, while keeping their morals intact.
And specific stances – like on free trade or gay marriage – can change from the counterculture to the conservative take over time.
That’s why I have such contempt for politics. Fifteen years ago, being anti-war, mistrusting big corporations, defending free expression and opposing prejudice were all classic liberal values. Now, liberals have steadily rejected, even inverted, each of them.
Politics makes you stupid. Then it makes you betray yourself. If you were liberal two decades ago and you still are, then the old you would despise the new you. As for conservatives, the movement fails to conserve much, instead adopting the same values as their hated enemies just a few years behind them.
Reject all that.
Find what you actually stand for. If you resonate with one school of political belief, then why? What about that speaks to you? Explore your values.
“I already do that!” Prove it. Introspection is a trap – everything thinks they’re brilliant at it but most folks aren’t. They’re incapable, even unwilling to look inside, all while believing they know thyselves.
Tell me why you believe what you believe. If your answer is something trite like, “I oppose suffering!”, then you’ve failed. Your political rivals oppose suffering too. You’re not unique.
Tell me what it would take for you to stand against your “tribe”. Tell me what it would take for you to change your mind. If you can’t do that, your beliefs are hollow and you’re not as introspective as you think you are.
Anyway, the best that will do is identify a problem.
How do you then find what your real values are?
How do you learn introspection?
It starts here: