Word: contrarians
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Nevertheless, there was one pleasant adjective attached to me, though in certainly was no compliment. In march, I participated in a panel discussion on student activism. After my opening remarks, another participant called me "contrarian." That I did not intend my remarks to sound eccentric or esoteric yet still received this label especially pleased...
...contrarian means simply to hold views or attitudes contrary to those held by most. One might call the popular views or attitudes conventional wisdom, especially if one holds them. Or one might call them, as I do prejudices...
...rampant prejudices. While I stand by my previous writings and their cogency, my first end was not to persuade but rather to offend your sensibilities. For with offended sensibilities comes indignation and with indignation a desire to refute. But to refute an argument successfully, even or perhaps especially a contrarian argument, requires understanding. And if one attempts to understand a contrarian argument, one might even come to appreciate or agree with it. In a word, one might lose a prejudice...
...intent to challenge with my writings; and by challenging, I meant to improve, to jolt slumbering minds into wakefulness. Even if my contrarian opinions have been incorrect, I hope they have made you rethink received opinion and conventional wisdom, as J. S. Mill suggested they might. But I conjecture, with reserve, that at least some of my contrarian opinions have been correct. If so, I hope they have made you reject received opinion and conventional wisdom...
...skepticism doesn't end in Los Angeles. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today have all put Bronfman's performance under the critical microscope. Contrarian weekly Barron's, however, sees his actions as a harbinger of good things to come. Earlier this month, the Toronto Stock Exchange halted trading of his parent company, Seagram, to allow officials to deny a whirl of rumors: that Seagram was shedding its Tropicana juice division; that Bronfman might sell Universal to DreamWorks; and, last and most incredible, that patriarch Edgar Bronfman Sr. was essentially firing...