Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed a change in the way I think.
Used to be, when I researched some new topic – science, politics, history, whatever – I was happy with just reaching a conclusion about it. I would look at the information, read different points of view, think about it, and form an opinion – and then, once I had my opinion, I’d discard the path that got me there.
I didn’t care any longer how I’d reached the idea. It was only the idea itself – the end result – that mattered.
That meant that if somebody challenged me, I often didn’t know how to respond. I had my thoughts, sitting pretty on a shelf, but I hadn’t kept any supports to prop them up. The least wind could knock them over.
So I’ve started armoring my ideas. As I draw conclusions, I find myself thinking, “How would I defend this in an argument? What reasoning would I give? How will people criticize this?”
Instead of just forming opinions, I’m preparing them for battle.
This revelation of mine may seem frightfully naive to a lot of you. But then, I grew up as an only child, and didn’t have someone around to gainsay my proclamations on an hourly basis. I’m used to thinking about the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Digging moats around my knowledge, putting up catapults, not so much.
I’m glad to see myself changing, though. For one thing, it makes conversations a lot more interesting. Besides that, I think meaningful public debate is one of the foundations of a democracy. And I’m hoping we can keep this country in the “democracy” category for a few more decades yet.
Yeah, that’s right, world. The fate of free elections depends on how my brain operates. Isn’t that a scary thought at 6:30 on a Monday morning.
How much armor do you give your ideas? Have you always been that way, or is it a recent change?
Brian D. Buckley 
“This revelation of mine may seem frightfully naive to a lot of you. But then, I grew up as an only child, and didn’t have someone around to gainsay my proclamations on an hourly basis. I’m used to thinking about the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Digging moats around my knowledge, putting up catapults, not so much.”
Ditto, 100%. (And I too was an only child.) In fact, I hadn’t really thought about “armoring” my ideas, although I have noticed the same problem as you, in that I often forget the details and only remember the conclusion. Perhaps I should start trying to remember the supporting facts as well.
So you’re in the same boat as me, huh? I wonder how strong the correlation is between whether you have siblings, and how prepared you are to defend your ideas.
Compared to your upbrining, I grew up in the Opposite Sketches.
I have two siblings (both younger), but it was really our Dad who enforced the “be prepared to argue” mentality that we all have. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have to justify decisions and opinions with hard facts and solid reasoning. Much as in maths class, if you couldn’t show your working, it was an automatic fail.
My husband jokes (or possibly not) that if you tell my Dad the sky is blue, you’d better be prepared to back up your argument. (In fact, my husband once made a throwaway comment about which football team he thought would win the Cup that year, and ended up in a 45 minute discussion where he was expected to provide information to support that hypothesis.)
With that upbringing, I’ve always approached learning with the mindset that I need to first understand all viewpoints/information, second make a decision about what I want to do/believe, and third justify that position to myself and others. Every time I state an opinion or belief, I fully expect to have to justify that statement with facts and references.
The downside to this is that for people who aren’t used to this form of discussion (eg. my husband), it can seem quite confrontational. Where I see an opportunity for lively discussion and testing the strength of my own opinions/beliefs against his, he sees a situation where I refuse to accept anyone else’s right to hold a different opinion to my own.
Like you, I was pulled into the defend-your-conclusions mindset by a particular person who didn’t accept much of anything at face value. After a while, you get sick of verbal bruises and start learning some counters. Although I have to think, if you’re really as “confrontational” as you say, you’ve been giving me a free pass on my posts so far!
Um…what is/are Opposite Sketches?
I don’t actually consider myself to be confrontational — I’ve just had a couple of people describe me that way. But, as I said, it’s because I ask for reasoning rather than accept someone else’s opinion as fact if I disagree with it.
eg. If you were to say that Harry Potter is the culmination of 6000 years of literary tradition and can never be surpassed, I’d ask you to justify your position. I don’t agree with that statement, and so would want to see/hear your reasoning, and would argue against any “logic” that doesn’t make sense. That isn’t to say that I couldn’t possibly be convinced, but I wouldn’t accept your opinion at face value if you didn’t have anything to back it up. On the other hand, if you were to say that you think Harry Potter is a great story, I wouldn’t feel the need to ask you why. (Although I might, because I’d be curious what you liked about it.)
The claims of being “confrontational” usually come from people who make broad, sweeping statements (eg. Everyone’s either read or watched Harry Potter) and then can’t back them up with any further logic than “but it’s true”.
Whew. And that’s enough of that.
Oh, and the Opposite Sketches were a segment on the TV show ‘You Can’t Do That on Television’ that I used to watch when I was a kid. Although, in retrospect, that was probably before you were born. So, you know, just showing my age…
Makes sense. If someone told me Harry Potter was the insurmountable paragon of literary achievement, I’d probably want to hear a justification too!
For me, i’ve always backed up my arguments with facts a bit, but usually my weapon of choice was logic laced with facts to show my logic. In middle school, as part of the advanced program I had to do a research project and present my results at the end of the time we were allotted. Usually I chose topics I felt strongly about, because we were allowed to choice anything we wanted withing a certain category (Such as science, environmental issues, things that changed the world, etc.) I always wanted to convince the entire class about my point of view on a subject, so I always found whatever facts and logic I could.
Recently I began the switch from spamming facts everywhere to gun down my opposers to connecting them with strings of logic. Perhaps philosophy club started the change, perhaps not. But anyway, I’ve always backed up an opinion I held strongly with a bit of random research, as well as logic, and have always been willing to change if stronger evidence makes a case against me.
Logic is a strange thing. It’s a staggeringly powerful tool when used properly, but it’s also surprisingly…brittle. Ancient and medieval essays are filled with long, dazzlingly intricate displays of logic that seem hopelessly naive today, because one tiny missing piece somewhere ruins the whole thing.
Spock was only half Vulcan, and he was a lot cooler than Tuvok. 😉