Are you a contrarian or just the odd one out?

A contrarian… someone who is regularly opposed to the conventional view of things. Do you find yourself the odd one out regularly? Do people have a hard time understanding your opinions? There is a good chance that yes, you are a contrarian.

This may mean that you’re just critical, in the sense that you’re not prepared to accept the conventional wisdom and take things at face value. Or it may mean that by your very nature you reject the conventional wisdom. Is this good, you’re an independent thinker, or bad you’re just perverse?

Take a case in point, climate change. Is it anthropogenic (caused by human activity)? And what, if any, action should be taken against the emission of greenhouse gases (‘carbon’ for short) that cause it?

The conventional wisdom is that the answer, based on the majority of international scientists, is yes to both questions.

But there are still a number of people and by all accounts it’s an increasing number, who doubt the very basis of the conventional wisdom. Why is this so?

Have the vast majority of scientists simply got it wrong? Do you consider that you know better than them, that you’re a better scientist in that you can reach a different conclusion on the basis of evidence? (After all, there’s enough evidence of ‘voices in the wilderness’ being eventually proved right).

Or are you reacting against proponents of the conventional wisdom being overly dramatic about the implications of climate change? Do you think that some people have simply taken it too much to heart (and made it into what has been called a ‘religion’)?

Or do you not like the implications of accepting the majority view and doing what has to be done to reduce greenhouse gases? Are you simply not prepared to bear the costs of addressing a problem that’s not going to have any major effect on you personally during your lifetime? Is it easier just to assert that the problem doesn’t exist in the first place?

Or are you the sort of person who is just suspicious of a ‘consensus’ about anything, feeling perhaps that to be part of a consensus simply makes us a sheep-like follower of a majority view and that in itself is not a good thing? Are you, by nature, a contrarian

Whatever the issue (be it climate change or something else) contrarians have a responsibility. However, this is partly to themselves, to be clear in their own minds why they oppose the conventional wisdom. But it’s partly also to society generally, to explain to others and actually try to convince others that their view is correct one.

A society needs its contrarians. But are you frustrated by people who always seem to doubt or oppose something without making it clear why and perhaps, not even being clear in their own minds about why they oppose it?

Do you think you are a contrarian? Perhaps you have turned into one as you’ve gotten older or maybe you just feel like it sometimes?