I confess that the contrarian spirit does not irritate me to the extent it does the generality of men.
If a person always contradicts us, it is because there exists a concealed aversion, one of those imperfect sympathies which Lamb decisively pointed out.
Whoever is a stranger to the tyrannical desire to be right about everything should recognize with me the rights and privileges of the systematic contrarian. They stem from the advantage and superiority that the instinctive has over the rational. Before admitting foreign arguments, we must admit our own affections, the secret leanings of our temper, which are closer to us than anything our reason can construct, for they are our very essence. I believe, ultimately, that the instinctive antipathy which the contrarian spirit presupposes must be as respectable in our eyes as the most sophisticated arguments, at least.
He who opposes everything is a proud man who refuses to lower himself into recognizing that the truth of others is also his truth. And all individualistic acts, fierce though they may seem, must be welcomed in these post-Nietzschean times.
The contempt that frequently greets those who always contradict and even the contrarian spirit itself—as if the latter could exist in abstraction, unrelated to specific persons—is a result of their being seen from the viewpoint of sociability, a paltry and despicable viewpoint.
—With a person who limits everything with howevers, and who recognizes no truth except that which comes from his own lips, you cannot talk for a long while.
Our friends usually express themselves in these or similar terms.
To be sure, if sociability were to descend from the Olympus of pure ideas and hold us accountable, the contradicted would find himself in greater trouble. Relations grow difficult and rough, not owing to the contrarian—who wants to ground them on the purest sincerity—but to the contradicted, who grounds them on the quicksands of complacency and mutual concession, not on the firm parcel of truth.
Besides, if we cannot stand seeing ourselves contradicted and our humor turns sour with constant opposition, surely we are far from being the perfect spectators of life we have imagined. A simple obstinacy in others, the slightest hint of self-will, can madden us, and our so-called quasi-Goethean calm disappears as by enchantment. Because of our vivacious mood, we lose the occasion of an interesting spectacle. Instead of enjoying relations with contrarians, we cling to a proposition; that is, we lose the gold coin and favor the baser metal.
Continuous contradiction is an effect of instinctive antipathy. Our world, however, is composed of people who feel a soft inclination our way, on account of which they are well disposed toward us. And that tepid sympathy in which we live falsifies the concept we form of life. There exists something of a tacit social contract by which we tolerate, deceive, and bore one another. Unfortunately, in our epoch it is more difficult to inspire a comfortative aversion than to gain half a dozen friends. Without the least intention on our part, we incur the tightest bonds with those who walk close. We arrive at marriage without consultations. And many bestow upon us nonchalantly the title of best friend, which imposes unpleasant duties. For example, if he dies gloriously by hanging, it is the "best friend" who must gather the last words and pay the posthumous bills. It is also the "best friend" who must pronounce the funeral oration, and, as you know, nothing has as direct an impact on definitive reputation as a splendid exequy.
How, then, are we not to rejoice when we cross paths with an honest man who resolutely contradicts?
Paradox, to whose noisy rattle our ears are growing accustomed, is the surest snare to discover contrarians. Throw off the most hackneyed paradox and see how a legion of outraged men bare their teeth and threaten with their fists. Go on praising in the most innocent tone the worst things and demeaning the best. You will, at last, awaken a true antipathy.
Leave with your fellow, because people, in their officious courtesy, could dispose him in your favor. Talk to him about whatever you please: you can count on his firm and well-intentioned opposition. Naturally, you will think again all your problems, reconstruct your truth, and rectify yourself. The exterior push into Cartesian doubt, into a sudden abandonment of certainties, is, indeed, the inestimable benefit of the contrarian spirit.
Alas, it is difficult to sustain in our conversational partner. Even in pecuniary matters agreement is reached sooner or later. Our planet was made for those who assent, concede, and tolerate. Those who contradict are not of this world.
And when people are absolutely satisfied with the rest of the civilized world in all debatable topics, they employ their efforts in reconciling Moses to Hammurabi, the Moderns to the Greeks, Nezahualcoyotl to Horace. This flirtation with harmonizing everything throughout time and space prevails in the literary criticism of our day, in whose domain everything is influence.
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