Prejudices

Now and again, it can be nice (in a warped kind of way) to get the kind of sharp poke in the slats that while it doesn't do any actual harm, does provide an inspirational stimuli and a bit of food for thought.

Perhaps I'm just odd, but I don't insist that I agree with everything I read or everyone who writes it - not merely at the detail level, but at the macro level as well. Everyone sitting around in a circle nodding their head while uttering "uh-huh, uh-huh, Kumbayah" in self-congratulatory agreement doesn't strike me as terribly stimulating, or likely to produce a great deal of original thought (or even thought that while previously expressed by others, is bright/shiny/new unto the thinker).

I read folks and material I disagree with, sometimes regularly, to the extent my digestion will tolerate such adventures - because I disagree with them, because they are thinking differently than I am, and in some cases because I want to keep a weather eye on them.

For instance, I'll read an anti-gun blogger, just to see what happy fun the lovely souls of that inclination dream of ram-rodding through the next meeting of the Legislature. On the same note, I keep a weather eye out for the Rev. Fred Phelps and his vile ilk out of a similar sense of wanting to know where the hostiles are - but those are extremes, and much more commonly, I'll enjoy reading a pro-life piece or a pro-abortion piece (I actually disagree with both schools of thought in that arena) because, who knows? Some writer in either camp may come up with a take on things I hadn't considered, and re-order my thoughts for the better.

We all come to the table with prejudices, some more socially acceptable in a given era than others, just as we all come to that same table with preferences - two sides of the same coin, really. To me, intellectual honesty demands I admit it when, based on whimsy/prior experience/rampant emotionalism/etc (take a choice on a given day) that to the best of my ability I fess up to these shortcomings (I.e., "I rarely agree or rarely agree on a 1:1 basis with thus and so, but consider them a good person/writer/carpenter/etc) and having admitted the intellectual flaw, man up and try and wade through the prose with what passes for an open mind - i.e., being conscious of my preferences/prejudices, and trying to keep them somewhat restrained as I scroll through.

Other folks do it differently.