In Favor of Outrageous Thinking
The goal of all our arguments is not to join a black-or-white debate, but to create a color, or a set of fancy footwear, not the comfortable shoes that “go with everything,” but a pair of high-heeled neon ankle-killing athletic shoes everyone laughs at until the day she buys a pair. If you start with black, and I start with white, we tend to think we should meet somewhere in the middle, and the middle too often looks gray.
Gray satisfies no one. It can’t be what we wanted. Ending up with compromises no more compelling than our starting premises wastes our readers’ time (if we still have readers at the end). Instead we need to realize we’ve misinterpreted our starting points. We haven’t started with opposites. For one thing, we’re both talking about sneakers.
The opposite of a black sneaker
The opposite of a black sneaker isn’t a white sneaker; it’s broccoli, or impressionist art, or the atomic weight of laughter. We’re not obligated to compromise our positions to find something that contains components of both. We should instead be hoping that the tension between the two ends of the spectrum reveals something more interesting than either of the “sides.” First it reveals that we haven’t started on the two extremes. Then we discover there’s something beyond both our positions.
The worst mistake we can make—even worse than settling for gray—is to start with gray, which can only result in more gray.
Gray on Gray, A Model:
The most common misconception with someone who is happy is we think that person has meaning in his life. A person who is happier may even have less meaning in her life than her less-happy counterparts. Happiness doesn’t define meaning; rather, it defines contentment. Having meaning in one’s life runs deeper than the mere sensation that happiness brings. Meaning is about contributing to the world, to something greater than oneself. Happiness is just satisfaction with one’s current standpoint on life, and one’s environment. The world defines happiness as something much greater than it actually is. Happiness is nothing more than the satisfaction of one’s current standpoint.
Color on Color.
Our goal is the colorful conclusion, achieved by beginning with bold and colorful premises, somewhere along a line of reasoning the ends of which are not in sight when we begin.
Color on Color: A Model
Our neighbor Frank seems happy, and would probably define himself as happy, but he’s not. He takes pride in his fine house, where he lives with his presentable family, and he has job security. Let’s call him content. Our neighbor Ernest rents a cramped apartment, lives alone, and scrapes by freelancing. Let’s call him happy. Ernest is tortured by an abiding outrage against injustice. He champions every cause that comes his way if it will better the world or ease the suffering of others. Often hungry himself, he will share his lunch with anyone. We might prefer to be Frank, but Ernest is more likely to be happy.
If you can prove that, I’ll eat my shoe.
The result of our premises will not be as certain as when we try to start with supposed “opposite sides” of a known argument, but the pursuit of an outcome will be more entertaining, vivid, colorful, and compelling. Maybe even nutritious.
One Side Inevitably Loses any
Black-and-White Argument
EXAMPLE. Today we begin a debate on arming teachers in schools. If anti-gun advocates allow the argument to be phrased as black-and-white options, they inevitably lose. Most likely neither side will get exactly what it wants, but the pro-gun side will win. Why?
The “compromise” solution that will surely be the outcome—the grey in the middle between All Teachers Should Be Armed and No Teachers Should Be Armed—will be to arm “Some Teachers.” Clear victory for the pro-gun side. Utter failure for the anti-gun side. The outcome lies in the how the question is phrased.
In-Class Exercise
Was that helpful? Reply with your new insight on how to think about any debate.
- Why is it wrong to divide opinion into One Side vs The Other Side?
- What’s a better way to think about the range of opinions on any topic?
Counterintuitive Fall 2024 
Based on what I’m getting from this about opposite sides is that a writer shouldn’t beat around the bush or leaning back and forth like a seesaw effect where the readers wanted a straight answer from the writers themselves. It would feel like the writer has no backbone to support or declare their argument to their readers because the writers would eventually loses their audience easily due to their weariness of jumping back and forth of different sides.
To me about why is it wrong to divide the opinions into The One Side vs The Other Side is because you would eventually state the pros and cons, and compare and contrast between each sides of the story without fully support one side.
There are a lot of different opinions of any certain topic, but I believe it’s the main question of why you support that side than declaring which side you are on.
I cannot remember if it was on an NPR show or Joe Rogan (two very very different kinds of shows I know,) where the host remarked that just about everything has been politicized, and that now people view everything through the lens of politics, which they find worrisome for the future. There is a sort of set of beliefs that come packaged depending on where you stand politically, the host implied that not only come bundled together but you cannot have mixed and matched.
It actually had me thinking about what hasn’t been politicized. Not much. Maybe the WallStreet-Bets short-squeeze incident during the Covid-19 lockdowns?
https://www.theverge.com/22251427/reddit-gamestop-stock-short-wallstreetbets-robinhood-wall-street
But to me at least it feels like we have had almost a gold rush to politicize everything. This, in my opinion, is in no small part to a very vocal political figure that comments on everything he sees on TV, Donald Trump. Contrast this with literally any other president! He is and still is as far as I know the only president to go on Twitter nearly every day with opinions about nearly everything. Who would have guessed that when a political figure jumps into something, it gets political really fast. Presidents in the past have given option in the past of certain American events such as Activist Bree Newsome removes Confederate flag from South Carolina State House | June 27, 2015 | HISTORY, but never everyday stuff like some celebrity gossip show! It has been pointed out by certain news agencies that at this point it is a tactic to divert attention to some to some other scandal that is currently hot, by commenting on something that is absolute ridiculous. I even know some diehard Trump fanboys that wish he would keep his mouth shut and say that it just gets him in more trouble. Never had we had a president before that jumped into so many arenas of pop culture and dragged it out on to a public forum before, picking fights on twitter with a rotation of political and pop culture figures regularly!
Donald Trump Has Blunt Message For Taylor Swift Before Super Bowl – The Spun
Ok, so I addressed where I think the inspiration for this one side versus the other side was seeded from. What is wrong with this? Well, for one, if you are getting a bundle or paradigm of ideas forced upon you, then perhaps I must ask if you have done the thinking to arrive at the same conclusion. According to a book I cannot find at the moment, a lot of people just follow what other people say especially in the realm of social media. The book asserts that they do not do the groundwork or mental exercises they should, and instead just take the mental shortcut “My friend X that I trust says this, so I will also say this.” What a great example of “groupthink”, yay!
The first problem that comes to mind is A.) what if you have a better idea or insight on a topic, whether it be by reflection or by being in the particular industry where the controversy is taking place? And B.) what if you do the math yourself on an issue and come to a different conclusion that what you are supposed to say? What if your math is right? (“Math” is interchangeable with groundwork or algorithms done by humans in their mind.)
I believe it is important to have the integrity to know what you stand for; not just say you stand for something. You have to do your research and think, two things most Americans hate. Everyone just assumes they already do and that they are right. For 6 years, I used to watch different new sources and compare their stories. In the event of absence, I would compare what different new sources would cover or skip. You will start to see patterns if you do so, and more importantly you will find the asterisk in information and influencers, where they may be technically correct, but leaving something out. Something that usually flips the entire situation.
So, let’s move on to thinking about topics outside of a political paradigm and on to slicing up topics in different way. Some topics can have many perspectives just ask 100 about dating, just about everybody I have ever talked to about it has had different ideas on just about everything! Some topics are less sliceable like Roe vs Wade, do you want abortions or not? Dead baby or delivery. You could argue there is some gray area as to when the fetus gets it heart or brain or whatever you consider “real life” as opposed to a jumble of blood and tissue, I guess. But then that still kind of flow charts into “do you want dead fetus or live fetus?” in my opinion.
Changing subject, something with no clear good answer and lots of opinions is prostitution in America. It is happening as we speak and will continue to happen regardless of legal status. Some of it is regular illegal like in Washington DC where it is propertied that there is a denser population of escorts per square mile than anywhere else in America. Attractive high-class women and hypothetically your elected representatives, lawyers, or lobbyists engaging in consensual adult activities. No one is hurt and one walks away with money to pay bills and because its high-class, has more money left-over to treat herself. However, due to it being illegal, this makes it hard or dangerous to meet with strangers that these women of the night can trust. While not exactly big deal for established escorts that have large networks of people they know and require new clients to have 3 to 5 references to even get an audience with them, newer women still making connections or low-class escorts in general face the real danger of that one “oppsie” to accidently meet a modern-day Jack-the-Ripper or a police sting.
Contrast this with Nevada, where outside of Clarks County, “the gambling part”, prostitution is legal as long as it is done within a brothel. Contrast this again with human trafficking prostitutes. A legal brothel in Nevada gives the women full control over the terms of service, she can engage or not in whatever she is comfortable with and charge a rate that she wants relative to the events her client wants. The human trafficking kind has limited autonomy and sometimes may be forced to do something she doesn’t want, to put it mildly.
Now perspective time. Some women say that prostitution is ok and should not be shamed and pays well. Other say it’s a dangerous job, but it puts food on the table. Others yet say it’s terrible and has scared them for life. Others say it led to them getting into drugs. And some never got to say anything because their body was found tossed off a tall bridge to the city or something.
To make things more complicated there are some advocates that say position should be legal, some that say it should not be illegal, and others that say it should be abolished entirely.
Currently it is illegal, and it is still practiced so, abolishing it could prove to be difficult much like illegal drugs are still used and have been a pain to abolish. Additionally, dude to things being illegal it forces the women in the trade to make more dangerous choices in order to stay off the radar of law enforcement. Is that what we want as a country? Ok well how about an all-religious country where sex outside of marriage is bad?
The other way is to make it legal. The government get a cut of the money via taxes, and the worker are predicably afforded protections as workers and there are certain oversights for brothels. This could be a thing, if A,) Americans were ok with this, and B.) lawmakers were ok with this. In case you have been living under a rock, America is largely not ok with sex. They may do stuff behind closed doors, on Tinder or Ashly Madison, but to publicly admit in public square they are a sinner? No! This is the hail-Mary of all plays as the only time politics comes to visit prostitution is to demonize it for a few quick brownies points they need with their constituents.
Lastly, to make prostitution not illegal is a more agnostic stance as it would simply make it ok to do but not regulated by anyone. Everyone is left to their own ways like the wild west. Women would not be guaranteed anything. Could they get some safety by not have to do underground stuff? Yea. But if they decide to partner up with an employer, there is nothing that employer is compelled to do unless it makes financial sense to him.
Now each of these outcomes have very different effects depending on the type of escort we a talking about. For the human trafficking kind, yea abolishing that seems reasonable. But of the one making dough off of your senators might just want to be able to operate more safely with less secret agent stuff to do to stay undetected. The hood girls just want things to be safer. For them legalizing it or decimalizing it might be the way to go.
To make things more complicated, (ignoring the human trafficked kind) some Women hate it do it to put food on the table. Others are more ok with it and their own circumstances. So, we have the layer of different women with different opinions, the different types of prostitution, and then you have the different outcomes from a law perspective and people effected differently.
You can slice that up a bunch of different ways.