I came to the conclusion a while back that reflexive contrarianism is a disease and an addiction, that can start with reasonable skepticism and gradually lead its victim into the (ironically unquestioning) holding of truly appalling and evil beliefs.
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Replying to @Radlein
The science-fiction writer James P. Hogan fell deep into this hole. Wrote a nonfiction book called "Kicking the Sacred Cow" that was basically pushing a different completely daft contrarian hypothesis in every chapter. Then got sucked into the Holocaust-denial world.
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Replying to @Radlein
He was probably inspired by John W. Campbell, Jr., who never met a bizarre contrarian idea he didn't like. Fans constantly used the "well, he was just asking questions, he made you think" dodge, but some of Campbell's stuff was genuinely harmful (Dianetics, racism).
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Replying to @mattmcirvin @Radlein
Campbell is definiately the ur-contrarian.
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reading old anthology of campbell's editorials now&while a lot so modern IDW-ish in the 50s/60s it reads almost funny now, he also dedicates one to explaining/stating that islam, not graeco-roman "western trad" invented and furthered science, so he loses crusader con cred.
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Would agree there was a kind of purity to Campbell's contrarianism that wasn't quite partisan. I mean Dianetics, dowsing, Dean Machine, esp, smoking is harmless. It's quite a collection of hobby horses.
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