What are you against?

Probably lots of things but why do I ask.


There is a TV show here where a psychologist ties to figure out where some murderer (usually) went off the rails and turned into such a “bad” person. The answer appears to me to be much the same each time, namely someone, usually the parents, were mean and nasty to the now mean and nasty man (it is always a man let’s face it). So learned behaviour mixed in with the mental trauma of rejection, isolation etc mixed with a few drugs and hey presto violent dangerous perp.

So during the latest programme they talked about just such an individual who was a bit lost in the world until he discovered a white power gang. The psychologist noted that given this young man was struggling to define himself in a positive fashion discovering a simple ideology that he could cling to was just what he needed (psychologically presumably) and that this group appealed because they were simply “against” things which is a very easy idea to grasp with no great thinking required.

Now in the case of any racist group this is undoubtedly so, no great world via required to be against black people, all you need are some mental flash cards to compare the person in front of you to and if they register as black then hey presto you are against them.

But this set me to thinking, this applies to most “against” debates, it tends to be a simple argument with being for things making the debate a lot more complex. For example I am against child porn, and it is one of those ideas that doesn’t seem to need much debate and therefore doesn’t get it. If I asked you why you are against it I suspect your brain does a short freeze why it tries to understand the question. I am further willing to bet some form of “because it is” is your first thought and the following arguments that you muster come a little slower. I reckon this is the same simple mindedness (in terms of debate) that drove our white power fellow.

Reframe the question, I am in favour of............ because this will help to eliminate child pornography.
So what goes in the blank? Harsher penalties for offenders? Treatment programs for consumers? Self defence lessons for children? I have to readily admit I have no idea as while the idea of child porn makes my skin crawl because of my easy default “I am against it” view I haven’t given it any further thought. I have no idea what generates the demand, I don’t know where it is made etc. etc.

So without getting lost in a debate on child porn, hopefully everyone who reads this agrees it is a bad idea and if you don’t please send me an email so I can report you to the authorities. My challenge for today is what are you against and stop framing your thinking as "against stuff" and ask yourself what are you for that will achieve your objective of eliminating that which you are against.

Another for example a lot of people would say they are against increased CO2 emissions, which is an easy idea to defeat (it will stifle growth, kill people in the third world, requires concerted global actions that will not happen etc). However if you are in favour of an increasing proportion of our energy needs coming from renewable sources it is a much stronger argument, what can your opponents say? Renewable energy is bad?

So accentuate the positive, eliminate being against stuff.