Contrarian Views Quotes

We promote pluralism, not dogma. We critique, we do not accept uncritically. We question and we debate, and over time we will separate the wheat from the chaff. We will separate the worthwhile from the misguided in all the new ideas and new voices that we hear. But we cannot do that if we close ourselves from the contrarian view, or simply suppress the views of those who would challenge the accepted and the known.

I have tried to talk about the issues in this campaign... and this has sometimes been a lonely road, because I never meet anybody coming the other way.

When I was at art college, the teachers who helped me were not the ones I agreed with, or the ones who encouraged me, but the ones who took very strong positions. Because if someone does that, you can find your own position in relation to it: what is it that I don't agree with? In the studio I want to articulate a position clearly enough so that other people can use it - or chuck it away if they don't want it.

I'm the one guy who says don't force the stupid people to be quiet. I want to know who the morons are.

I think most people like a bit of freedom and hearing things that they might not agree with, rather than just having everybody shutting their mouths.

Listening to people espouse beliefs different from mine is informative, not threatening, because the only thing that can alter my worldview is a new and undeniable truth, and contrary to what Jack Nicholson says in 'A Few Good Men', "I CAN handle the truth.

Do I take alternative points of view? Yes, because all the media are going in another direction.

Read things you're sure will disagree with your current thinking. If you're a die-hard anti-animal person, read Meat. If you're a die-hard global warming advocate, read Glenn Beck. If you're a Rush Limbaugh fan, read James W. Loewen's Lies My Teachers Told Me. It'll do your mind good and get your heart rate up.

What shocks me is people who have no expertise championing a view that runs counter to the mainstream scientific consensus.

That tertiary education is under a sustained assault by a political and - it often seems - social consensus that equates all education with training for increased productivity, only makes academe a still more promising environment for a contrarian.

Last year, on a long car trip, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh shout. I usually agree with Rush Limbaugh; therefore I usually don't listen to him. I listen to NPR: "World to end-poor and minorities hardest hit." I like to argue with the radio.

I look for strong people. I don't like people who'll say yes to everything I might bring up. I want people who can argue and disagree and have a point of view that's reflected in the magazine. My dad believed in the cult of personality. He brought great writers and columnists to 'The Standard.'

More cranks take up unfashionable errors than unfashionable truths.

Where I came from, just nodding and smiling when someone expressed views was the ultimate insult. If people weren't yelling about politics in our house then they were arguing about music, or movies, or food.

It’s actually pretty easy to be contrarian. It’s hard to be contrarian and right.

It's not only possible, but likely that the Nobel Prize in economics will go in alternate years to people who disagree on nearly everything fundamental.

Not every obnoxious talk leads to progress, but we cannot tell which unusual idea, which seditious thought will be tomorrow's accepted truth and enshrined right ... after all, all that we take for granted, was once deemed extremely objectionable... So, not knowing where the next big step in the progress of human civilization will come from, we open our ears, our minds and our hearts to the new, the unusual and the contrarian.

For everybody who thinks it's warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn't.

Attacking a belief can be the first step toward embracing it.

Feminists, I hasten to add, are not all bad. In fact, they are an ideal bellwether, an invaluable aid in helping me form opinions on issues that I don't have time to keep up with. If the feminists are for it, I'm against it; if the feminists are against it, I'm for it.

If you make a film and then two and a half, three years later, suddenly the country's changed and you look like you just happened to hit it. I actually like being contrarian. I would have preferred to come out three years ago when everyone was disagreeing with me. But hopefully it asks a lot of questions about our responsibility in sending young men and women to war, especially a war that's so complex, where there's no right answer, where they're forced with impossible decisions every day.

I like people with their own opinions, and I like people who argue with me. It's very exhausting to be in a room full of people who just nod and smile.

The most common thing that I get is, ‘Am I the only one who doesn’t think that Anna Kendrick is pretty? And youre like, ‘No, you’re not the only one. Arguably, all of the boys in my high school agree with you.’

I actually find it a lot easier to interview people I don't agree with because I'm far more curious about how they've arrived at that place.

I'm actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.