Are True Believers the Worst Enemies of Their Own Ideas?

There is nothing so destructive to a good idea as people who accept it without question. Democracy is not without its flaws. Individual liberties must have limits. Individual responsibility must be balanced with community responsibility. And even the Golden Rule has some non-symmetric complexities.

I have chosen some fairly benign example because if I raise any of the more vexing issues of our day people have a tendency to think “oh, he is one of ‘those’” meaning I am among the uninformed who have come down on the wrong side of an issue. Sometimes people will say “the wrong side of history” to strengthen their claim with future perspectives that they are certain will come down on their side. 

An example is in order. Back in the early 1990’s I attended a conference in which protecting individual privacy was a major issue. There was a panel discussion on this issue where everybody was on the same side. “We must do all we can to protect individual privacy” was the subtext of every discussant.  I turned to some people around me and asked “what is the other side of the issue”. I got blank looks, shrugs, and some looks of disdain. There was no other side to the issue and suggesting there may be, for some, bordered on blasphemy.  

But, there are always at least two sides to an issue. And our personal privacy has suffered severely for failing to recognize that.  Most websites, for example, provide us with token privacy options which we give away for the web equivalent of shiny baubles. In other cases important policy decisions cannot be made due to a lack of data – data that has been protected by personal privacy. Had we had a serious discussion of privacy we may have more nuanced and useful public policy with regard to privacy. But, that did not happen because the advocated of personal privacy saw anyone who did not agree with them as one of the uninformed who came down on the wrong side of the issue. There is nothing so destructive to a good idea (protecting personal privacy) as people who accept it without question (“We must do all we can to protect individual privacy”).

I mention this because I may pull the tail on one of your sacred cows in this blog. I may have already done so. But, if I do, please don’t relegate me to the dust bin of “one of those”. I ask questions because no idea is perfect. And by asking questions maybe we can improve them.