A colleague recently tweeted that “Just because you have thoughts everyone disagrees with doesn’t make you valuable as a contrarian. You could also just be wrong.”
Being something of a contrarian myself, I felt inclined to differ. It seems to me that even a contrarian who turns out “wrong” is valuable, insofar as it encourages those with opposing views to scrutinise their own positions. Furthermore, who gets to establish who is “wrong” and who isn’t? When does that become conclusive? And, in the meantime, isn’t the contrarian position as valuable as the rest?
During the pandemic, “Covid contrarians” (or “lockdown sceptics”, although their scepticism extends beyond confinement) have become many people’s favourite villains. Their repeated claims that lockdowns and masks don’t work, and that the virus isn’t as bad as everyone else says, have increasingly been viewed as wrong and, lately, downright dangerous.