The Paradox of Dissent

Mrs Karen Belbin, School Counsellor

Adolescents love to disagree. They love to challenge ideas, beliefs, authority, conventions, and ‘rules’, especially adult and society rules. There is a good reason for this: dissent, arguing, talking, challenging and questioning are some of the tools adolescents use with friends, family and teachers, to learn more about themselves and others; establish their identity; understand the world they live in; and find their own particular place in society.  Without dissent, human beings and society wouldn’t grow or change, create or innovate, but dissent can be difficult, especially – and unsurprisingly – to those whose ideas or beliefs are being challenged.

It is important to distinguish between the judicious use of dissent, and the more recent trend to use social media to heckle, ridicule, intimidate, judge, berate and treat others disrespectfully – which is not in any way courageous, admirable or an attempt to find meaning or truth. The focus of this article is not about such cowardly behaviour – but positive, growth-promoting dissent.

Renowned dissenter Christopher Hitchens wrote his Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001) for those who hold ‘the unfashionable hope of changing the world for the better and (which is not quite the same thing) of living a life that would be, as far as possible, self-determined’ (p xiii).  Hitchens claims that we can’t live a life which is self-determined unless we know ourselves, our needs and desires. In life and society, he contends, we make progress by questioning and challenging ideas and conventions, and in mental life we make progress by the thinking which is generated by challenge, argument and disputation. These are needed in order that ‘sparks may be kindled’ (p 20) and our needs and desires revealed, confirmed or strengthened. Despite the facts that although our language and culture contains no proper word for the aspiration to live a questioning life, and that we do not live in an age that is propitious for dissent, Hitchens maintains that we can change and grow if we are courageous enough to ask questions and to allow our beliefs and behaviours to be challenged.

But, this can be difficult.  There are different ways to dissent. For some, expressing dissent comes naturally and easily, they voice their opinions non-threateningly and purely in the service of gaining information.  For these people, asking questions is as important as breathing.  Others, however, use dissent as an act of rebellion.  They need to counter prevailing opinion, regardless of what it is, or challenge authority to express displeasure or frustration with a person, organisation or idea. This can be an attempt to gain power or followers, or driven by the need to satisfy unmet emotional needs. While some experience dissent as an opportunity for all ideas to be heard, challenged, refuted, strengthened or changed, and welcome the intellectual stimulation of open debate as a path to self-knowledge, others feel threatened, misunderstood and persecuted by dissent, and experience any form of dissent as a challenge to be forcefully repelled or squashed.

While Hitchens advocates the benefits we can all derive from questioning and challenging, adolescents are particularly engrossed in this task. Adolescence itself can be regarded as something of a paradox – a time of flux between childhood and adulthood, caught between the inevitability of change and resistance to it, when the young person has to set forth and simultaneously to let go. One of the main ‘tasks’ of adolescence is identity formation; the process of becoming ‘known’ to oneself. The process relies on a growing intellectual capacity to question received ideas while developing their own which necessarily brings up feelings of confusion and uncertainty about themselves and others – and leads to lots of questions.

Working out ‘who am I?’ requires the adolescent to evaluate ideals, beliefs, values, ideas and morals to see what fits, and what resonates internally with the sort of person she feels herself becoming, and has value and relevance for her and her future. This process of sorting-out results in the integration and internalisation of relationships, experiences, values and personal characteristics into an identity that is felt to be stable and authentic. The corollary to this self-development is a deeper awareness that others also have a separate self, with their own needs and desires, feelings and experiences. In the mature person, this awareness carries with it the genuine concern for both self and other which is necessary before adults can take their place as contributing and valuable members of society. The hidden curriculum of emotional and social maturity lies in how a person learns to master their interactions with parents; achieve harmony with friends; respond to daily pressures; and develop ways to manage, and rise above, everyday conflicts. In short, it’s all about managing dissent.

One of the paradoxical elements of adolescent dissent is revealed in their intense desire to belong. In friendship groups, a degree of ‘sameness’ allows fitting in, which is necessary for connecting. Feeling different to others and experiencing change in oneself or other members of the group can feel overwhelming and be regarded as something to hide or ignore. Talking about your feelings and challenging the ideas of others is not always regarded as helpful or beneficial, especially in times of growth or change, and in fact can be actively avoided by all but the bravest of groups. As Theodore H. White, political journalist, historian and novelist puts it ‘To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform’ (2012).

Most people most of the time prefer to seek approval or security. The difficulty is that discussing differences requires a capacity to bear ambivalence and this can only happen if we feel settled emotionally.  Adolescence and adolescent groups are not, by nature, settled so changes within members of the group resonate strongly and widely. Working out how to manage these changes is complicated. Talking about changes raises the prospect – and the fear – of arguing, and arguing raises the fear of the group breaking up. Breaking up would, in turn, result in loss: of familiar people, places, of belonging, feeling valued and part of something special. The closer the group members, the more intense can be both the fear of arguing and the arguing itself. However, if the differences and changes are denied or ignored, splits and schisms may form in the group, like-minded against unlike-minded, making discussion even more difficult as allegiances and loyalties either shift or are rigidly adhered to, and ultimately resulting in little movement or growth.

To remain a functioning group, it helps if each member can retain their differences as well as their alikenesses. If group members can find a way to cope with ambivalence, they can hear and experience things from different directions without ignoring or rejecting them. Instead, group members can gain an appreciation for how others see things, compare perspectives, reaffirm or re-evaluate who they are and what they stand for and strengthen, or change, their own ideas. Seen in this light, dissent is a crucial element of group cohesion and development.

In Breakfast With Socrates, A day with the world’s greatest minds, Robert Rowland Smith (2009) writes that arguing – the act of making your view known – serves to reassert one’s identity and re-establish who you are in the face of being ‘besieged, invaded or annexed’ by a person whose view differs significantly from yours. According to Smith, arguments, which are often occasions of dissent, can strengthen relationships and each individual member’s identity, ‘for a relationship to exist, there must be difference – it’s a relating, don’t forget – even if difference provokes not just love but friction’ (p 156).  Having your friend be your opponent for half an hour might allow you to regather the identity that most of the time gets happily fudged. In this sense, groups shouldn’t worry about arguing. Unless they lead to irreversible breakdown, arguments help both parties project (and protect) who they are as individuals and so make it possible for them to come together once more.

Studies by Carsten de Dreu  (Mercer, 2010), who specialises in the role of dissent within organisations, found that individuals who voice dissent tended to be more extroverted, better educated and better endowed with family support than conformists. Curiously, they were also healthier. ‘Dissenting taxes a person,’ De Dreu explains, so ‘these types have to be mentally and physically fit to survive the process.’ These findings have been backed up by Charlan Nemeth (Mercer 2010), the acknowledged pioneer in the field who has dedicated her career to exploring the creative benefits of dissent. Nemeth argues that ‘dissent makes the group as a whole smarter and leads to more divergent thinking’. Dissenting views (even when wrong) stimulate thinking and decision making that is of higher quality and more creative, makes people reach for solutions, and use multiple strategies in the detection of solutions that would otherwise go undetected.

And yet, mindful of the paradoxical nature of dissent, perhaps it is judicious to end with a reminder of the need for balance in all things. Socrates was killed (condemned to death by hemlock poisoning, for those who are curious) for his curiosity. He was an over-dissenter and was silenced, Smith asserts, for asking too many questions and getting up too many people’s noses. ‘His mind was probing, dissatisfied, inventive, and it led him to bring everything, from the purpose of the law to the origin of sex, into doubt – no wonder his most famous pupil, Plato, characterised him as an irritating insect’ (p 1).

On the other hand, only a questioning and open mind can learn, make progress, achieve clarity. Conflict may be painful, but according to Hitchens, ‘the painless solution does not exist …… and the pursuit of it leads to the painful outcome of mindlessness and pointlessness; the apotheosis of the ostrich’ (p 31). Our girls will have fuller lives, and contribute much more to society, as judiciously dissenting insects than as demurely acquiescent ostriches.

 

References

 

Hitchens, C. (2001). Letters to a Young Contrarian. New York; Basic Books.

 

Mercer, J. (August 1, 2010). In praise of dissent. Odewire. Retrieved September 11th 2012, from http://odewire.com/50372/in-praise-of-dissent.html

 

Smith, R. R. (2009).  Breakfast With Socrates: A day with the world’s greatest minds. London: Profile Books.

 

White, T.H.  Retrieved September 2012, from http://en.thinkexist.com/quotes/theodore_h._white

 

 

 

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