I am not a contrarian. Irreverent is the word!

During graduate school, I was a student intern at a public agency.  Right from the first day there I knew I would not survive in such environments. But, of course, life is one cruel joke after another, and I ended up working for another public agency for more than five years before I returned to academia.

Even on that first day, I was reminded of a comment a graduate school professor made about how he became a libertarian.  It was all because of the summer internship he did at the Los Angeles County government when he was an undergrad.  After one day, I could certainly relate to him, though, even now, I am not a libertarian, but a Democrat who leans that way.

Anyway, a couple of weeks into my internship, during a discussion with my supervisor, I presented a view that was not what she apparently wanted to hear.  "I noticed you are a contrarian" she remarked.

The lowly intern that I was, I did not want to correct her that I was not taking such a stance because I wanted to argue but because what she claimed was wrong.

The irreverence--towards people and false ideas alike--is also why I think I naturally gravitated towards the likes of Christopher Hitchens.  Though, I had always wondered why he chose the title of "contrarian" for his Letters to a young contrarian. His questioning of accepted wisdom was not as a merely debating strategy but because to him there was no sacred cow.  It was sheer irreverence. Who else would have gone after Mother Teresa like how he did!

As Hitchens notes towards the end of the interview,which is when Charlie Rose gets to the book itself, living that irreverent (or contrarian) life is living a life, as opposed to having a career or a job.  It is truly who we are that we live.  And, yes, Hitchens, too talks about leaning towards libertarianism.

I would think that when in pursuit of truth, we naturally become irreverent. The progress of science has nothing but been one instance of irreverence after another.  In the old days, when irreverence was religious blasphemy, heresy, well, a philosopher like Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake.  While irreverent explorations in science are no longer questioned, irreverence in the pursuit of understanding social aspects is far from tolerated, as the recent controversy related to Wendy Doniger's The Hindus demonstrates.

The academic world is no different from the rest of society.  As long as one holds hands with the rest and sings the preferred version of Kumbaya, then all is well.  There is no place for the irreverent, which is a complete contrast to the idealized version of academe that I had in mind.

But, hey, I never set out to win the popularity contest anyway!  So, today's question: whom should I piss off? ;)