Reverse Opinions

Back when I was in high school, some of my friends were deeply into playing chess. And they were good, real good! Although I couldn’t hold a candle to them playing the game, I enjoyed watching them play from time to time. Sometimes they would, as a practice tool, reverse the rules of the game to where the object was to place one’s pieces in positions in which the opponent would be forced to capture them (by that game’s rules). The object was to lose all of one’s pieces first (with the kings being capturable). This game, which I believed they called “Take Me” (because that’s what was called out when a piece had to be taken), was in reality reverse chess. And it evidently strengthened the players so that they had a much better perspective on different situations and strategies when they played the regular game.

In the same spirit, for all of the great opinionated people out there, be they politicians, academicians, bloggers, media commentators, authors, editors, think-tank eggheads, or others who have strong views that they insist on releasing onto the world, I have a proposition. Why don’t you set aside a specially-designated time or space within your medium and express “reverse opinions”? This would mean taking issues or personalities that you have strong opinions on and deliberately taking the opposite position from what you’re accustomed to. High school and college debate teams often undergo the same process, so that a debater may have to argue in favor of a position that he or she personally disagrees with.

An “exercise” such as “reverse opinions” is a good way to try to get inside the heads of one’s ideological, political, and religious adversaries, at least long enough to see where they are coming from. And who knows, this may sometimes sway opinions in a new direction. I’m afraid, though, that this is exactly one of the major fears that would prevent people from trying this. But I believe that the major reason standing in the way of opinion-givers practicing with “reverse opinions” is that many of them are personally incapable of accepting that those with opposing views merit their attention, unless it involves ridiculing their cultural backgrounds or branding them with epithets implying that they are stupid, evil, ambitious, simplistic, elitist, naïve, or culturally backward (or any combination of these).