Yay for the Opposition!

Okay,...I haven't always felt this way.  In fact, I would rather surround myself with cheerleaders and have tended to gravitate to people who do just that:
--validate me
--sympathize with me
--support me
There is nothing wrong with this...at first.

But then I read a line in Walter Lippman's "The Indispensable Opposition" that read:

So if [a person] is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him.

What?!  Yes, this idea made me sit up and read more deeply.  Here is the context of that statement:

A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But, though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.

As always happens when I run across any new or different idea, my mind sets to work to come up with proof or opposition of this idea (exhausting, right?).  Is this really true? I wondered.  Immediately the example of Christ's seemingly harsh words to Peter came to mind: Get thee behind me, Satan.  Ouch.

So why did Christ do this?  I wondered about this the other day when we watched the above video for devotional but I think I am beginning to understand.  Remember what Lippman said?

A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are.

Of course, Peter didn't intend to do this.  He loved the Lord and couldn't see why He would choose to talk about such a morbid death.   We all have people like that and desire people like that to be around us.  This is well and good.  We do need people to love and support us...or do we?  Or do we just desire it?  Christ was left alone in his final moments.  He welcomed his disciples, talked to and taught them.  However, He did not let Himself be defined by them and their support or worship.

I love this!!! This very article is a case in point of why we need opposition!  I read an article that challenged what I believe and it is helping to refine and clarify my beliefs.

Now I don't believe the invitation is now open to be hostile and antagonistic. I am talking about respecting the genuine "opposition" in other people's differences that we face in the media, in church and in our homes.  I am not talking about those who seek out arguments, just for the sake of being, again, hostile and antagonistic.   Christ admonishes us to agree quickly while we are in the way with people, to be reconciled. However, He doesn't repudiate and shun people just because he disagrees with them.  He engages them in genuine discussion, respectful and thoughtful.

Can we do this? Lippman challenges us:

It is all very well to say with Voltaire, “I wholly disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it,” but as a matter of fact most men will not defend to the death the rights of other men: if they disapprove sufficiently what other men say, they will somehow suppress those men if they can.

Those of us who have sought a life without opposition can say we share this tendency with dictators:

On the walls of the houses of Italian peasants one may see inscribed in large letters the legend, “Mussolini is always right.” But if that legend is taken seriously by Italian ambassadors, by the Italian General Staff, and by the Ministry of Finance, then all one can say is heaven help Mussolini, heaven help Italy, and the new Emperor of Ethiopia.

For at some point, even in a totalitarian state, it is indispensable that there should exist the freedom of opinion which causes opposing opinions to be debated. As time goes on, that is less and less easy under a despotism; critical discussion disappears as the internal opposition is liquidated in favor of men who think and feel alike. That is why the early successes of despots, of Napoleon I and of Napoleon III, have usually been followed by an irreparable mistake. For in listening only to his "yes" men—the others being in exile or in concentration camps, or terrified—the despot shuts himself off from the truth that no man can dispense with. 

Abraham Lincoln recognized this in organizing his "Team of Rivals," a cabinet for his presidency made up of his political opponents.  He listened to them, debated this them, learned from them and then decided.  What strength!  Lincoln recognized that it was more than his self-esteem at stake...it was the well-being of a nation.  And he selflessly did all he could to make sure he was making the best decisions possible.

We must insist that free oratory is only the beginning of free speech; it is not the end, but a means to an end. The end is to find the truth. The practical justification of civil liberty is not that self-expression is one of the rights of man. It is that the examination of opinion is one of the necessities of man.  

I am reading about the 1900's and the elections that happened at that point.  It is amazing to me how much elections (like our current one) and the opposition that occurs within this process helps people determine for themselves what they believe and what they support, what they like and what they don't.  Even if the man or woman they put into office doesn't represent 100% of what they believe, they learn more clearly what they do 100% believe and how their candidate or the opposition differs.
Valuable process? Immensely.

Does this right to freedom of speech happen simply because we are noble and tolerant? How do we approach this opposition?  Indulgent?  Patient?  Enduring?    I really like a point that Lippman makes is this:

 We take, it seems to me, a naively self-righteous view when we argue as if the right of our opponents to speak were something that we protect because we are magnanimous, noble, and unselfish. The compelling reason why... is that we must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say. 

I love his next examples!

We miss the whole point when we imagine that we tolerate the freedom of our political opponents as we tolerate a howling baby door, as we put up with the blasts from our neighbor’s radio because we are too peaceable to heave a brick through the window. If this were all there is to freedom of opinion,* that we are too good-natured or too timid to do anything about our opponents and our critics except to let them talk,* it would be difficult to say whether we are tolerant because we are magnanimous or because we are lazy, because we have strong principles or because we lack serious convictions, whether we have the hospitality of an inquiring mind or the indifference of an empty mind. 

We are much closer to the essence of the matter when we go to the doctor and pay him to ask us the most embarrassing questions and to prescribe the most disagreeable diet. When we pay the doctor to exercise complete freedom of speech about the cause and cure of our stomachache, we do not look upon ourselves as tolerant and magnanimous, and worthy to be admired by ourselves. We have enough common sense to know that if we threaten to put the doctor in jail because we do not like the diagnosis and the prescription it will be unpleasant for the doctor, to be sure, but equally unpleasant for our own stomachache. That is why even the most ferocious dictator would rather be treated by a doctor who was free to think and speak the truth than by his own Minister of Propaganda. For there is a point, the point at which things really matter, where the freedom of others is no longer a question of their right but of our own need.

I love, love, love this!  I have been one of those "patient, noble" sufferers, whether it be the opposition of others or even the adversity in my own life!  All of a sudden, all those "trials," all those "problems," all those "conflicts," that come up each day take on new light and meaning!  Why did Paul relish his trials?  Because they refined him and helped him arrive at beautiful truth.

Oh how much we need this beautiful, indispensable opposition!  Whether it is the resistance of the weights in strengthening muscles or the resistance to food or anger addictions that strengthen the soul, I all of a sudden find why I should not be a "tragic martyr" when my life seems to "not be going 'right'," whatever "right" means.  All of a sudden, my adversity and trials become something that help me arrive at truth, shape my mind, shape my soul.  To approach it in this clinical mindset will definitely not make the trials less real, but perhaps it will help my reaction be a little less emotional. (That would help immensely!!)

Is the objective of our life to have the biggest fan club, the biggest cheering section, the most followers on facebook?  It is a very real yearning--to be loved, supported, acknowledged, validated. I have felt this way most of my life...seeking outward validation of what I do and who I am.

However, I am learning more and more (through this "indispensable opposition" I experience) that I desire truth, even if it means talking "across party lines" or in the face of bigotism and tradition--especially my own.  I embrace tradition...where it is wholesome and good. I don't go out of my way to challenge viewpoints, because I don't feel that having a combative mentality is seeking for truth either.  The genuine seeker of truth respects others and cherishes the truths they have found. There is nothing hostile or aggressive in this mindset.  Neither does someone with this objective embrace all opinions as valid.  They weigh, consider and draw conclusions from all they sees, seeking the beautiful truth in good sources, recognizing dribble and nonsense more and more during their quest for wisdom.  I love the peace that I find when the Holy Ghost, the prophets and the scriptures validate truth and refine me.  But hopefully, I will now be more open and receptive to the truth that comes through opposition.

The unexamined life, said Socrates, is unfit to be lived by man. This is the virtue of liberty, and the ground on which we may best justify our belief in it, that it tolerates error in order to serve the truth. When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men.