The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
- Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, (1955).

If everyone always agreed with each other on everything, it doesn't seem possible that anything would ever get done. I'm not sure that there would ever even be anything new: no new art, no new political ideas, no new philosophies, etc. Innovation, at least to a certain extent, seems to require that someone, somewhere, disagrees with how things are currently done or conceived of and sets forth to try and develop something new - and, preferably, something better.

For progress in the realm of ideas, then, it seems necessary that one be disinclined to be too agreeable. This is not to say, of course, that one should never agree with anyone on anything - that, too, would be folly. Perhaps the best way to put it is that instead of starting from the assumption of agreement, one should start from the assumption of critical disagreement. If one is persuaded to agree and accept an idea despite the starting point of disagreement, the we might be justified in thinking that the argument is stronger than if one is persuaded to agree and accept an idea which they had already assumed they would accept.

But what about disagreement with oneself? That's the oddest part of the quotation from Eric Hoffer - disagreement with others makes sense, but disagreement with oneself doesn't seem to make any sense, at least at first. I think that we can make sense of it, however, by remembering just how strongly our positions can be influenced by our biases. Very often, those biases aren't even obvious to us - we've held them for so long and regard them as so obviously true that we simply don't realize that they are biases at all.

So how is a person to get past their biases, especially since having biases is a part of what it means to be human? One possible means is to, in Hoffer's words, disagree with ourselves. Assume, at least for the sake of argument, that some bias or other has clouded your judgment on a matter and that you are, in fact, mistaken about it . Adopt the contrary position and defend it, critiquing your preferred choice as well as you can.

Perhaps you will find that your original position was indeed quite sound - and you'll end up agreeing with yourself again, but this time you can be more sure that it is for very good reasons. Perhaps, however, you will find that your original position wasn't nearly as strong as you thought. It might still warrant accepting, but then again it might not. You just might find yourself believing something new and different - all because you took the time to criticize one of your own beliefs with the same vigor and single-mindedness with which you have critized others' ideas in the past. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

More Weekly Quotes: commentary and analysis each week on a different quotation dealing with philosophy, religion, and more.