Saturday 26 January 2013

What Are The Benefits Of Pigheadedness?


Jason Guriel points them out:
Pigheadedness, at its most productive, can result in a kind of head-clearing loyalty to one’s gut reactions—and an allegedly self-destructive compulsion to air those reactions publicly. I say “allegedly” because I really do think that expressing an honest opinion about, say, the Griffin Poetry Prize ceremony or Dennis Lee can only be good for one’s health in the long term. What I mean is that the short-term negative effects of pigheadedness are outweighed by the lasting benefits of honesty. Pigheadedness makes far more enemies than allies—but they tend to be the right enemies, the right allies.

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