Why aren't you neutral, buddy?

(Source: xkcd)

Recently, I was scrolling through a post by one of the popular Indian Quoran. Among the comments, I found few complaining that this Quoran is no longer “neutral”. It is now a vogue to consider a centrist, neutral, agnostic stance on all the matters under the sun as something superior, something that is characteristics of maturity.

I too have faced the situation when my friends/colleagues have complained that I am not “neutral” in the context of the topic under discussion:

“Your points and arguments are all well and good. But still, you are not neutral.”

“What do you mean by not being neutral? Am I being irrational? Am I ignoring evidences and logically strong counter arguments?”

“Nothing like that. But one needs to be neutral and have a centrist point of view.”

“Why is that?”

…..

Why should neutrality be considered as a virtue in any debate? Rather logical arguments, objective facts and evidences are ought to be considered paramount and, in most of the cases, they are likely to tilt the weights one way or another among contradictory opinions. In such cases, neutrality can either mean lack of knowledge about the topic concerned or the proponents of neutrality are afraid to disclose their own opinions. And then there are the apologists who would rather cling on to neutrality-as-virtue rather than admit their fallacy.

One may complain that in most of the public debates, the logical arguments, objective facts and evidences are not adequate to swerve the needle. Hence, neutrality is the best way forward. There are two issues with this line of argument. First, who decides that the evidences are not adequate. At best, neutrality is just one among other competing opinions that asserts that the evidences, one way or other, are not adequate.

Second, for any objective truth, outcome of humanly debates has no impact on the truth value. We may have endless debates but if Sun exists then it exists irrespective of what we may say or not say. But even objective nature of physical world is apparently not obvious to few. Recently, in some forum, someone was seen arguing that if a blind man claims that Sun does not exist, then it is also a truth! This kind of solipsistic idiocy masquerading as intellectual postmodernism are meant to bethrown into a dustbin without any further question asked.

There are certain areas where neutrality has some tangible value to it but, even there, its values are exaggerated and are extended beyond the scope. The best example would be debate on existence of God. Modern science has restricted the realm within which an argument for existence of any God can be made. A case for more abstract and mostly non-interactive God can always be redefined to escape fallibility and agnosticism can be rationally argued for. But often this narrowed scope of agnosticism stretches beyond and even agnostic views about extraordinary religious claims are treated as something quite rational. Agnosticism about a medieval warlord’s claim of being last prophet or an assertion that some mythological king was an avatar of an anthropomorphic god cannot enjoy the same rational validity as agnosticism about existence of an abstract God.

Closely linked to the concept of neutrality-as-virtue, is the flawed understanding of cognitive bias. If anyone has any opinion about a topic (which is mostly inescapable if the individual has some knowledge about the topic and is capable of logical thinking), then it is easy to label the opinion as a cognitive bias! Having an opinion is never a cognitive bias. It is the rigidity to hold on to an opinion due to some subjective personal prejudices in spite of evidences contrary to it that defines cognitive bias. A subtlety needs to be mentioned here. Not to be rigid does not mean to be not have 100% belief in your opinion. One can be 100% sure about his opinion today but then she must be prepared to revise the opinion tomorrow when there are evidences going contrary to it.

All this does not necessarily vindicate an individual’s opinion. Your opinion about a given fact may be right or wrong. The only person to properly formulate your opinion based on sound rationale, scientific temperament and open-mindedness is you yourself while keeping it mind that your thoughts and opinions, to some extent, are conditioned to your environment. In the long run, an individual’s thoughts and opinion are only important to herself provided he has a penchant for objective knowledge.