These are two separate posts by Jakob Lodwick, but I’m drawing a connection between two of them. This is long, but I think, interesting and worth it.

A while ago, I took a hard stance on alcohol. I told my friends and I blogged about it a little. Some friends, especially Ricky, made fun of me because many times in the past I’ve taken hard stances against my vices, completely wiping them from my life. Such an absolutist approach invariably fails, because, obviously, it’s fun to do bad things sometimes. The problem with a rigid policy is that once you make an exception, it’s easy to give up entirely, and fall back into your old habits.

I’ve now adopted a strategy that appears to be more workable, and encompasses all my vices. I want to make decisions consciously, that is, on a rational, case-by-case basis. In other words, it’s not that fact that I was drinking that bothered me. It was that I drank automatically.

Here is a recent email from a friend of mine:

Hey Jake,

I could count on one hand the number of times that I drank alcohol during the last two years. But when I got to New York about a month ago, I started drinking alcohol about three times per week. It was just fun and easy to drink while out with friends. And since my roommate drank, I wasn’t sure how else to “hang out” and relax with him on the weekend.

Recognizing a bad habit, I stopped drinking again over Thanksgiving. But last night I faced my first big trial - a promising dinner date and sleepover with a girl-friend. She was drinking wine, and I was so tempted to have a little glass.

I remember saying in my head last night, “What if I only drink wine?” or “What if I only drink when I am with a hot girl?” or “What if I only drink alcohol on the weekends?” The experience really reminded me how ingenious the mind is when we are trying to self-rationalize.

I did not drink last night, and I am glad that I didn’t. I am glad because the feeling that I have today feels great. I feel like I maintained my integrity last night. Just wanted to share that feeling with you. I know that you still drink a little sometimes - don’t you wrestle with when it will become a habit again?

[redacted]

I’m proud of him for approaching the situation with such willpower, but is the “automatic” attitude towards drinking kind of bad, too? It’s like when a clerk could easily give you better service, but says, “Sorry, it’s against sotre policy.”

I don’t know the answer here. Are there examples where it’s better to have a policy than to make carefully thought-out decisions on a case-by-case basis?

It reminds me of Nordstrom’s list of rules for sales clerks, which looks something like this:

• Rule #1: Use your best judgment at all times.
• Rule #2: There will be no further rules.

I learned that in Built to Last, the only business book I recommend. It’s a business-philosophy book; essential for any entrepreneur, IMO.

-jakoblodwick

I refer to this phenomenon as oppositionism. Imagine if I told you I had a new website that was “nothing like Digg”. Well, you would have no idea what it was. Saying what you are not does not tell me what you are.

You can see this phenomenon in effect wherever our generation expresses themselves. The best example is Che Guevara T-shirts. The wearers think, “I am nothing like the Bush administration,” but fail to define what they are. So they try to name the opposite, but they don’t really understand politics/economics, so they choose some scrappy revolutionary — the kind of guy who would stand up and FIGHT!!!

The fact that he believes your body and mind do not belong to you (communism) is irrelevant — the point is that he FIGHTS!

It’s like any story where “the rebels” are rebelling, but it’s never really clear what the plan is after the empire is destroyed (Star Wars). I hate the dominant paradigms, too… but I’m the guy asking, what would we build next?

Maybe we should figure that out before we load our guns.

— jakoblodwick

Oppositism is something I’ve always been sensitive about, although that being said I’ve always been very cautious about extremism of any sort (ex: I am almost vegetarian, except that I eat chicken.) The way this manifested itself in college was the consumption of alcohol.

I had a lot of friends freshman year who drank until they puked on a regular basis, and it just seemed so dumb, but what really bothered me about about it was that it was just the default activity, they weren’t choosing it anymore.

By my third year in college I was hanging out with mostly straight edge kids, and although I preferred that in many ways to the frat boys getting crunk on Tuesday nights, it still didn’t sit right with me. So much of a straight edge kid’s identity is wrapped up in what he doesn’t do, and that just seems so sad, and wasteful, and pointless. Most people would never define themselves as “someone who doesn’t play sports” or “someone who doesn’t murder” or whatever.

For all of their macho posturing and claims of being independent, or outside the corporate machine, people like this are just like the frat boys who drink every weekend because, “it’s the cool thing to do.” Refraining from an activity simply because it’s what everyone else is doing is just as bad as jumping on the bandwagon and doing it because it’s cool or trendy or whatever. Either way, you’re completly allowing your opinions and your actions be determined by other people, and popular opinion.

Finally the brings us to my biggest concern about absolutism. It takes you out of the equation, and prevents you from actually interacting with life and making your ownrational decisions. By setting absolute rules about anything, your choices are already made for you, which makes life a lot easier.


N.B. I’m referring explicitly in the above example to people who readily identify themselves as straight edge and behave in evangelical practices based on this behavior (or lack thereof), NOT simply someone who doesn’t drink.