The Error Of Contrarianism

Rejecting the status quo or a concept embraced by the masses can be easily interpreted by some people as an inherent expression of rationality, simply by virtue of the individual refusing conformity.  Certainly, popularity and approval by authority figures have no connection to veracity, and there are many truths denied or seemingly never even considered by the vast majority of humankind one will have exposure to.  But there is an obvious flaw with contrarianism, the philosophy opposing mainstream ideas and beliefs—obvious to the dedicated rationalist.  Something is not metaphysically false because it is popular or espoused by some figure whose endorsement is mistaken for a valid basis to believe, even if many who accept the idea only do so on the basis of assumptions, emotionalism, or fear of/reverence towards the collective group.  Contrarian beliefs and behaviors are irrational.

The only authority whose nature demands unconditional submission and allegiance is the necessary laws of logic, because logic is intrinsically true.  For it to be false, there would have to be a logical reason; whatever that reason is, it would involve reason still being true.  However, this is quite different from the kind of authority that many people think of, such as political officials, church leaders, authors, and so on.  Clearly, it does not follow from someone in a position of power or respect believing something that it is true, and popularity is of course entirely irrelevant to whether a philosophical idea (and all ideas are philosophical) is correct and knowable.  The inverse is also true; something being adhered to by a minority or lone individual does not make it valid.  Reason is what dictates reality.

It is therefore necessarily true that the person who shuns a popular idea because it is popular or an idea associated with some public figure for the association alone, rather than on the basis of it being objectively erroneous for a strictly logical reason, is ultimately guilty of the same delusion as anyone who just assumes that their mainstream norm or "authority" figure is correct: both kinds of people are irrational because they hold to things contrary to pure reason.  They either make assumptions or neglect rationalistic truths inconvenient to them.  Contrarianism is not rationalism more than any variation of consensus-based philosophy and is therefore false.

And believing something that happens to be a culturally predominant idea does not mean one believes it because of societal influences or a desire to not feel/be excluded from a larger group.  This does not follow logically.  Still, believing it because of mere individual persuasion is insufficient and invalid; one must be persuaded strictly by the fact that a concept is logically both true and demonstrable, for it is not true unless one way or another the objective laws of logic require it, and even then, it is not knowable if one is incapable of proving it by looking to pure logical necessity.

The only true, rational freethinker is not the person who believes whatever they would subjectively prefer as long as it is at odds with mainstream culture, but the genuine rationalist who is neither a slave to social customs and pressures nor to personal assumptions.  Subjectivism, including subjectivism in epistemological persuasion, and any consensus-based philosophy are both erroneous because truth is not dictated by either the individual or the group.  Truth is grounded in and revealed by logic.  Accordingly, prioritizing anything in one's worldview formation other than sheer logical necessity and its absolute certainty, such as social convention, popularity, novelty, or personal appeal, is inherently irrational.  Only through rationalism, neither cultural consensus nor subjective allure, are the truths of logic known.