Do you remember playing Opposite Day in school?  I do.  Some arbitrary day was selected upon which the opposite was always true — but never in an inconvenient way, of course, as it was up to the player(s) to determine precisely what should be opposite and what should not.

Do you like that girl?  Heavens no!  (That meant you did in fact like her.)

I can’t believe you wore that!  It’s Opposite Day, bonehead.  I wouldn’t wear this otherwise.  (In truth, you or someone else hadn’t done laundry and this was the only set of clothing you had available, an embarrassing mishmash of unmatched and uncoordinated items.)

You remember now, don’t you?  Good, because I have a related question.

Rick and I spoke of Opposite Day last week in an unrelated context of school memories.  Since then the idea has bounced around in my brain with disturbing regularity.  The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that it could somehow be turned into a blog thing.  What kind of blog thing I was unsure as I came up with a handful of ideas that all seemed menial despite the polemical urgings of my brain to figure it out immediately.

In the last few days, of course, I read a few blogs by folks somehow dealing with the same inexplicable hang-up, and then they stumbled upon the same answer that had only just occurred to me.

Opposite Day blogging is allowing your readers to suggest a topic I would then have to discuss from the opposite point of view that I would normally take.  While this sounds easy on the surface, it’s not, and it would certainly be impossible under some circumstances in science.  You see, I couldn’t possibly argue against gravity or the speed of light or the outcome of chemical bonding between sodium and chlorine.  Facts are difficult to argue against, so in that sense it would not be possible to take a position opposite what is evidenced by repeated and inarguable scientific study.  Despite this shortcoming of the idea, it is possible to argue both sides of issues regarding some scientific premises in addition to humanities, politics, some aspects of social sciences, and I would hope a great many other topics.

After seeing the premise executed on a handful of blogs (some that I read and some that I don’t), I realized I liked the idea for the diversity of interaction and my intrepid tendency to enjoy debate even when I have to play devil’s advocate.

Therefore, I thought I’d be nice enough to run it by you good folks to see what you think.  I doubt it would happen every week since it might take some work for me to educate myself in arguments I would otherwise dismiss or disbelieve, and the impetus is on me to argue faithfully whatever topic is ultimately decided upon each time this game is played.  There are times when some research would be needed if I am to seriously consider and argue something opposite my personal opinion.

I leave it up to you, poppets.  If you think it might be a good idea, leave a comment on this post or send me an e-mail.  At this time, I’m only trying to gauge the level of interest and whether this might be worth the time.  Should enough people convince me that I should at least try it, I will.  If it fails miserably or becomes a tedious time-waster, I’ll drop it, but otherwise I’ll carry the premise forward and try to do it on a regular basis.