The Ice Cream Contract
Mint chocolate chip ice cream is, in my opinion, the best flavor of ice cream. Maybe that isn’t a popular opinion to hold, or to express. I know lots of people prefer rocky road, or chocolate, or vanilla. But it’s an opinion I hold, and you may, or may not, hold the same opinion. No big deal, right? If I like mint chocolate chip ice cream, I can eat it, and if you don’t, you don’t have to. It is easy to have an opinion, express an opinion, and respect one another’s opinions. That’s what an opinion is.
Now, say you don’t just dislike mint chocolate chip ice cream; it completely grosses you out (I had a teacher once who compared it to chocolate toothpaste). It’s so repulsive to you that you don’t want to have to see me eat it. But it’s my favorite. If I enjoy your company, I might decide to make a “reasonable accommodation,” respecting your opinion that “mint chocolate chip ice cream is gross,” even if I don’t share it, and refraining from eating it in your presence. If not, maybe we can just live and let live, and leave each other alone during ice cream time. But I don’t have to stop eating mint chocolate chip ice cream based on your opinion; if I do so it is out of courtesy.
And I would get annoyed with you, even if we were good friends or family, if I was sitting at an ice cream parlor eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and you came into the ice cream parlor and started trying to stop me from eating mint chocolate chip ice cream. We have gone from “reasonable accommodation,” where I voluntarily adjust to an opinion you don’t share, to you forcing your tastes on me. I don’t have to respect your opinion anymore because you’re not respecting mine. Why don’t you just leave me alone, and maybe try the fudge swirl instead?
Say you don’t just want to stop me from eating mint chocolate chip ice cream, but you want to stop everyone. You want to pass laws banning mint chocolate chip ice cream consumption yet are also demanding that those of us who love mint chocolate chip ice cream respect your opinion. “Even More No” is my (politely censored) response in this case because your opinion isn’t an opinion anymore; it’s a political position that directly affects me, and others like me. Since you’re taking that political position to the streets and to the ballot boxes and to the state houses, I have every right to do the same.
You could try to convince me to join your cause and give up my favorite ice cream. I am willing to hear you out, but if you want me to change my mind, you must show me there are good reasons, rooted in the weight of available credible evidence, why everyone, everywhere, must be stopped from eating mint chocolate chip ice cream. If you cannot show me, in a way that would hold up to scientific peer review or “beyond reasonable doubt” in a court of law, that eating mint chocolate chip ice cream is so dangerous to society that it should be criminalized, I not only don’t have to respect your opinion, but I can, and will, take to the streets and the ballot boxes and the state houses to defend my right to eat mint chocolate chip ice cream (I really like mint chocolate chip ice cream).
Maybe you heard somewhere that mint chocolate chip ice cream is made with toothpaste and contains enough fluoride to be poisonous. That’s a rumor, not an opinion, and if you spread that rumor without knowing whether it’s true, that’s gossip. If you know a rumor isn’t true, and you spread it deliberately to help your political position, that’s not opinion either, it’s disinformation. In the past, people who were caught spreading untrue and harmful rumors were socially shamed and ostracized; after all, I can no longer trust you if I don’t know whether what you’re saying is true, and if you don’t make sure before sharing.
Say at this point you decide to escalate, arguing that people shouldn’t just be banned from ever eating mint chocolate chip ice cream, but that anyone who does so is immoral or even subhuman. You start comparing mint chocolate chip enjoyers to animals, monsters, to the worst humanity has to offer; and maybe you don’t really intend to invite physical attacks on me and others who like mint chocolate chip ice cream, but that’s what your words, in effect, do. This is not an opinion, or even just a political position; it is bullying. It’s not always easy to know how to deal with a bully, especially if it that person is a family member, friend, or person of power, prestige, or influence. Maybe I would start by organizing other mint chocolate chip enjoyers, building a movement, calling out the dangerous rhetoric of the anti-mint chocolate chip crusaders, and refusing to give any money or attention to those who support them. I would say it’s easier to stand up to bullies together, and often more effective do so without force.
Thing is, I would have been fine just eating my mint chocolate chip ice cream and minding my own business. I’m also fine with parents limiting or preventing mint chocolate chip ice cream consumption until their kids are old enough to do so responsibly, though I would hope those parents also teach their children factually, honestly, and compassionately about ice cream and why some people enjoy different flavors than others do. But if in the end enough people become convinced that mint chocolate chip is a threat to their way of life, then I am limited to a small number of difficult choices. I could decide never to eat my favorite ice cream again, just because people who are not affected by my taste in ice cream have decided I shouldn’t be allowed. But why? To be forced to conform to what others expect, at significant personal cost? I guess I could eat it in secret, fearing social and legal consequences every time I do so, but again, why? I must give up what I love because some people feel threatened by it, even though they can’t give good reasons, based on evidence that we can both see and study and learn from, for why they feel so threatened? Or I could actively take a stand against your anti-mint chocolate chip crusade, loudly and proudly consuming my favorite ice cream as an act of social defiance and knowing I could be imperiled for doing so.
Now replace “mint chocolate chip ice cream” with…
Image credit: mint chocolate chip ice cream still life, free pic, attribution:<a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/delicious-green-ice-cream-still-life_37005819.htm#query=mint%20ice%20cream&position=0&from_view=keyword&track=ais">Freepik</a>
