Break on through to the other side

OF COURSE, THERE ARE SOME THINGS I WILL NEVER BE RIGHT-LEANING ON. BUT CERTAIN CONSERVATIVE INSTINCTS ACTUALLY FELT LIKE THE RIGHT FIT

- Charles Assisi

For years, whenever someone asked about my political tilt, the response was automatic: "liberal." It felt right. The term denoted a belief in openness, tolerance, and free speech, which are all things that I hold dear.

Then, during a casual conversation, a friend mentioned a way to avoid intellectual complacency: pick a stance at odds with your own and live it for a set period.

This sounded intriguing. What might it be like to undertake a "contradiction practice," and attempt to immerse myself on the opposite side of all that I hold true?

What I learned by the end of the month-long trial was surprising: There's a conservative streak that runs through me.

The initial plan was to adopt an extreme right-wing stance, to test how it feels. The whole thing was intended as a stretching exercise for the mind, nothing more.

Day One of the experiment proved unsettling. It started with small things, such as reframing news headlines to view them through conservative eyes. Narratives on "government overreach" had to now be read as conspiracy theory.