All I can say is that natural contrarians do exist. When an idea is presented, my first reaction is something like, "How can this be improved?" or "What holes are there in this?" and I go searching for them. A self-aware contrarian may very well find none and accept the idea. I've noticed that this takes a slight dose of humility for me to do, which makes me think that contrarianism is rooted in the desire to simply be an independent thinker. I do think that honest contrarianism has its uses in the spectrum of personalities. It finds the flipside of things, breaks up groupthink, and serves as an improver of plans and structures. After all, the best way to validate an idea is to throw a skeptic at it.
A clueless contrarian will probably just keep assuming that the holes are there somewhere, and will eventually find himself bending or ignoring facts to validate his assumption. We've all seen examples of that. It's one reason I stopped blogging - I knew from looking at other examples within the blogosphere that being an informed contrarian amongst an uninformed fan base is a massive trap. You look good for a while, but then your personality starts taking you beyond your expertise, and people believe you all the while.
The slight irony, of course, is that in pulling against the grain of the Seahawks community and their desire for strong pass protection and running game, I was actually trying to go WITH the grain of a different community, that of the NFL trendsters with their fevered fascination with epic quarterbacks. I do reserve a little dignity for myself, because it's not like Russell Wilson lacks what I wanted. He's accurate, technically sound, and strong-armed. But he wouldn't be much, at least at this stage, without Marshawn Lynch.
