I hate to admit it, but "I hate to admit it" seems to be a common phrase lately. I've recently noticed this and have started to wonder, what makes a person "hate to admit" something? What makes someone begin an observation by essentially stating, "I despise acknowledging the truth, but . . . "
Incidentally, the place where I've noticed this phrase most often is in political discourse. For example, when a liberal admits a good quality of a conservative, or vice-versa. The following is a quote from a comment on a political video a friend of mine linked on Facebook:
"Ron Paul is more dangerous to this nation than Obama when it comes to foreign policy. As much as I hate to admit it."
Let's analyze that a little, shall we? Why would this person, whom we must assume is conservative politically, hate to admit that Ron Paul is inferior to President Obama in the area of foreign policy? I can't think of any other reason than that she prefers that anyone who is representing conservativism would in no way appear to be inferior to someone as liberal as the President.
What she's saying is that the truth is getting in the way of how she prefers to see the world.
What interests me here has little to do with politics, but rather with the way we think about truth. In the case of this Facebook commenter, give her credit for honestly acknowledging the truth. But it strikes me as odd that the acknowledgement is seen as something to hate. She sees the truth as a pesky inconvenience to the way she would prefer the world to be (in this case, conservatives being superior to liberals in every regard).
But shouldn't truth be the goal? If it seems that, according to your beliefs, Obama's foreign policies have kept our country safer than other viable presidential hopefuls, shouldn't that be something to rejoice about? Unfortunately, the Team Conservative vs. Team Liberal rhetoric has made this nigh impossible. When the other team looks good, that's bad for our team, regardless of what is actually true or good.
3 comments:
Ken, this is good. I have actually never thought about this statement this way before. But I completely agree that often we negate what is good or true for some other band wagon we are on. Good thoughts Ken, good thoughts!
Thanks Stac!
Ironically, when I first saw the title I began asking the very same question about the phrase. (What does someone mean when they "hate to admit" something?). Very well said Ken.
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