“Doubling Down”

September 4, 2021

By NZB3

Since when did holding a view become “doubling down?”

That’s a scare term for people who are resolute and don’t agree with you.

A baby who refuses to eat silver beet the second time you offer it isn’t doubling down. He’s displaying a consistent preference.

A horse that isn’t thirsty even though you hit him until he drinks what he has been led to isn’t “doubling down,” he’s still not thirsty.

A freedom fighter who gets beaten up, loses everything, and is stuck in a hole but fights his way out along a Hero’s Journey to take back his life and beat the bad guy….he’s sticking to his guns.

A competitor who, upon losing, dusts himself off and tries tries again isn’t “doubling down.” He wanted to win before, he wants to win still! The only thing that has changed here might be that you wrote him off so the fact he’s still coming for the prize is interpreted as a development when really it’s the status quo. Instead of revising your mistaken estimate of reality just say the persistent man has changed his attitude by degree (“doubling”) and quality (“down”.)

A man can’t break a stone
So he tries another lick
An iceman can’t cut his ice, no Lord
So he buys another pick

• Lyrics, Ain’t Nothing You Can Do

Persistence. Resolve. Steadfastness. Determined. These are (K-selected) virtues that upset the current mainstream, hence they are processed as “doubling down.” It’s a slur.

Instead of recognising and celebrating these virtues we end up condemning them as pig-headed, stubborn, obstinate, inflexible, and beyond reasoning with when we say someone has Doubled Down.

As a result of a culture like this anyone persistent and resolute is an ugly duckling. Anyone not is treated to the dictionary antonyms and here are some I looked up: Yielding, compliant, reasonable, submissive, kind, nice.

“…in Russia the crocodile is the symbol of the father of the family and is also regarded with awe and admiration because it has a stiff neck and cannot turn back. It just goes straight forward with gaping jaws- like science, like Rutherford”’;- Ref. 1937: The Crocodile Sleeps, AHNZ

New Zealand’s greatest scientist, Rutherford, was also known as the Crocodile specifically because his personality and style were to be what our current mainstream era would slur as “doubling down.”

Not for nothing that our English language has provision for these personality traits to be either pejorative or recognised virtues. We flip back and forth through time depending on which mainstream culture we have. In the 2020s, the era of Double Down, the pejorative, we prize the “kind” and “nice” and “compliant” citizen. We fear and repudiate men like Rutherford who would stick to their guns and stay the course.

That’s how it is for now but the wheel of time is turning. What is today’s insult will be tomorrow’s badge of pride.

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