Of Opinions and Assholes
So many opinions on the interwebs these days! All of them are just WRONG! And now our old frienemy, Zuckerberg has fired his truth-sayers…they’ll only get wronger.
I’ve written before about why peoples opinions are irrelevant (On the Bias…Why Your Opinion Does Not Matter). Here’s the sequel: Why Your Opinion is Wrong…But Also Right.
Your opinion was formed in your own brain, right? Probably not. If you took what someone else said and repeated it, that’s not your opinion. That’s someone else’s opinion repeated. Now someone else will take that same opinion and repeat it as well. This is what’s known as an “echo chamber” …o chamber …amber. It’s a collection of people sharing the same opinion, attempting to make it louder than the opposing opinion. It’s not your opinion if someone else voiced it first. Reminds me of Blazing Saddles…” Dr. Samuel Johnson is right about Olson Johnson being right!” Then, “Howard Johnson is right!” It’s funny because it’s childish. Have an original thought, would ya? I guess it’s much easier to let other people do your thinking for you but give it a shot. You might surprise yourself. But don’t just jump off the cliff with your friends. Now if you add something original to it (standing on the shoulders of giants), you can take credit for that original thought. That’s an opinion. Good job!
But repeating an opinion doesn’t make you wrong, it just makes you a parrot. So why are you wrong?
Well did you consider every perspective of the situation? Maybe the opposing opinion makes a good point. Did you listen to it (or did you sit in your echo chamber where the opposition can’t be heard)? If you did listen, did you actually consider it or did you immediately shoot it down with a nonsensical insult? Stop it! Your opinion is wrong if it does not include all perspectives.
We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it. ~Thomas Aquinas
But here’s the most important reason your opinion is wrong… IT’S JUST AN OPINION! No one got murdered or hurt. No one can be compelled to murder or hurt based on your opinion. If someone hears your opinion and decides to go on a murderous rampage because they listened to your opinion, it’s because they were a psycho to begin with. If I agree with anyone who thinks we should kill all the CEOs of insurance companies, I would be responsible, not the assholes who suggested it. It wasn’t the opinion that killed those CEOs…it was my crazy actions.
That’s not entirely true. We have laws against inciting riots and threatening speech. As such, maybe those assholes should be prosecuted alongside Luigi Whatshisface.
Why is your opinion also right? The same reason…IT’S JUST AN OPINION. Used to be, opinions were kind of sacred. Nobody got too upset about it. No one unfriended you for it. We could agree to disagree. These days though, people think words are weapons…violent. Bullshit. We need to get back to letting people have an opinion. If you want to believe the earth is flat…good for you. Don’t take your boat out too far. If you want to believe vaccines are really a delivery for government trackers. Okay, I guess the FBI’s GPS won’t find your body when you die from polio or whatever. Good luck! WTF cares about your opinion, anyway? Write your senators and go on about your daily lives.
The moral of the story is this: If you hear it, read it, see it on social media, it’s bullshit. Do your research. Find an expert and ask questions. Always ask questions. There are no stupid ones.
Dennis Miller had a show on HBO…about a lifetime ago. He’d end each show with a “rant” about one thing or another. And at the end of each rant, he’d say, “That’s just my opinion…I could be wrong.” He was right every time he said it.
-Big Steve