My opinion on opinions: a Thanksgiving ramble

"Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." (Plato)

We live in a dizzyingly divided world. Pro-gun/anti-gun; pro-choice/pro-life; pro-mask/anti-mask; pro-vax/anti-vax; round Earth/flat Earth; socialist/capitalist; rural/urban; pineapple on pizza/no pineapple on pizza - it doesn't matter what it is, someone has an opinion on it and everyone who disagrees is wrong. How on our round/flat Earth did it come to this?

"Facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy." (Frances Haugen)

Anyone who has seen Netflix's The Social Dilemma is unlikely to have been surprised by this week's revelations. There's a strong argument to be made for the idea that memes and succinct snappy statements in 280 characters or less are not a good foundation for informed opinions. According to Frances Haugen, stoking division is very good for business.

"Anyone who disagrees with me is getting blocked" (anonymous Twitter user)

Right now, as you're reading this, strangers, at polar ends of almost exclusively binary opinions, are going to war in the comments section of wherever. It's preposterous. But what is all this squabbling for; what will it solve; and do they even understand what they're talking about? The answers to these questions, in order, are: nobody knows; nothing; and probably not.

"Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power." (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus)

What's that, Marcus Aurelius? Opinion is in our power? Does this mean we are not irrevocably trapped in calcifying filter bubbles, screaming bloody murder at Playa6969 for refusing to accept the environmental virtues of universal veganism? This is some radical 1,900 year-old shit!

So let's say that opinion is in our power, and that this power is inalienable. All we have to do is claim it for our own, and it shall be so. How do we do that? Having this week confronted the possibility that all my opinions, about everything, are based on a cat video, I thought I'd have a think about how I can do a better job at forming opinions in the future. Here's the weird disjointed mess I came up with:

1. Likely a result of centuries of inbreeding among the European aristocracy, Queen Victoria had haemophilia. Her offspring then passed this mutation to various royal houses, including the Russian Tsars. This condition, likely the rare haemophilia B condition, manifested in Alexei Nikolaevich, the only son of Tsar Nikolai II. Poor little Alexei was very sickly, so much so that his frantic parents, with the added jeopardy of presiding over the end of their line, engaged the infamous faith healer, Grigory Rasputin. This was not well received by the Russian peasantry, for whom the very presence of Rasputin undermined their confidence in the Tsarist regime and contributed significantly to the Russian Revolution. What happened next? Lenin, Stalin, World War II, The Cold War, Putin and ta-dah, democracy being undermined by Russian bots on social media. Phew. That was a lot, but why am I telling you this? Well, who would have thought it was possible to draw a direct line to hundreds of years of inbreeding among the European aristocracy and the social media-fueled erosion of democracy? The moral of the story is that if things don't tend to happen in isolation, neither should opinions.
2. Diverse perspectives matter. Human societies have evolved around the fact that lots of people who are all really good at doing different things can come together and build something greater than the sum of its parts. If you have an opinion, that's wonderful, but how might you expand on that opinion and, if someone was to disagree with you, what might they say? What other perspectives are available to you? Your family, friends, physician, teacher, plumber? How about historians, psychologists, economists, or clerics? How about dancers? It's a big beautiful world out there full of nice people with interesting things to say, which leads me on to my next point…
3. … A disagreement is an opportunity to learn, not a war to wage.
4. It's ok to not get things right away (or at all).
5. It's ok for people to not understand or agree with you.
6. It's ok to not have an opinion at all.

Is that all? Well, not quite. Let's close with the other half of the quote I opened with to complete this delicious Plato Sandwich.

"The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world." (Plato)

Peace and love, y'all, and Happy Thanksgiving!