It is perhaps strange that an opinion piece, from a small website at that, would question the role, weight and importance of opinions. But it is not necessarily any particular opinion that should be of concern but rather how those opinions are reached. The value of learning, knowledge and expertise is under threat and their importance, whatever the subject, needs defending. Indeed, in world full of ever more voices, the ability to consume multiple sources and evaluate what is truthful, fact-based and of value, is a skill which is increasingly being lost. And it is not just because of the difficulty it poses but also in its very nature by those who would want you to believe that anything is subjective.
Whilst it is an interesting, and important, philosophical point, the almost Descartes-like denial that we can objectively know anything or that any opinion is valid is a troubling trend.
The subject of opinion is one of subtle issues and it is these very subtleties that are being used to undermine the whole area of productive discussion and learning. As they say, a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Let us therefore stick to the broad strokes of the matter and the challenges of where we are now culturally. These challenges boil down to three main issues: the denigration of learning and knowledge, the undermining and denial of reasoned and fact-based enterprises, and the nature of opinion being used to sow disagreement and discord by removing the forum of discussion.
The denigration of learning and knowledge can be summed up by the phrase “so-called experts”. Whilst it is certainly true that too many are claimed or claim themselves as experts, this is too often used to counter an opinion or argument rather than engage with it productively. It is the underlying distrust of objective expertise as a concept which needs countering. Worryingly it leads to a belief that experts can know no more than any other individual does. This is particularly true of first-hand experience. Whilst first hand experiences are important, particularly as informed accounts of what is going on, they should not be a replacement, or a barrier, to fully understanding the situation. So, we have parents claiming they know better by virtue that they are parents. We have claims that you cannot understand an issue, such as racism, sexism, terrorism, loss or abuse, if you have not directly experienced it. This leads to a belief that feeling and subjective knowledge is equivalent to or even superior to objective and knowledge-based learning. Sadly, it is the confusion between experiencing the emotion and, usually terrible, consequences of these events and understanding and knowledge of the same events. These are two very different things which are too often conflated, pitching emotion against logic. It is the experience of child birth or being shot versus the doctor who delivers the baby or attends the wound. The doctor did not experience any of the pain etc but equally the person giving birth or who was shot knows immeasurably less than the doctor about what was going on.
And so, this leads to the second of our issues; the undermining of reason and fact. Let us start with a bold and unusual assertion; fascism was, and is, a well thought out, reasoned and critically discussed ideology by people of great learning. It was long before it became associated with Hitler or Nazism. This however, and let me stress this, does not make it correct. Reasoned arguments can be wrong. Or even if not objectively incorrect, then disagreed with by reasoned and informed response. It is the intelligent discussion of them that should form the basis of our world view and not the subjective rambling or personal circumstance of individuals. We demand this barrier and standard when dealing with the science and the natural world. It is through the use of evidence and objective lessons that societies have progressed. It is too common and too broad a cop out to determine everything as a subjective experience or view and therefore somehow not subject to criticism or repudiation. It is a slippery slope and one where we see outcome such as fake news, subjective claims trumping factual evidence and an over load of opinions drown out the expert opinion. Opinions based instead on gut feelings, singular or siloed group experience now in echo chambers reinforce opinions without any challenge of fact, recourse to review or openness to change. As Alvin Toffler said, the illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who can’t learn, unlearn and relearn. Take again the example of fascism. It is not that you should necessarily take my or anyone else’s word for it but that you should engage with the matter critically and understand for yourself using all the information and knowledge available. Ultimately the inability to do this is as damaging to the individual as to society.
However, you probably won’t have time to do this in great detail on every subject which leads to the third great issue around opinion in our societies today; who is the messenger.
Who the messenger is appears to be more important than what is being said. This idea that, whoever is delivering the message or opinion is equally as important as what is being said, and its relative wisdom or stupidity, is an unnerving one. Yet this is exactly what research shows us to be the case. This is true not only of confirmation bias, where we believe and look for opinions that match our own, but in a literal sense. We actually believe those who we perceive to be trustworthy, failing to separate the person or entity with the information being conveyed. The key word here is perceive. And this is where the modern world is exacerbating this issue. The nature of the messenger is one which predates the internet, or celebrity culture, where different communication and personality types would be perceived differently in societies and be more effective in projecting their message. Money and presentation through image and/or propaganda has always been a factor in whose message and opinion people would be swayed by. The invention of the printing press allowed for the greater democratisation of this process, allowing for greater direct communication. So too did other inventions of communication such as telegram, radio or television.
What is seemingly different now is that whilst previously competing messages would fight each other through resources and control of media, the attack on knowledge and opinion itself was not present. The chaos of this modern message, to disregard any form of discourse or debate, is exactly what troll farms and state sponsored messaging by countries such as Russia and China are trying to foster. They not only desire that you have a preference of one messenger over another but that you question any messenger and all the information you receive.
And this then is the answer to these issues. Not to stifle and have fewer opinions but to use these modern tools as they were first envisioned. By allowing the sharing of information. But doing so in an environment which teaches critical evaluation of opinions. These skills are seemingly on the decline in modern schooling. Bizarrely the first lessons of science and of history and literature teaching us how to determine where information comes from and how to process the evidence are being forgotten in our over saturated world. Your opinion may not matter but how you come to that opinion and how you share it with others certainly does.