Around the hole

My question is, why is everyone entitled to an opinion? Shouldn't we be saying that everyone is entitled to an informed opinion? How can we tell the difference? I mean, an opinion is an opinion is an opinion, is it not?

One thing we can do is question the opinion-giver as to the reason for that particular opinion. We really should get over our overly sensitive politeness at least enough to determine with the opinion we're being confronted with is informed or uninformed. It makes life easier and is relatively painless (unless the opinion-giver is presented uniformed opinions and feels particularly strong about them ... but we have a word to describe that too: it's called "prejudiced"). And then?

If you've been following the last couple of posts, you may be coming to the slow realization that determining what's worth listening to is a matter of effort, and Lord knows, we moderns aren't all excited about effort. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but living in the modern world just ain't as easy as it looks. Yes, we have to start deciding which back-up evidence is good (or acceptable) or bad; we have to figure out a way to evaluate the evidence and the resulting opinions. (And for those of you who may have lost sight of my train of thought over the last couple of posts, we're now going to come back to the numbers.)

In the absence of any other measure, we tend to think that numbers are somehow "objective". The person with the best quantitative evidence must, of course, have the best opinion. After all figures don't lie, do they? But, as a wise person once noted, all liars figure. No, it's not as easy as we'd like. And there we are, once again ... immediately ... back in that ol' hard-work dilemma. We need to figure out now who's got the best numbers.

Out of the hole

Well, is it? I mean, is it comforting that we can get along without numbers, statistics, quantitative data ... proof? You see, as long as we were talking about anecdotal evidence (that's what my experience is) and the situation is "good" (and we aren't going to debate what that means, at least not at the moment), we tend not to care. It's not an issue. But what if it's a different situation and the notion of "good" is not as obvious?

Let's take government funding ... for anything actually. Is that "good"? Well – and this was my experience at the conference – all of sudden, opinions started going in all kinds of directions. You will notice, please, that we're no longer talking about "experience" (that was something we shared), rather we're talking about "opinions" (something that, at best, groups of people share). But, since were back out of the rabbit hole, how about we ask ourselves just what an "opinion" is. It's really not something we think about everyday, even though they tend to play a truly significant part in our lives.

IMNSHO, there are two fundamental types of opinions. The first is "the result of giving thought to a particular topic or issue". We think about things. We look around. We examine evidence. We look at various perspectives (notice I didn't say "the other side" of an issue ... there is invariably more than just two sides to any issue). We come to a conclusion. That is, we have an opinion. Some folks like to call these "informed opinions". They are, in a word, the result of thought. The second type we can characterize as "a replacement for thought". We just think things are a particular way and say so. There's really no thinking involved. We don't bother looking around. There's no examination of the facts or evidence. We know the answer before we start. That is, we have an opinion. Sound familiar?

"Everybody's entitled to their opinion." Have you ever said that? Have you ever meant it? Is that something you agree with? If you don't, you take the risk of being run out of town on a rail, don't you? But, it's quite clear, without even delving into the subject very deep at all, that not all opinions are created equal. So now what?

In the hole

You need to bear with me for a moment. We're going to jump back out of the rabbit hole ... or dive in deeper, I'm not quite I remember which way we're supposed to be going. Well, let's face it. I'm anything but alone in this regard. You don't have to look very far to figure that out.

I was recently at a conference attended by a large number of some of the most well-intended people I had met in a long time. Educators, for the most part, but others who were smack in the middle of real life and economic and policy issues ... people who were doing their damnedest to solve some serious problems. What struck me, however, is how enthralled they were by numbers. Now, don't get me wrong, I think statistics most certainly have their place, and that quantitative studies and investigations can be revealing (if understood properly). But do the numbers show us the truth, or what's right or which way to go next? In other words, can something be right without there being numbers to back it up?

I think so, but I also saw that I was in a very small minority in that group. My experience is that people who are curious, inquisitive, and interested appear to learn more faster than people who are less so. I have found that people who tend to like to read are more often curious, inquisitive and interested folks. That's just my experience, but it is an experience that has repeated itself repeatedly on two different continents in a dozen different cultures.

No, I don't have numbers and statistical correlations to back it up, but is this one of the places I need to? I don't think so, because, in the end, I think we all generally agree that knowing there are curious, inquisitive and interested people is a good thing, that having such people around is a good thing. So, it would seem that as long as it's good, we don't need all that quantitative backup. That's comforting, isn't it?

More paradox

It's not getting easier. There are a lot of things we just have backwards. It's a favorite theme of mine, and I don't have to work hard to find examples or evidence. I was even asked by a good friend if I had perhaps been discussing inverse relationships with March Hare? As I told him: we are in fact well acquainted, but he's got his world, and I'm stuck with this one. Or is it the other way around?

Really, you ask. Yes, really. How about this: an article in the Guardian showed rather clearly that the more conservative an American is, the more likely they are probably willing to say they think President Obama is a Muslim and not American, even though they "know" he's not and he is. There was no correlation to level of education, only to ideology. Paradox? I think so. Or, who's the biggest exporter of cars in the US? Right, BMW ... who else would it be? Or which car built in the US is the most "American" car (that is containing the highest number of American-made parts)? Of course, Toyota. All of this is so obvious, I don't know why I have to keep saying it.

My point is that not everything we say is what we know, not everything we believe is what we want to believe, and not everything that makes sense is really always sensible. Welcome to life in the modern world. Oh, it's nice to make fun of Mr. Carroll and his Hare. It's nice to think that it was all such a nice children's story ... so entertaining ... so not real. But is it?

It's really something that has been going on for quite some time, but we are also frustrated by the fact that we don't always see that things are getting better. We would like them to, of course, but reality isn't always what we would like it to be. Sometimes, it's just the opposite. In fact, it's really time to start asking yourself, on which side of the mirror you really are.