1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
Yet, when people speak on their opinion, and you question them, people act as if you’re attacking them. What people don’t seem to get is that opinions don’t mean shit. When dealing with claims of truth, your opinion is irrelevant. Plus, by its very definition, your opinion is not solidified by complete certainty, so it should be wide open to scrutiny and critical analysis. Now, sometimes opinions are merely questions of preference i.e. “Do you like Coke or Pepsi better?” The opinion on this
is simply that, an indication of choice. However, when somebody posits a synthetic proposition such as, “Abstinence-only education is better than academic sex education,” Your opinion doesn’t mean anything. At this point, what one is required to do is establish certain definitions and then cross-examine all arguments. In this example, we would have to determine the definition of the word “better” (effective at lowering teen pregnancy, STD’s, more educational, more fun, better could mean any of these, any combination of these, or anything else for that matter). Once all variable definitions have been agreed upon, one would have to conduct or reference honest empirical studies to determine which method is more conducive to achieving the stated goal as defined by being “better”. Once this is complete, your opinion means squat. Once all applicable data has been amassed and analyzed, it doesn’t matter if you don’t like the conclusion. It doesn’t matter if it still doesn’t feel right. You’re wrong, and you should shut the fuck up. The real reasoning is because once something has been verified; its conclusion is no longer opinion but fact. Therefore, if someone’s initial proposition has indeed been proven true, it is no longer their opinion. Thus, it is illogical to say that you two just have different opinions. No, Person A has knowledge, and Person B has bullshit.This whole thing is prompted because so often, I’ve been involved, either as participant or witness, to arguments wherein someone’s reasoning devolves to, “Well, that’s just my opinion,” This is deployed as a last ditch effort by someone who has been backed into corner by reasoning and logic. They throw up this pseudo-shield of opinion protection and expect not to be called out on their bullshit. The worst part is, most the time they are safe. For some reason, our societal mores have created a protective aura around “people’s opinions” and most people adhere to it. So, at the end of the argument, the person whom has been blocked by the opinion shield usually concludes with a lame “Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree,” Meanwhile, the person who utilized the “Opinion Defense” makes no progress whatsoever towards any sort of truth. Without anyone with the guts to call them on their bullshit, they continue to feel that their opinion is worthwhile and that honest intellectual integrity and rigorous critical analysis is unnecessary.
In the end though, this only serves to diminish our own potential. People are unable to achieve full self-actualization when burdened with the misinformed idea that their opinion actually means something. In order to achieve any sort of personal progress, we must be willing to recognize that often our feelings are not only often inaccurate; they are sometimes even detrimental to our goals. This, in and of itself is not bad, as these things will inevitably happen. It is the refusal to accept that this will happen, and an unwillingness to amend our ideas and feelings on things that we have been shown wrong that is evil.
