Search This Blog


Kootenay lake near Nakusp

Friday, March 12, 2010

Thoughts about opinions

Recently, during a rather superficial and meaningless conversation I was subjected to, that recurrent statement that "everyone is entitled to their own opinion".
Well, I have to agree with that.
Unfortunately, opinions are like shape shifters and take on a body and essence of their own dependent entirely on the knowledge and experience of the individual possessing the opinion.

That's where the problem begins:
We have literally billions of individual minds on the planet today, each one possessing a set of opinions.
These opinions are based on environmental, cultural, ethical, religious, political, and scientific experiences. Individuals with retained memory stored from these experiences generally put forward the most logical hypotheses related to those experiences we are trying to explore and understand.
Where this system breaks down is the socialistic perspective that every individual, by right of passage, is entitled to an opinion regardless of their lack experience required to formulate same.

With the advent of the Internet and the ability to communicate with those of like and similar views we are developing pockets of low-level thinking wrapped in some form of visible banners such as political movements, environmentalists, religious fundamentalists.