The Baggage of Opinion - or - Opinion Killed the Truth

Posted on May 1, 2008
Filed Under Fake Culture |

In one of those strange ‘coincidences’ which aren’t really coincidences at all - I was reading Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ series, and discovered he mentioned exactly the same topic I posted about just a few days ago. I wrote about perception working on two levels; ‘Content and Message’, in his book he wrote about exactly the same thing - however he used the words ‘Trivia and Message’. I actually think that his wording works much better. People after all are overly concerned with Trivia and it can cause them to miss the ‘big picture’.

This line of thinking led me deep along some old lines of thought which I often find myself retreading. Most notably the whole idea of ‘opinion’, basically that idea goes like this; modern society has an unhealthy obsession with the notion of ‘opinion’, for example the depiction of perception mentioned above could be considered a ‘truth’, but it can also be considered ‘opinion’ or ‘belief’.

The fact is - as Robert Anton Wilson was fond of saying; ‘There is no is.’ Yet that in-itself would be a truth, no?

The trouble with classifying every idea, or perception as opinion can be very dangerous, simply because it allows people to create excuses. We live in a time where many believe that everything can be reduced to a single a simple set of cause and related effect - those things which are demonstratable by science. Yet there are some truths which cannot be measured by science; the depth of your love for someone, the vividness of your dreams, beauty, art - if there were to be a list of such things, it would be endless.

Yet whilst those ‘truths’ may be called subjective, there is another problem; why do we always equate subjectivity with opinion? They are not always related. I mentioned a quote in my previous post, ‘There are as many rainbows as there are people.’ - are people’s perception of a rainbow opinions? The attraction of the word ‘opinion’ is that there is no underlaying truth to the notion. Anyone can hold an opinion whether it be false or indifferent.

Opinions do not demand responsibility or action. And there in lays the problem with believing everything is simply ’subjective opinion’. Such an attitude allows us to remain indifferent, it means we don’t have to act or change we can simply say, ‘Well that is just your opinion’, and walk away.

There is another danger with having such an attitude; it becomes impossible to recognize real truth even when directly confronted with it. This is the flaw of the reductionist, and the critic. It is a way of viewing the world in superficial terms, without the burden of responsibility.

But how do we think otherwise? The answer to that is easy, as we all thought otherwise at an early point in our lives. Before the looming domination of opinion, and authoritative knowledge. What happened to curiosity?

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat - it taught it how to get nine-lives.