A few years ago I told a friend that I tried not to have too many unnecessary opinions. Won't go into the context, because it wouldn't mean much in this context, but it still goes. Keep in mind the word "unnecessary." Obviously I'm not entirely devoid of opinions, as anyone reading this can tell. But I've found that taking sides on every single thing is counterproductive. Especially if it's among friends or people you have to work with.
2 comments:
People who tend to be very opinionated are often unable to look at a subject from a different point of view. It's an unfortunate aspect of modern tribalism when someone is unable to articulate their reasons for holding particular opinions or partisanships when they have no information on the history of the ideas they're backing or straightforward evidence to support their assumptions.
It's part of our nature as adults to be inclined toward certain attitudes we've grown accustomed to but it's important to remain open to other ways of understanding the world. It's perhaps even more important to know when not to make waves.
There's always the danger of circular reasoning, as well. It's easy to fall into a pattern of only considering evidence that upholds your own argument, twisting counterexamples so that they can be justified as straight examples. Mind you, I don't think it's best to be easily persuaded either. Sometimes you just have to step away, I guess.
Indeed, there are a lot of different ways of understanding the world, and one isn't necessarily wrongheaded or evil because it's unfamiliar. The time to make waves is when there's a positive outcome in doing so.
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