Are You Entitled to Your Opinion? - Part 2

See part 1 of this essay HERE.

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Previously I divided opinions into three categories:

• Opinions of Taste
• Opinions of Fact
• Opinions of Prediction

Opinions of taste are statements of value. They describe how a subject responds to, or judges, a thing or an idea. Opinions of fact are statements that attempt to describe or explain the world around us without any reference to value. Opinions of taste are more or less subjective (though this does not mean they are untrue), while opinions of fact are more or less objective (though this does not mean they are true).

What, then, is the difference between a fact and an opinion of fact? I think the answer has to do with the complexity of the idea - what level of complexity. Going back to some of the facts from my previous post, Paris is the capital of France. That's simple. It is either true or it isn't, and all it takes is a look at an atlas. There's only one level to this knowledge. "France fell easily to Nazi Germany in WWII because Paris is its capital," is an opinion of fact (which I just made up) which depends on a lot of assumptions and other facts. One, it assumes that Paris is very close to the border, and so easy to invade. It assumes that when a country loses its capital, it is much more likely to fold to an invading power. It assumes that France did fall "easily". It assumes that France was not secretly in league with Hitler from the beginning. It assumes that effects require causes. In effect, there are probably hundreds of assumptions that one would have to have in order to make the claim, "France fell easily to Nazi Germany in WWII because Paris is its capital."

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(Writing this, it makes me wonder if my idea of "opinions of fact" is inherently related to any statement that describes cause and effect. I'll have to come back to this later...)

In any event, opinions of fact assume a certain amount of complexity. And with complexity should come a certain amount of uncertainty.

But we are rarely uncertain of our opinions. Why is that? Part of it is as simple as: if you believe something, you believe you have a good reason to believe it. We sit within a certain perspective, and that perspective often determines what reasons we pay attention to - or see in the first place - and which we don't. As Daniel Kahneman says: WYSIATI (what you see is all there is). The only way to combat this bias is to realize and understand how much perspective plays a role in our thinking; and to accept that perspective, by its definition, is limited.

That's not to say that the limits of perspective make everything untrue. It's just meant to suggest that one should leave some room for doubt, especially in areas where he or she does not have expertise.

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The other reason for this certainty of opinion - and probably the more dangerous one - is the conflation of opinions of fact with opinions of taste. This conflation confuses a description of the world with a description of one's values.

It makes sense that disagreements involving opinions of taste can lead to anger. Value is an expression of self. It is a reflection of identity. So belittling someone's values is akin to belittling the person. Disagreements about opinions of fact should lead to less anger. And yet, that does not seem to be the case any longer. Well, maybe it was never the case. But the only sensible reason for this is that facts are now being incorporated into one's identity the same as values. If one does not perceive the right facts, it is the same as supporting the wrong values.

Yet if we stand back and look at this idea, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Opinions of fact are statements that describe some state of the world. They are meant to coincide with truth and reality. Therefore, no disagreeable discussion of facts should cause anyone to feel like they are being personally attacked. Either your current view is unchanged because your reasons for holding that view still seem to be more likely true than the other; or the other view seems like it more likely matches reality, and so, great! Now you've learned something new and you are better prepared to engage with reality! Both possibilities - that you are right, or that you were wrong and now have the right of it - should bring pleasure to anyone who values truth.

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Hey, look, nobody likes to be wrong, especially when you've felt certainty about a thing for a long time. At best, realizing you are wrong about something is bitter sweet. But I've never felt like someone who disagrees with me does so for the purpose of harming me. I never feel it as an attack against me, but only - at worst - as an attack against an idea, or, more regularly, just a difference of perspective.

More and more, however, I perceive that the opposite is true for many people. Just in the last three days, in fact, I've had two conversations that went a little wild. One was in real life, one on one; and the other was a comment conversation on Facebook. I don't regularly record my daily life, but I can screenshot a series of comments on Facebook. So let's take a look!

To set the stage: I don't know the guy I'm talking to at all. He made a comment on a mutual friend's post. His comment expressed an idea that I think is a bit of a flawed cliche, so I offered my two cents. Is this bad Facebook manners? I don't know. I'm more interested in ideas than people, so I try to spread the good word when I can, and learn something when I can't.

So far this seems like a pretty reasonable exchange. And you can't see it here, but the guy I'm talking to is the one who "liked" my first response to his comment. I think the claim he makes is significantly flawed, but I am very conscious of not wishing to respond in an insulting way. Thus the "heh". I figure it's best to lay the groundwork for any discussion with a definition, and so I do.

Then things go off the rails (though, I have to point out that I missed grabbing his next comment; I had a feeling that our poor mutual friend was going to delete his initial post to get this exhange off of his wall, so I screengrabbed quickly. But I missed a spot):

So, that first comment I make there - at this point I know there's nothing of value that's going to come from the discussion. My intent was to be firm about our divergent views, and politely disengage. (I admit, "best of luck" was meant to needle a little bit.) I had every intention of not responding any further, but his next comment where he said that "we agree more than you understand" both urged me to clarify that that was not true, and also suggested a glimmer of hope that he might be kind of reasonable. I tried my best to give a sincere disclaimer that my disagreement was not an attack on him.

Anyway, that didn't work out. He made some more posts throughout the night:

I particularly liked the "condescending robot" bit.

The guy sounds unhinged. And, hell, I don't know, maybe he is a bit of a loon - like I said, I don't know who he is. But honestly, this conversation doesn't look that different from a lot of things I see online. You tell me: regardless of what you think of fascism and individualism, was I at fault for the breakdown of this conversation?

I mentioned a recent in-person conversation that had similar problems. In this case I know the person, and I can confirm that she's not certifiable. She's just a very squishy type, and I'm a little harder around the edges. The similarity, though, was that she took our disagreement as an attack on her. She said she felt "uncomfortable". (And honestly, it was a frustrating conversation, and I was getting a bit heated, to my shame.) The topic of this conversation? How religious people should not push their views on others, and me - the atheist - was in the position of defending the perspective of the religious. Heh.

Opinions of Prediction

This third subgroup of opinions I thought of only as I was writing this essay. This is any statement that makes a claim about something that will happen in the future: bitcoin will hit $10k by Friday; President Trump will be impeached; the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. In that sense, these are the hardest opinions to verify, since there's no way to know a thing until it happens.

In another way though, I think these are really just a special case of opinions of fact. They are statements that describe something in the world - only it's a future version of the world.

In any event, most of these opinions should be held with the least certainty.

Conclusion

Well. What does it all mean? The only healthy path to truth has to be one where we separate facts from values. Separate the objective from the subjective. The former is something to be observed, and no conflict in this domain has anything to do with your identity or your value as a person. The latter comes closer to that, though even here, it's best to keep in mind that people value what they value because of how it impacts them, not because of how it impacts you.

Yet, we see the opposite in public discourse. I very rarely see anyone trying to persuade someone that he is right. I don't see anyone looking to foster agreement. What I see more and more is a line drawn in the cyber-sand, with one group self-confirming on one side, and one group self-confirming on the other, and both groups hurling insults across the line whenever they can. I see people trying to consolidate a larger and larger group so they can overwhelm the opposing group with force - so far it's not yet physical, but comes in the form of a shout meant to force the other side into silence.

So let's stop fucking doing that.

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