One of the bugs in our modern political and social landscape is that everybody has incredibly strong opinions. Or, depending on whom you ask, you might describe this phenomenon as a feature — not a bug.
Comedian Bo Burnham, on his Covid-inspired masterpiece album “Inside,” jokes about the gravity of the internet: “Can I interest you in everything, all of the time?”
And you know what? Everything’s like that now. It’s not just the internet that wants to inundate us with stimuli and obligate us to respond. It’s also the modern real-world sociopolitical environment. Anyone who doesn’t have an opinion on a given issue is seen as a sheep or a fool. Anyone who isn’t an extremist is seen as a traitor to his party. Anyone who doesn’t have an immediate answer for every possible political issue is quietly labeled a completely negligent and delinquent citizen.
It’s an unending torrent of media-driven emotional demand. In order to be a good citizen, you must have an opinion about this. Oh and, small footnote, it must line up with the opinion prescribed by the political elite who reside over your party. Or else you’re even worse than someone who doesn’t have an opinion.
And unbelievably, horribly, moderates and free agents are now seen as spineless cowards. “Centrist” is now used as a slur, rather than a badge of intelligence and honor. In reality, moderates and free thinkers hold our last bastion of hope at retaining human honesty and decency.
In order to be good little cattle citizens, we must do our due diligence (watch CNN or Fox News), and go out every four years and vote for cartoonishly ridiculous candidates. We must voluntarily hate 50% of the population simply because their prescriptions don’t match ours.
No.
We don’t have to play that game.
First of all, there isn’t a person alive who spends enough time researching to have an opinion about every social or political issue. Therefore, it seems a bit funny to me that everybody has an opinion about everything, all of the time.
There’s something very hard about political debate: no matter how much information you have, you’re always missing some. Somebody always knows something you don’t. No matter how well-researched you are, or how strong your opinion is, there is always a perspective that you haven’t even considered yet.
That, to me, makes political debate positively exhausting and therefore extremely unappealing. I’ve got other things to do — things I’m probably better at. I’ll stick to those.
Equally importantly, this overzealousness leads us to condemn institutions, traditions, and ideas that we don’t even understand. It leads us to hate things that we aren’t even worthy of to begin with. Like the arrogant student who goes to university and spits on the shoulders of giants rather than standing on them — a wasted opportunity and a shameful display of hubris.
G.K. Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, and literary critic. One of his most famous commentaries reads as follows:
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.
Such a simple call for integrity. Such a practical comment about people’s opinions.
To put it more simply, “if you cannot even tell me why an idea was instituted in the first place, then you are in no position to tell me why it should be forgotten.”
In fact, the people whose voices are the loudest, the people who are out there trying to tear down the most fences, are often the last people on earth who should be allowed to have an opinion. Because they spend all their time yelling and almost none of it reading.
We don’t have to do all this nonsense. We really don’t have to.
We don’t have to earn the favor of political elites who don’t know or care who we are.
We don’t have to hate our neighbors because they don’t agree with our stance on something that neither of us has even researched.
And we don’t have to play games that don’t benefit us in any way. We can just say “no thanks” and go do something else.
Naval Ravikant said, “The goal of media is to make every problem, your problem.”
I’m opting out. I’ve got better things to do.
When I encounter a problem that I really feel equipped and/or morally capable of tackling, you can bet your last dollar that I’m going to. I’ll give it everything I’ve got. Not only because it often feels good, but also because I sense that as a moral obligation.
But for everything else, there’s the option of just not worrying about it. (And not making a fool of yourself by having a dumb opinion, and also not making our political discourse even worse than it already is.)
If you’re going to have an opinion about something, wonderful. More power to you. But if you’re not going to sound smarter than your opponent, you may as well not even have one.
Drink water and stop wishing pain and death upon your neighbor,
JDR
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” - Albert Einstein
Not sure is you have already read Walter Lippman's 1922 classic titled "Public Opinion"