Opinions, we all have 'em...

“Nothing sounds so sweet, nor so comforting

as ideas with which we agree.”

- Anonymous

Election season, in the United States, is upon us already…or maybe better said, preseason!

Richard Pryor (a comedian of a bygone era) tells the story of his wife walking in on him while he was in a compromising situation with another woman. Caught red handed, he reports saying,

“Who are you going to believe - me, or your lying eyes?”

Context…

When I returned to college after a few years in the military, my academic minor was Language Arts - a kind of ‘English light.’ While there were a number of courses in this area, the most helpful and interesting were grammar, the novel as a literary device and a class on the use of persuasive language.

For the persuasive language term paper, I reviewed two years of weekly editorial writings by a well-known columnist of the day.  The task was to see how much was eye catching ‘yellow journalism’ (poorly researched intended to catch the eye, and disengage the brain) was a part of this fellow's writing and how much was fact based.

As it turned out most of the pieces were ‘fact light’ and extremely ‘opinion heavy.’  For me, getting an idea of what this man really believed, required reading a lot of his work, background checking and noting, over time, common themes.

Prior to this experience, the idea that language would be used for purposes other than simply conveying information, never actually occurred to me. I was young and surprisingly naïve. 

Side note…

This sounds strange in today’s 24-hour news cycles with cable television claiming to be fair and only pointing out the ‘facts’ fitting their narrative regarding whatever or whoever the subject might be. You know the kind. Posing questions to the opposition, with zero interest in an honest response…yellow journalism on steroids!

In this day, it doesn’t take much review of the networks to note the transparent agendas these programs express day in and day out. While we think we are thoughtful and balanced people, most of us only listen the ideas with which we agree.  There is comfort in this, as there always has been.

Epictetus, the stoic philosopher, said:

“…be not deceived, every animal is attached to nothing so much as to its own interests. Whatever then appears to it an impediment to this interest, whether this be a brother, or a father, or a child, or beloved, or lover…it hates, spurns, curses; for its nature is to love nothing so much as its own interests: this is father, and brother, and kinsman, and country, and God. When then the gods appear to us to be an impediment to this, we abuse them and throw down their statues and burn their temples…”

Continuing…

Over subsequent years as the ripples from that college course moved in concentric circles through the reaches of my mind, I began to appreciate, most of what I read or heard in social/political media was presented only for the purpose of taking sides. I have come to understand the noise of the 24-hour cycle is so loud and mind numbingly partisan, it is not worth the time to listen…even in the background.

I don’t want to only hear what I agree with, but I do want to discuss and converse with different points of view. I don’t want the ‘story’ with no conversation. Sadly, with few exceptions, I don’t find myself being able to discuss and question and engage a lot of my friends who already have doctrinal points of view and large motes around their castles (pun intended).

Patrick Moynihan, politician and sociologist in the 1970’s and 80’s wrote: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts…” This, of course, in today’s environment, while true, has little relevance.

In today’s world, it takes time and effort to learn the facts concerning almost anything. Most of what we hear comes quickly, is free floating opinion and morphs with such speed, it is difficult to stay with the point. Rather than meaningful, it is background noise intended to convince the listener of the ‘rightness’ of a particular point of view.

When I think about this, I appreciate that most of the discussions regarding current affairs, while fiercely defended by protectors of the faith, are mostly meaningless…Richard Pryor, on the other hand, would be proud…

- ted