The Makeup of An Opinion

by: Glenn Hancock

An opinion you earn differs from one you borrow, and most of us carry far more of the second kind than we like to admit. A borrowed opinion arrives whole. Someone we trust presents a conclusion; it fits what we already believe, or want to believe, and we adopt it without ever examining the ground underneath. There’s no shame in this — no one has time to investigate everything, but you should resist the urge to make it yours. The danger is in not knowing which kind you’re holding, because the two behave very differently when challenged.

An earned opinion can be defended. You can say why you hold it, what would change your mind, and what the strongest case against it is. A borrowed one can’t do any of that, so when it’s questioned, it defends itself the only way it can — by treating the question as an insult. This is why arguments between people who disagree so often turn into fights. Facts aimed at a borrowed conclusion don’t land as facts. They land as personal attacks, because the person has nothing to defend the position with except their attachment to it, and now, in their mind, you are making them look stupid.

The clearest sign you are unprepared for a discussion is feeling offended by it. Anger is not evidence that you’re right. It is usually evidence that you have run out of reasons. When you notice it in yourself, the honest response is to question your own preparation rather than the other person’s motives.

People say, “It’s my opinion, and I’m allowed to have it,” as though that settled something. Of course you’re allowed. The First Amendment protects your right to say almost anything. It doesn’t make what you said correct, and it doesn’t obligate anyone to be persuaded. A right to speak is not a right to be agreed with. Listening to every side and still being able to argue your position—that’s what makes a position worth defending.

We all have opinions about what our county government is doing. How many of us have read the reasoning? Does the County publish what it intends to do before it does it? Do we read those notices, or do we learn what happened afterward and object then? Ask yourself honestly: do you know why the Development Authority was created, or what it was empowered to do? Have you read the County Ordinances on any of it? I hadn’t, until recently, and I found the answers were written down all along.

That’s the difference between the Commissioners and us, and it isn’t intelligence or good faith. They meet on a schedule, they coordinate, and they work from documents. We assemble only after something has already happened, and we arrive with feelings instead of plans. Then we’re surprised that complaining doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it can’t. A complaint asks someone to change course out of sympathy. An argument gives them a reason — and a record they have to answer.

So here is where to start, and it costs nothing. Meeting agendas and minutes are public and published ahead of time. Read the agenda before the meeting, not the minutes after. Then read the ordinance or the statute that governs whatever is on it. Show up knowing what they’re required to do, what they’re permitted to do, and which one they’re about to do. That is a different conversation entirely, and they know it.

I hope these articles encourage you to get involved, but before we get too deep, we need to stay focused on our core deficiencies. It’s worth asking why twelve years of public school never included a single class on how to research a question and think your way to an answer.

Until next time, a verse attributed to Henry Sidgwick:

– We think so because other people all think so;

– Or because — or because — after all, we do think so;

– Or because we were told so, and think we must think so;

– Or because we once thought so, and think we still think so;

– Or because, having thought so, we think we will think so.