Opinions

“That’s just, like, your opinion, man.” 

If you’re at all familiar with talking to different people, you are already familiar with this popular rebuttal. Used primarily by people who want to signal they’re over their head in an argument, this popular adage has been spreading itself online at a rapid rate. I’m writing this for those who either use this to defend themselves, or those who struggle with sorting their thoughts on why this “argument” is so frustrating (such as myself).

The first thing one may do to channel their rage into something useful is to zoom out. Distinguish choices that have been made based on opinion versus fact. The more you think about this, the more convinced you will be that almost every major decision made by any individual, group, or governing body is a matter of opinion. It can be from something as simple as what music to play at a party, to the laws of physics and mathematics. Even experimentally proven scientific observations were mere opinions, theories, and even when experimentally proven, there is always a chance of something being wrong and corrected later (see: quantum/particle physics). Many things we take as facts are just well-backed opinions. 

So why do we trust some more than others?

The reason is pretty simple. We take science more seriously than music taste is because the arguments behind these theories follow a strong course of logic that is more difficult to prove wrong (and by prove wrong, I mean create a stronger logical support for another opinion). This means that opinions are on a sliding scale of legitimacy. Some opinions are believed by nearly everybody, such as how gravity works, and others are believed by almost nobody, such as the earth being shaped like a cube, because one of these opinions has substantially more proof of legitimacy than the other. This is obvious in the macro-scale, but the concept applies to any dueling opinions, regardless of how small or the domain in which they operate (moral, legal, scientific, etc.).

Take this in the context of two people trying to convince each other of their opinion. They both think that they are right, but in reality, the “correct” person is whoever can form a more logical and backed argument than the other. This is why it is frustrating to people, such as myself, who are opposing people who do not have as extensive knowledge of the subject they are discussing. In a fair argument, you won’t believe you are wrong until there is a stronger logical course for another opinion. This is why the smartest people are the most stubborn, and also why a lot of conspiracy theorists and morally questionable people seem impossible to convince otherwise (and are often quite smart, as they have the faculties to create such strong arguments for their opinions, despite it being a matter of willful ignorance or selective omission).

Note that this matter of being “correct” means that often times somebody with the “more correct” opinion can lose an argument, simply because they have lesser means to back up an argument. For this reason, I think it’s important for people who are experts in a field, or people who generally do more research on subjects than normal, should also learn about persuasion, rhetoric, and speech. I have seen many smart people with correct opinions fall flat in arguments because they never learned how to state their opinions in a meaningful or comprehensible way, and this downfall typically comes with the scale at which somebody links studies to a subject (nobody is reading that shit). This was the driving factor behind my pursuance of a science communications certification, science means nothing if people don't trust it.

This idea applies to all matters of opinion, from the smallest things to life-changing decisions. We live in a world shaped by opinions, and the ones who can create the best arguments for their opinions are typically the ones leading the change. This doesn’t always lead to the correct thing being the choice society makes, but I’m just trying to explain a more general truth of opinions and why we feel the need to convince others of them.

If it isn't clear already, I'm also providing an argument against complacency, or lack of willing to back up your opinion. It is frustrating to see people cop out of arguments with a "you can have your opinion, and I can have mine," because that goes against the reason we develop opinions in the first place. I'm not saying that everybody needs to be arguing all the time, but if you're going to state your opinion to another person, you better have a good reason for having it, or else there's no point in saying it at all.