These mini-epiphanies are never going to make you suddenly abandon all your previously held beliefs and follow the word of these quasi-journalists word-for-word, but they do have the power to produce a change of opinion from "meh..." to the slightly more inflectual "... oh really..." Such sounds are obviously meaningless on paper, but I hope I have got across the general idea. Maybe I'll demonstrate them if you ever see me in the street.
But all this opinion observation creates a very obvious yet oft ignored question; 'What do I think?' Now I'm sure many of you will scoff at this, as anyone else who has partaken of the delights of journalistic blogs will doubtless have noticed that beneath a large proportion of these (not mine, though, I have noticed) will be a long list of responses where people have decided to offer up their views on these opinions, and you may have even commented like this yourself. This surely, then, shows that people know what they think as they are telling us. But I wish to suggest that this is not necessarily as clear as might be thought.
You see, opinion is a very strange concept. We often cling to it as a defense of outlandish statements that are either bizarre, unfounded or, in the worst instances, hurtful. But where does it really come from? It seems to me to be a rather 'chicken or egg' question. We can be personally inclined to follow a course of action because we believe that is the right thing to do, but then it could be that we think it is the right thing to do because our minds could not accept doing otherwise. And thus a circle starts up and grows and grows and someone gets labelled as 'opinionated'. But other factors could be at play here.
I have already mentioned the ability of the opinion of others to influence the opinions of others. Consider how much you are exposed to the opinions of others in just a single day and it becomes clear that opinion may well be in a constant state of flux. Whilst there will undoubtedly be cases where you strongly agree or disagree, which will probably cause very little change, there will also be cases where opinions present a totally new viewpoint of 'fact' that will influence your 'opinion' in some way. This has happened since we were young, and so a whole lifetime of these little influences may well be the underlying cause of any opinion driven line of thought. So, therefore, we come back to this question; 'What do I think?'
Because now the 'I' in that posing question is in doubt. Am 'I' the result of my own mind, or is what I think merely the result of years of the thoughts of others building our mindset? How can we be really sure that the opinion we perceive is one that is finely crafted by our individual grey matter or one which has simply been handed to us by an outside scriptwriter? It's certainly become difficult to be sure, especially nowadays where an infinite stream of opinion is being presented to us by everyone and their dog. Even the Page 3 girl, with breasts exposed and modesty abandoned, now has a small section devoted to her opinion of world matters. What room, then, is left for our own thoughts?
So, that question again. 'What do I think?' The answer is not about a response to what we hear about an event, but to what actually evokes these responses. Our thoughts are always going to be influenced by others, but how far does this go back? Is the human race simply a continuous copy of those who came before? As we learn more and more about the world, it makes sense that there will be less and less that can be new, and this is something which is true for every area of culture.
Maybe it is just that opinion is at a premium; that there are only so many ways in which people can think and we have exhausted them all. Douglas Adams' notion of the Earth being a supercomputer intended to uncover the question of Life, the Universe and Everything amusingly springs to mind. Perhaps we are simply working towards that inevitable conclusion and, maybe, we're not all that far away. But then, what do I know?
Do you have an opinion? Tell us what you think through whatever medium is nearest to you right now. Or maybe, use all of them!
But all this opinion observation creates a very obvious yet oft ignored question; 'What do I think?' Now I'm sure many of you will scoff at this, as anyone else who has partaken of the delights of journalistic blogs will doubtless have noticed that beneath a large proportion of these (not mine, though, I have noticed) will be a long list of responses where people have decided to offer up their views on these opinions, and you may have even commented like this yourself. This surely, then, shows that people know what they think as they are telling us. But I wish to suggest that this is not necessarily as clear as might be thought.
You see, opinion is a very strange concept. We often cling to it as a defense of outlandish statements that are either bizarre, unfounded or, in the worst instances, hurtful. But where does it really come from? It seems to me to be a rather 'chicken or egg' question. We can be personally inclined to follow a course of action because we believe that is the right thing to do, but then it could be that we think it is the right thing to do because our minds could not accept doing otherwise. And thus a circle starts up and grows and grows and someone gets labelled as 'opinionated'. But other factors could be at play here.
I have already mentioned the ability of the opinion of others to influence the opinions of others. Consider how much you are exposed to the opinions of others in just a single day and it becomes clear that opinion may well be in a constant state of flux. Whilst there will undoubtedly be cases where you strongly agree or disagree, which will probably cause very little change, there will also be cases where opinions present a totally new viewpoint of 'fact' that will influence your 'opinion' in some way. This has happened since we were young, and so a whole lifetime of these little influences may well be the underlying cause of any opinion driven line of thought. So, therefore, we come back to this question; 'What do I think?'
Because now the 'I' in that posing question is in doubt. Am 'I' the result of my own mind, or is what I think merely the result of years of the thoughts of others building our mindset? How can we be really sure that the opinion we perceive is one that is finely crafted by our individual grey matter or one which has simply been handed to us by an outside scriptwriter? It's certainly become difficult to be sure, especially nowadays where an infinite stream of opinion is being presented to us by everyone and their dog. Even the Page 3 girl, with breasts exposed and modesty abandoned, now has a small section devoted to her opinion of world matters. What room, then, is left for our own thoughts?
So, that question again. 'What do I think?' The answer is not about a response to what we hear about an event, but to what actually evokes these responses. Our thoughts are always going to be influenced by others, but how far does this go back? Is the human race simply a continuous copy of those who came before? As we learn more and more about the world, it makes sense that there will be less and less that can be new, and this is something which is true for every area of culture.
Maybe it is just that opinion is at a premium; that there are only so many ways in which people can think and we have exhausted them all. Douglas Adams' notion of the Earth being a supercomputer intended to uncover the question of Life, the Universe and Everything amusingly springs to mind. Perhaps we are simply working towards that inevitable conclusion and, maybe, we're not all that far away. But then, what do I know?
Do you have an opinion? Tell us what you think through whatever medium is nearest to you right now. Or maybe, use all of them!
SO just how big IS the space for the page 3 girls thoughts? I would think it mighty small, just enough for a few one syllable words.....and just how do I reach this opinion of page 3 girls in the first place!!!
ReplyDeleteI am pleased also that you are adept at the use of the apostrophe as in Adams'.
You resisted the temptation to quote "I think, therefore I am" as well.....