Essay: Without Opinion

Opinion is the absence of intellectual resolve.

Opinion as a concept is the validation of unproven statements that are merely presented from the qualms of insecurity to bring an argument to an immediate end, rather than to reach an acceptable solution or agreement.

Opinion as a concept allows the individual to state fallacies, present as evidence that which has no basis in reality, but only in their brain.

An opinion like a theory or secular perspective can be used to proliferate ideas in an attempt to make them more mainstream without the use of science, academia, or other methods of validation. This is usually done when thinking as the ultimate goal is eradicated by means of stating whatever comes to thought, rather than using any thought process that may arrive at a more real, factual, or established truth, norm, canon, or alike end.

Truth is not only the established norm, but also, the norm that is established elsewhere unequivocally and incontrovertibly as real as the former in the place where it is held. A way to see this is by looking into the statement when in Rome one must do as the Romans. The reason for this is rather simplistic and barren of thought, it is meant to dictate that while you are free to think, reason, contemplate, and etcetera, that has nothing to do with reality, law, or what is permissible/acceptable where you are or are headed; thus doing as those already there is the best way in which to participate, be of use and meaning, and more importantly not get in the way of all others. The act of thinking is never revoked from the individual because it is widely held that from ideas come the things that are today the reality we dwell on. However, the vetting process for those exists for many reasons -all as valid as the next. 

Opinion -in my regard- as held today in the United States is nothing more than a means to say “I am right” without any proof. That is to say, because I say the river can flow upside down and upstream, it means that the river will respect that view merely because it has been stated; making it not an opinion but a fable, a tale, at best an orator’s means to describe possibility. In the past we have been very careful to separate reason from thought because reason is used to persecute secularly those who oppose the canon, or used to bomb a country full of people that have absolutely no idea why they are being bombed, and today’s best when reason is used to play a real-life video game flying drones over an area where the game-master decides the fate of those targets on the ground and thus annihilates them without any real sane way to separate the reality-that-is from the reality-portrayed on a screen (the game-master’s screen). Yes, to say those are examples of reason are somewhat farfetched, and yet no more so than those who plainly discuss the validity of a point merely because it is opinion. So, I ask, if the game-master in the middle of a game-cession states that reality is now what he says, because it is their opinion, does that mean that the opinion must be accepted as some form of valid interpretation of reality? What does it mean exactly? The approach being taken is one where the person is neither right or wrong, which in essence gives the illusion that being right is in fact an option for a game-cession depting flying dragons as both flying mounts, and beasts of war.

While regarding one of the definitions of opinion, which clearly states that it is not necessarily based on fact or knowledge, I couldn’t help but think about everyone who does not use that part of the definition as a basis for their statements, but merely the beginning part only which marks that being said as a view of judgement formed about something. Things taken out of context are so incredibly interesting and efficient to those who do it and furthermore those who like what they see and promulgate the opinion as a statement of fact, because someone else has already used it. I then bring to you the same beautiful argument already in existence, that of Bertrand Russell’s Teapot theory. In essence, just because you say something that to you makes all the sense in the world, does not mean a thing, that is highly watered down, but it serves its purpose. The argument for opinion is one that I hope ends soon.

Today, there are those of the opinion that the Earth is flat. 

Today, there are those of the opinion that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Today, there are those of the opinion that an older race of space faring beings created humanity.

And there are many, many more like the above three.

To you, I say this, if you believe your opinion is valid, then those three presented above are no more false than yours. That is to say, you believe in one form, way, or another, that they are right, as you are right. The more you posit that something is true, the harder it gets to get proof for it. Mainly, because there is a world of knowledge out there to sort through from those in academic positions whose hypothesis about something have been very similar to yours, but have actually found through actual methods of proving validity that they are indeed wrong.

Taking a stand for something you believe in is good and even a right to most individual persons, but the reason(s) behind why you took the stand must be firm in reality, and reality is vivisected by the opinions of what has not been proven, accepted, learned/taught, and formalized. 

No, you are not entitled to your opinion in the sense that opinion is used today. You are entitled to think, to learn, and arguably to live… but in any society when you try to impose your thoughts into reality, it generally ends up getting people in all kinds of trouble. One person’s opinion was that people who looked different could not be held in the same regard as themselves, those persons cannot by any measure be equal they argued. Without proof, without fact, and without any form of decency they enacted their will (opinion) unto others and were careful to remove dissent from their numbers to continue their practice(s). That is opinion. Yet, here we are discussing it.

By now, you should note that I have presented an argument based on stated and still-being-argued theories that allow the brain to go on a journey of understanding more than there is in our small worlds/brains, which in turn through opinion, which we are trying to pull over everyone else’s eyes are being pushed as a personal fact. I’d like to leave you with this, is it my opinion that through the betterment of the self an individual may reach a level where their ideas can be proliferated by means of further research, but never as a stated fact until due certainty -available proven knowledge- has been cross-referenced in the matter. For what am I if not my ideas, and what are those ideas without opinion?