Humble opinions
In my last post I said that there is more to freedom than getting what you want.
Of course the word ‘freedom’ is only a word, and if you like you can stretch it to cover people who are simply following their whims or wafting in the winds of fashion. But in that case freedom ceases to be something worth aspiring to or fighting for: it means being the puppet of your passions and your past rather than the controller of your present and your future.
If freedom is to be really desirable, then it must have a relation to something beyond what you happen to want – a relation, as I said, to something like reason, responsibility, even truth.
Reading the comments coming into this blog over the past few days, I notice several new versions of the old freethinking chestnut – the idea that criticising someone’s ideas, or perhaps refuting them, may mean infringing their right to their own opinions.
In addition I am glad to find some real-world discussion about which regimes are better than others from the point of view of freedom.
I shall quickly take up both these points (my hobbyhorse about the history of freethinking will have to remain in its stable for the time being). First I shall refer you once again to the case of the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, and secondly I shall try to draw your attention to the difference between thinking and having opinions.
(a) If you have not already done so, please check out . He is the Iranian philosopher who was imprisoned for his hospitality towards western, secular ideas (towards freethinking in fact). He has now been released after apparently repenting what he had done. Assuming that this is a genuine change of mind (there is no direct way of knowing – maybe Ramin himself does not know), what does it tell us about freethinking? (Note: this is not an easy question.)
(b) It is a cliché of modern political culture – especially in the United States, for reasons I have touched on before – that everyone has, or should have, a right to their own opinions. I’m afraid I don’t find this proposition as uplifting as some of you do: It's not that I'm against rights; but I do not care much for opinions. To describe someone’s thoughts as opinions is to degrade them to the level of what, as we say, they ‘happen to think’, which implies that any opinion is as worthy as any other that may momentarily swim through your mind; but in that case all opinions are boring and – unless we are engaged in the dark arts of marketing – we should not waste our time on them.
The tricky but vital point is that holding opinions is not the same as thinking; indeed it may even be its absolute opposite. The thinker is not the same as the opinion-holder; in fact they ought to be bitter antagonists (though they may be fighting their fight within one and the same person). The more opinions you have, it seems to me, the smaller your chances of thinking. The worry about the internet is that by enabling opinions to proliferate like weeds, it may threaten the survival of thinking. For thinking, as many philosophers have said, takes time; and opinions are for those who cannot or will not take the time to think.
It is not surprising that the word most often associated with ‘opinion’ is ‘humble’: opinionising, as distinct from thinking, has a lot to be humble about.
Some of us like the look of that hobbyhorse; be sure to give it a run out.
'He is entitled to his opinion' has turned up in interviews quite a lot during the Labour leadership ructions -- generally in contexts where it could be paraphrased as: 'I can find no merit at all in what he's saying, but it would be out of order to attack him in public.'
'He is perfectly entitled to his opinion' is another few degrees below freezing.
The case of Ramin Jehanbegloo is typical of intellectual domination, not as subtle as intellectual sniping but sourced from the same place. The fact that Ramin has modified his views to conform to the regimes beliefs says nothing. As an intelligent man he could have simply made the pragmatic choice. Perhaps he is deep undercover and researching his new philosophy? Who knows?
For sure; coercion can be used to ensure that the intelligentsia capitulate, but this should be no surprise to an intelligent being. Worse still; control can be bought and payed for, we can always trust in our own weaknesses. History is replete with examples that serve to highlight the established powers fear of intellectual freedom. Spectacles and wrist watches got you killed in Cambodia, books got burnt in Berlin and Archaeology around the world bares the scars of obnoxious vandalism. The stamping out of ideas, yep, know that one!
What these evil practices say about our ability to think freely, is, in my opinion (;p) that the only place your ever truly free is in your mind. So free thinking suffers from the influence of power just like anything else. Oddly enough -and repeat this to anyone you like to draw a strange expression- power is something you give away.
I'm not sure what your getting at with the second point; having opinions is a limiting factor in thinking? Maybe, but only if you stop and settle on those opinions. We could all do with being a little more humble, so it seems to me that any opinion should be delivered in a humble manner. Sir Isaac Newton once said "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." A humble man.
In my opinion, your (Jonathan's) opinion about opinions does not altogether help to make the point you are driving at. Surely what you are against is not opinions as such but opinions based on too little thought, or opinions which are not changeable in response to new evidence or more thinking. So opinions are not the bad guys but prejudice and dogmatism.
In fact, a scarcity of opinions would be a bad thing. What if the answer to a public opinion poll on an important issue is
In favour 1%
Against 1%
Don't know 98%?
Wouldn't that be bad for democracy? Don't even inadequatly thought-out opinions sometimes prevent unscrupulous leaders from doing just what they want?
You imply that fewer opinions would be a step forward, but surely the important thing is not the prevalence of opinions but the ratio of thinking to opining, an indicator which would be high for sages and low for bigots. But the more opinions there are (as long as they are adequately backed by thinking) the better for democracy.
But you insist at the end of your post on opinions that thinking takes time. This implies that, even if you accept the point that it is the thinking/opining ratio not the number of opinions which matters, there is time for only a limited number of (well founded) opinions. But thinking is surely qualitative as much as quantitative. The way you reach an opinion counts for at least as much as how long you take to get there. Can't you do it both effectively and economically once you get into the habit? It helps that you can do it while in the bath or waiting for the bus.
Perhaps I am drifting too close to accepting bigotry and prejudice. But that is because I am worried your argument may overdo the impression that thinking is difficult, takes a long time and is unlikely to result in a clear conclusion (such as acquiring a well founded opinion) about the problem at issue. If too many people are of that opinion it may discourage thinking.
HI Jonathan just heard your little interview on radio 3 about your role here and 'your readers' small in number but giants in thinking!
Correct me if I'm wrong but I am quoting as directly as I can:
"free thinkers are not good thinkers" - not sure about that one at all - you'll need to define at least the word 'good' - my mother uses it for example in a totally different context to my father!
Your then stated that although you love writing columns as a writer you prefer to 'imagine and audience - a docile audience - who praise your wonderful phrases'
really Jonathan - I philospher who only wants praise - is this a rarity or of the common ilk?
AND you 'prefer living with imaginary readers rather than real ones'(careful - I have a dear friend who I visit regularly who has imaginary friends and finds me his only one real friend an intrusion!)
you then stated that there appeared to be an excess of opinions here but not a great capacity of thinking and that on blogospheres (where on earth did you get phrase from!) thinking dies and opinions take over!
Well, well well - Johnathan I find this personally all rather patronising for several reasons:
One you readers may be small in number and I am surprised the numbers are not infinitely larger for a notable philospher as yourself, especially on radio 3, but we are at least loyal. we keep coming back and hanging in here!
two - you make a rather bold assumption that we are in the main expressing opinions and unable to get involved in any free thinking.
I for one Jonathan, would like you to very specifically point out in all the comments that have been made this far, which ones you consider are merely opinions and not free thinking. Bearing in mind of course that this may only be considered 'your own opinion'
And after all in the great scheme of things all over this globe - aren't the so called philosophers merely expressing opinion about life in general or even life in particular.
And surely anyone who has and is entitled to their own opinion about anything and everything is a free thinker as defined by the rest of us!
Print and be damned Johnathan!
Thank you Jonathan - I sensed your struggle with this one! - your free thinking soul has survived for now!
After catching you on Radio 3 last night I wanted to read your posts and see what other people have said.
I can't say I am very impressed with the quality of comments. Some years ago I used to 'discuss' some loosely philosophical topics on a 大象传媒 message board, partially out of curiosity and partially out of interest in exploring this new medium. Several things struck me. You could simply express opinions and not feel any compunction to justify them, to think them through and their implications. The typical and tedious response to any question raised about a particular view was the "it's my opinion, I am entitled to it". It made any substantial discussion impossible. People seemed to treat opinions like property and, like a piece of your property, if someone seems to be threatening and challenging it you're more likely to become defensive. I have to say the online community, replete as it is with opinions on every subject under the sun, its tiresome proprietal mentality, makes engaged discussion and thinking impossible.
Having an opinion is one thing, thinking through your opinions, challenging them, turning them over, questioning their validity is quite another.
I very rarely came across anyone willing to enter into this kind of process online.
And something else that struck me was the way the concept of an opinion shaded into the concept of belief and that most complex of terms 'faith'.
It would take some time to draw out these connections but my thinking suggests that this proliferation of opinions, opinion-makers bathed in some kind of self-evident consensus of intrinsic certainty, is something like a false consciousness, a mask, and, like Jonathan Ree, I sense a self-deception. Is freedom nothing more than the capacity to express an opinion? I'm not sure that much of this freedom is understood. Take it away and what do you get?
Here the thing gets more interesting. It's not the taking away away of opinions that matters but the capacity to think and question, to challenge and provoke. Can an opinion really question, challenge? Can someone who has an opinion on every subject and spends time on the internet doing nothing other than expounding their views on every subject possible really know what it is NOT to have an opinion, to be filled with doubts and questions?
I can see where some of the confusion between thinking and formulating opinions might come from. Imagine the tea break conversation at your work place:
"You know what I think?"
"No, what do you think?"
"I think all Muslims are potentially terrorists."
"Oh really. Why do you think that?"
"Oh, it's obvious. It's in their religion, in the Quran."
etc, etc
By using the word 'think' it seems that what is being said has come out of thinking. But that's not where thinking lives. It starts with the questioning, the examining of this 'opinion' and explores as many paths to and from this statement, drawing out implications, roots, prejudices, assumptions and so on.
For a truly open and philosophically engaging discussion we need to start somewhere and examine what is being said not to conclude that what we started out was necessarily right but to think through all the implications and roots of our views. Fundamentalism is the assertion that thinking is idle, superfluous, that every important thing you need to understand can be provided and held fast to and all will be well.
In my limited experience I think this proprietal attitude toward opinions lies somewhere close to the problem.
Anyone who has patiently read a Platonic dialogue, whether it's in context of an academic course or not, and has lingered and turned over a single statement, before moving on to the next, will know that thinking doesn't really fit our modern obsession with information acquisition as a model of understanding (hence the proliferation of information technologies) complemented by the hyper-subjective self-validating opinions and 'feelings'.
We need to develop thinking time in our daily lives and not reserve it for academic courses. That's where the next cognitive revolution will be. Everyday life suffused with questions, thinkings, doubts and imagination.
Bobito offers sound judgement to the mechanics of thinking and I can not (at present) find fault in what Bobito has to offer: an opinion.
If what the Honourable Blogger has to say is true; that an opinion arrived at quickly is of no value, then our current democratic process -driven by vogue and expediency- is also of no value. Now when you read that did it sound counter-intuitive? I hope it did.
Intuition, little understood and often ignored. Intuition needs no great epistimology, why? Because it is not a top down process, no, it is driven from the sub-concious, bottom up. As a philosopher intuitive thinking should be the first tool out the box. I accept that a good knowledge base is a useful advantage, but sometimes you just, well... know it.
I have just come across this site from the other side of the world,and was reading (is that the right word for scanning and clicking?)as they say, I never thought it would come to this, or not this quickly. A problem is we are not used to this new method of communicating; respect, politness etc. are embodied, we feel respect, we don't use an algorithm.
I was interested in the ability to change one’s mind, flexibility in how one experiences the world is the key. Cognition is not logical, thought is emotional and poetic (Antonio Damasio – George Lakoff) – which is demonstrated by the recent thread and perceived need for censorship! Sorry I am catching up.
I have not changed my emotional approach to the world, but my youthful black & white view of the world has become grey, sepia or a brilliant rainbow, depending on an outsider’s view. I think there are problems with changing one's mind radically; take ex-addicts who find God, or radical left-wingers who turn right-wing (that seems to be the direction). I wish philosphers, in general, would take on board what cogntive science has revealed about what thinking is (after all 99% is not available to consciousness).
I should come clean here - I am a poet.
How do we learn the meanings of words in most cases? Not from a dictionary, but from the way they're used - in other words used around us, in the context we first encounter them.
If you grow up at a time and in a place when great store is set by not trampling on the rights of others, then perhaps you might develop these over-wide ideas of the rights having opinions confers. You either might not go on to understand (as I think Jonathan has said) that it generally matters more to correct misunderstanding, than it does to avoid offence.
This is, of course, a value which would only be held by one viewing the intellectual journey (of society or individual) as of significance.
It would be ironic if the last few decades' attempts to usher out curses like racism could be bringing in an inability to criticise ideas which are alien because they come from nowhere rational.
bobito wrote:
"What if the answer to a public opinion poll on an important issue is
In favour 1%
Against 1%
Don't know 98%?
Wouldn't that be bad for democracy?"
Now that's what I would call progress. But that's just the start. Next, apply new models for participative consensus building.
'Deliberative Democracy' may be of interest
How do we learn the meanings of words in most cases? Not from a dictionary, but from the way they're used - in other words used around us, in the context we first encounter them.
If you grow up at a time and in a place when great store is set by not trampling on the rights of others, then perhaps you might develop these over-wide ideas of the rights having opinions confers. You either might not go on to understand (as I think Jonathan has said) that it generally matters more to correct misunderstanding, than it does to avoid offence; or else just prefer to drift onward, sails occasionally filled by your opinion's seeming importance.
The first is, of course, a value which would only be held by one viewing the intellectual journey (of society or individual) as of significance.
It would be ironic if the last few decades' attempts to usher out curses like racism could be bringing in an inability to criticise ideas which are alien because they come from nowhere rational.
Hi Jonathan,
Perhaps Ramin Jahanbegloo's decision to repent was inspired by the fate of Socrates; imprisoned and condemned to death for corrupting the minds of young Athenians, Socrates would not conform and sipped the hemlock accordingly. Few (in relation to the billions of humans who have existed) have ignored the instinct of self-preservation.
As a determinist, I presently suppose the past to be inevitable. In other words, I suspect that our present has arrived as the present it is as the result of an incomprehensibly vast series of complex causal relations that has lasted (so far) around 12 to 15 billion years depending on which source one reads.
This approach is all inclusive as it contains every effect and every cause. Therefore, every human act, thought or opinion is the effect of earlier causes: humans have no free will and people can not help having opinions.
If an opinion can be described as an unsubstantiated truth or estimate of one thing or another, then humans, especially since the advent of religion and more recently television, have inherited opinions to which they have been powerless (intellectually) to discard. There is a lot to be said about the power of socialisation and psychological conditioning. In my opinion, the relative few who have truly been unshackled could probably be crammed into a Double Decker bus. I hope you will forgive this last opinion as I am not wholly emancipated myself.
So, is to have opinions a right? Should opinions be considered weeds among flowers of wisdom? No!
I would suggest that until such a time arrives, if at all, when the entire GLOBAL community is intellectually prosperous and bountiful, then opinions ought to be viewed as a humanistic trait rather than an optional feature and a basis for castigation. If Darwinism were to be applied to this issue then perhaps opinions are intellectual stepping stones which humans must cross on their journey from being single-celled organisms with zero knowledge to...I only said the past was inevitable!
Poster 6: Nadim,
An interesting discussion about the inherent weeknesses of internet debating. It is a flawed medium for flawed mediums. The need for brevity of statement and the time consuming process make for disjointed -in space and time- conversations that loosely gravitate toward some central theme. Switch to Voice Over Internet Protocols and we can have a proper chat -milk and three sugars please :-).
"I have to say the online community, replete as it is with opinions on every subject under the sun, its tiresome proprietal mentality, makes engaged discussion and thinking impossible."
I'll refute you thus: why did you take the time to write that?
To get back to that central theme - Thinking over Opining. Hmm... so at some point a thought arrives at some time, maybe it looks like this
.
So maybe we allow it to catch our sails and drift us through a whole scenery of connected thoughts... - hey presto were thinking. Right now this process is benine because we have no intention of making it real; or maybe as the fear suggests we will. So a thought has to be made real in some way for it to have any real meaning. Opining offers a way to begin this process of taking a thought to building a monument. Philosophy has many forms and functions that serve to keep this seemingly dangerous capacity from getting out of hand, or more to the point, out of mind. No need to worry or set about fighting a tamed beast.
Yes thinking takes time, lots of it. But as Bobito has already said "It helps that you can do it while in the bath or waiting for the bus." It seems that all of this thinking must have purpose, some destiny -reminding me of the Progress discussion- but does it have to? So they found the source of the Nile, great, was it interesting? So they've found the Chromosome, will it matter? Perhaps it will, if they make it real?
Number 11 states "I am a poet."
... and so much more. Because you can, should you?
Ramin Jehanbegloo deserves admiration and reminds me of Galileo. Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to recant the truth that the Earth rotated around the Sun. But Galileo stated: "I still know in my heart that the Earth rotates around the sun".
Other freethinkers that deserve praise are the Cuban Dissidents Osvaldo Paya, Maria Beatriz Roque, and Dr. Oscar Biscet who have suffered marginalization, imprisonment, and torture for their ideas of freedom.
Other examples are Rosado of Venezuela and the Libertarians and Greens in the USA.
re: At 01:39 PM on 14 Sep 2006, Anonymous wrote a reply ot my post (no.6):
Thank you for your comments.
You say you refute my provocation regarding the weakness of internet debating by posing the following question:
'why did you take the time to write that?'
How is that, in ordinary terms, anything remotely resembling a refutation?
I can answer your question simply: I was curious to see how people would respond, whether others would agree or disagree and so on. It was a starting point. I was also curious to post a message to Jonathan Ree (he taught my brother who regarded him with great respect). So, curiosity really.
And to be more provocative your (apparently) glib tone seems very familiar. It creates an impression that you are trying to be witty and clever but are not really interested in discussing anything...again something that being 'anonymous' on the net seems to encourage: Talking without taking responsibiltiy for what you say.
Why should thinking be reserved for the 'gaps' in life? Why should it have some pre-determined purpose? Why? Can thinking not have an openness, a creative openness? Why should we not all endeavour to be more thoughtful in our daily lives?
But thanks for responding but no thanks for writing nothing but the usual internet waffle....
Nadim: My appologise, the loss of identity was an error.
"..and thinking impossible." Not possible why bother. As an act of antagonism it works though.
"Why should thinking be reserved for the 'gaps' in life?" Agreed it shouldn't but rather, as you say, be a part of every experience.
"Why should it have some pre-determined purpose?" Interesting, I left it open myself.
"Can thinking not have an openness, a creative openness?" It absoluety should. I'm on my third album of creative thinking about thinking.
"Why should we not all endeavour to be more thoughtful in our daily lives?" Again I agree. I've spent the last four years thinking about it.
Pejorative. tut tut.
Agreed.
Hi Jonathan
on the Jahanbegloo point - just wondering why you are assuming the change of mind is genuine. Just a 'thought exercise'? Surely if someone says something, is imprisoned, then released and recants what he said (and we know that those who imprisoned him hold the deeds to his and his mother's house as bail) the assumption should be that it was not a genuine change of mind.
Caspar
You make a fair point, Caspar; but I don't think I implied that the change of mind was genuine, and I agree with your assessment that it's unlikely to have been.
The question I really had in mind was: supposing he did change his mind, how would we judge if he did so freely or not?
And my guess is that we would really be asking ourselves whether we thought his change was reasonable or not; and those who approve of the Iranian state would say that it was free, whike those who disapprove would say it was not.
So: is the distinction between free and unfree thinking really independent of the distinction between reasonable and unreasonable thinking? Is there more to freedom than reason?
That, as they say, is the -- or at least a -- question.
Here's a comment from 12 Sept which wasn't published then for technical reasons.
Marge says:
The poster seems to ignore the point that opinion is often a substitute for a carefully considered view on a subject. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with holding an opinion but if the opinion is not the result of carefully consideration and is not open to chenge in the light of ongoing examination then it is a prejudice. You can only be a truly free thinker if your mind is disciplined and critical enough to examine ideas without prejudice. With regard to democracy, surely it is a sham in any society where most of the views held by the participants are prejudice rather than considered opinion and the majority of the population do not have the critical faculty to understand how they are manipulated by the mass media.