Stephanie’s Pillowbook

The most tiresome, but unfortunately most common, statement to come across when you are arguing with someone is, “well, I am entitled to my opinion.” It is a dismal proposition and one that makes my heart sink a little every time I hear it. What does the phrase mean exactly? All too often it appears to be merely a conversation-stopper. Whenever someone says it I understand them to mean, “I’ve said my piece and I’m now shutting my ears to anything anyone says to the contrary.” It is an asinine, wishy-washy proposition which serves only to make so much debate maddening and frustrating. Yet when I have complained about it before I have been swiftly and forthrightly accused of being arrogant, confused, inconsistent, a proponent of political correctness and an enemy of free speech. So I feel justified in reposting the argument one more time - with a reminder that there is nothing controversial here, it’s all orthodox and very basic critical thinking.

Let’s spell one thing out at the start: the word “entitled” in the phrase “I am entitled to my opinion,” actually has two quite distinct meanings. In the first case, you are entitled to your opinion in a political, or legal, sense. That is, you are free to believe whatever you like and to say that you believe it. To repeat, you possess the right to have any opinion and to express it publicly. In the second case, which we might call philosophical or epistemological, you are only entitled to an opinion if you can justify it using logical argument or presenting supporting evidence. Obviously not every opinion can be justified in that way. What happens, however, is that entitlement in the first sense is confused with entitlement in the second sense as though every opinion is in fact justifiable.

The political right to express an opinion is usually trivial. In most arguments the right to an opinion is not in question. It goes without saying. If nobody has challenged your right to free speech why assert it? There is no point in repeatedly claiming a right that nobody has disputed. Furthermore, it adds nothing to an argument. Your rights cannot be adduced in support of a statement. Your expression of a right to an opinion does not count as evidence of its veracity. The one does not follow from the other. You are free to believe that the world is ruled by alien reptiles if you so wish. But your freedom to believe that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the truth of that belief. Time and again, though, the argument is made: I believe the earth is ruled by alien reptiles… I am entitled to my opinion. We see arguments of that form by the thousand. There are two ways to interpret that phrase. It either means: I believe the world is ruled by alien reptiles AND I am ALSO entitled to my opinion. In which case the second part is surely irrelevant - it has no bearing on the first part and there is generally no reason to bring it up given that you are freely expressing yourself. Or it means: I believe the world is ruled by alien reptiles AND THEREFORE I am entitled to that opinion. That, I’m afraid, is a non sequitur (”it does not follow“) - the second part of the phrase cannot be logically derived from the first and so as an argument it is fallacious.

Thus the claim “I am entitled to my opinion” is not an argument.Yet it is commonly believed that the right to free expression is equivalent to a right to have one’s every expression taken seriously as a claim to truth. The idea of free speech does not, and never has, included the demand that one’s speech be accepted as truthful. So why do people insist on using their right to free speech as though it somehow proves what they are saying? Why do people act as though their political entitlement to believe anything they like precludes them from being challenged on their beliefs? Why do they apparently think that the very assertion of the principle that everyone is entitled to an opinion is equivalent to the demand that any and every opinion of theirs is worthy of respect?

One reason seems to be that many believe that all opinions are precious - purely because they belong to the person who thought them up. They appear actually to be identifying their opinions with their very self. Indeed, one often gets the impression that they see their opinions as something unchangeable and vital which have grown out of them in some natural or supernatural fashion. It becomes: attack my opinions and you attack me, my very being. It’s as though their opinions are precious simply because they are theirs. And as precious property they are to be held on to at all cost against every threat.

I accept freedom of conscience - you may believe, in your heart of hearts, anything you please. But when you express yourself to the world at large your ideas, opinions and arguments are going to be in conflict with those of others. Now, if you have the right to express yourself, what can you expect? What are the rights, duties, obligations of those people to whom you are expressing yourself? That really is the crux of the matter. Am I obliged to accept anything you say is true? Only if there is evidence to support your assertions. Am I obliged to listen to you? On what grounds? Surely I don’t have to. Life is too short to give a fair hearing to every single opinion and idea that is expressed. Especially when so many of them are plain cranky. Am I obliged to respect your opinion? Or are there higher claims such as truth and justice which oblige me, at least sometimes, to challenge you? Surely there are.

If you wish to believe that the earth is ruled by alien reptiles I really don’t care. Go ahead and think what you like. I am not in favour of censorship, I do not want the thought police to round up alien-reptile believers, I do not demand that their blogs and forums be shut down and their books burned. However, I do agree that someone who believes that nonsense has disqualified themselves from rational debate. They have no supporting evidence for their ideas and they reject a mountain of evidence against them. So why should I respect that particular opinion? I will tolerate it and I will tolerate you for holding that opinion. But if you try to convince me of its truth I will argue against you, because it is factually incorrect, irrational and frankly rather idiotic. To give it any respect would be to lend it credence as a justified belief. It would be asking me to accept it as valid. I cannot do it. Of course this is an extreme and ridiculous example and there are in reality many grey and contentious areas which are much less clear-cut. But then those are the areas worth debating and discussing and that can only be done by challenging and evaluating opinions and beliefs and points of view. Demanding respect simply short circuits the whole process. Yet it is those who persist in argument who are accused of arrogance and of stifling dissent!

I have been accused of both, most irritatingly when I poured scorn on Julie Burchill’s tirade against the transgendered which someone quoted in full on a flickr forum last year. Burchill’s article is a malicious and grossly unfair attack on both transvestites and transsexuals based on ill-informed caricature and inaccurate assumptions. Yet all most people could think of saying in response is “oh well, she’s entitled to her opinion.” It surprised me that the victims of Burchill’s hatchet-job should be more upset at my abusive criticism of her then anything she wrote about them. But so far does the ideology of one’s entitlement to an opinion go. It seems what really shocks is that I was, supposedly, disputing Julie Burchill’s rights to freedom of expression by ridiculing her argument and pointing out its faults. Criticism amounts to silencing one’s opponent. Apparently. How have I done that, though? How could I do that? How am I even capable of censoring her? It’s sheer nonsense. Julie Burchill has been a journalist for thirty years; she has published, I guess it must be, thousands of articles in national newspapers and journals; for some years she edited her own journal; she has published a number of books; she has appeared on national television; she is now, I believe, releasing regular podcasts into cyberspace. This is one person who has shouted her opinions continuously to the world for several decades. She has exercised her rights to free speech to the full. The article of hers I took such objection to was published six years ago in The Guardian to a readership of, what, several hundred thousands at least. It was reprinted more recently on The Guardian’s website which has a potential readership of billions. And it has been copied onto a few internet forums. Now, could someone please explain to me how my comments - read by a few dozen people at most - are silencing Julie Burchill or denying her the right to free expression?

What has happened when any form of questioning itself becomes suspect? It is worth pointing out that the political demand for free speech was originally formulated as a right to criticise, a right to challenge the authority of State and Church, and was based on the perceived ability of any human being to use their reason in deciding any question. There are those today, however, who see any doubt or interrogation as a form of cultural terrorism. Respect for all beliefs is an essential platform in what Frank Furedi calls The Culture of Flattery. It doesn’t matter any more what you believe just so long as you feel confident and content in possessing that belief. While postmodernism is hardly intellectually respectable these days, a watered-down version of it has entered the realm of received wisdom. As a result the relativistic idea of a personal knowledge and experience that values alternative narratives and diverse perspectives rather than truth is now enshrined in current dogma. Perhaps the most dangerous thing about all this is that it seems to generate, and rather imperialistically maintain, a certain self-satisfied but absolutely false consensus - as though there isn’t really any significant conflict between people or contradiction between ideas. It is an attempt to avoid confrontation. The notion of consensus has been reduced to an emotional condition in which we are all happy to agree that we disagree. Nobody must have their preconceptions upset. Social harmony nowadays trumps truth.

Ultimately, the over-rating of the right to an opinion equalises all opinions as though one were no better than another. But the defence is purely formal. There is no substance to it. Furthermore it involves one in a curiously circular argument: if all ideas are valid, then it is valid to think that all ideas are not valid - which contradicts the assertion that all ideas are valid. It’s absurd. There is surely here a trivialisation of both thought and freedom. As though everything is just someone’s opinion . Thinking, properly speaking, has always been distinguished from the holding of an opinion. A thought is not the same as some vague notion which happens to drift through your mind. A thought is not a prejudice or an assumption or a taste. A thought demands time and engagement, welcomes critique and lives off doubt. A parade of opinions is an evasion of argument. What happens, in effect, is that every discussion gets reduced to the level of “which ice cream do you prefer?” - “I like vanilla” - “I like chocolate” - “I like strawberry“. And surely there are nobler conceptions of freedom than simply the valuing of passing whims? Isn’t freedom more than just being able to choose a over b or c? Are we to be satisfied with such an impoverished ideal? Doesn’t freedom involve a sense of responsibility and self-determination that seeks to escape from the shackles of the past and the pre-conceived towards some greater end?

PS. To sum up this post in one sentence: far too many people seem to believe that asserting their right to hold an opinion is, in some way, a defence of their argument; it is not.