#dogwhistle
"No, It's Not Your Opinion. You're Just Wrong"
An excellent oldie-but-goldie from Jef Rouner. It begins with this quote:
I have had so many conversations or email exchanges with students in the last few years wherein I anger them by indicating that simply saying, "This is my opinion" does not preclude a connected statement from being dead wrong. It still baffles me that some feel those four words somehow give them carte blanche to spout batshit oratory or prose. And it really scares me that some of those students think education that challenges their ideas is equivalent to an attack on their beliefs.
...
There’s a common conception that an opinion cannot be wrong. My dad said it. Hell, everyone’s dad probably said it and in the strictest terms it is true. However, before you crouch behind your Shield of Opinion you need to ask yourself two questions.
- Is this actually an opinion?
- If it is an opinion how informed is it and why do I hold it? ...
--Mick Cullen
Rouner continues:
You can be wrong or ignorant. It will happen. Reality does not care about your feelings. Education does not exist to persecute you. The misinformed are not an ethnic minority being oppressed. ... No, it’s not your opinion. You’re just wrong.
...
To quote John Oliver, who on his show Last Week Tonight referenced a Gallup poll showing one in four Americans believe climate change isn’t real:
Who gives a shit? You don’t need people’s opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking: “Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?” or “Do owls exist?” or “Are there hats?”
http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/no-it-s-not-your-opinion-you-re-just-wrong-7611752
See also "On Being Wrong" by Kathryn Schultz:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=QleRgTBMX88
Key takeaway: there's no shame in being wrong, discovering you're mistaken, and then correcting the error.
Doubling down on bullshit, though... Yeah, nah.
Denial and Identity
The psychology of being wrong, both individual and group, has been much mused on. There's a credible argument that this is strongly based on both denial, most especially of inconvenient truths or of the invalidation of beliefs which have come to define one's own worldview, and of a set of beliefs and behaviours or rituals which have come to define group identity. If your chief reasons for a belief, or a rejection of a statement or model, are that it makes you feel uncomfortable or that your own designated group (family, tribe, community, religion, political party) rejects that belief ... odds are high that you're grounding your belief system in ideology rather than empiricism and pragmatic tests of truth. Note that strongly held, strongly contourfactual beliefs are especially effective as strong and credible signalling devices within groups.
Previously
Based on an old Ello rant: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/YXkR941EKbv-Ho-m4gssDQ
And see also my "On nonsense: Forms thereof, falsifiability, pseudoscience, bullshit, youth culture, and other craziness" at the Dreddit.
#Bullshit #opinion #OnBeingWrong #Nonsense #Denial #Signalling #Dogwhistle #Shibboleth #CredibleSignal #GroupAffinity #psychology #sociology #GroupPsychology #Dreddit