I have lost the freedom of not having an opinion.
— Umberto Eco
“I absolutely looooove how opinionated this is!!!” — that’s how my friend and fellow blogger Aimee Wilson responded to one of my recent blog posts. Her reaction caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought the piece was any more expressive of my opinions than others I’ve written in the past few years. What interested me was the fact she seemed at least as excited by me airing my opinions as by the opinions themselves. She’s one of my closest friends and most ardent supporters, but I can’t remember her responding quite as energetically before. What was different this time? I was keen to explore it further.
Three additional comments Aimee made helped point me in the right direction. She said I do share my opinions, “but perhaps not as often as maybe me or a lot of other people do.” This is a valid point. Aimee has her own incredibly successful mental health blog I’m NOT Disordered. In the articles she posts she’s very open and honest about her experiences, thoughts, and opinions. I don’t think I’m any less honest, but I’m arguably more selective about what I disclose. This raises some interesting questions. How much of our opinion is it useful, wise, or even safe to declare publicly? What is the best way of doing so?
We’re expected to hold opinions on a wide range of topics, especially in the political and moral arenas. Politically left, right, or centrist. Atheist, theist, deist, or agnostic. For or against abortion, access to healthcare, gender rights, sexuality, immigration, criminality and punishment. The list goes on and woe betide you if you don’t know where you stand. I have strong opinions on many of these topics, but in general I’m wary of displaying them publically. There are a number of reasons for this. In many cases, my opinions aren’t well-formed or easy for me to express or defend. My opinion about opinions is that they are essentially arbitrary. If they were based on fact or logic, as we like to imagine ours are, there wouldn’t be so many different opinions on any given topic. It would be clear to at least an overwhelming majority.
In philosophical terms, I’m what is termed a moral relativist. I don’t believe in moral absolutes. For me, morality is important — vital even to the well functioning of society — but it’s a human thing rather than something offered or imposed on us from outside. This is only my opinion, of course, but it’s one which informs my perspective on all other opinions, mine and other people’s. I’m also an absurdist, in so far as I understand the philosophy of Albert Camus. It may be part of the human condition to seek meaning and purpose but I believe the universe has nothing to offer in reply. It is. We are. Dealing with that awareness without falling into despair or resorting to artificial surrogates for meaning — what Camus calls philosophical suicide — is the challenge. I don’t believe in free will, although it appears necessary to act as though it exists. The future isn’t predetermined or knowable, either in practice or principle. Leaving aside quantum randomness, everything that happens or has happened is the only thing that could happen or have happened under those precise circumstances. It’s why I have so much difficulty with the concept of regret. “If I could go back I would choose differently” makes no sense to me at all.
Aside from the difficulty I’d have in expressing and defending my opinions, there’s the question of relevance. Fran and I established this blog to explore mental health and supportive friendships. I treat those topics broadly, not least because they affect and inform our lives in many ways. We discuss friendships and relationships in general, and different ways of supporting ourselves and others. I’ve shared aspects of my own mental and physical health, as well as my take on blogging itself and other topics which interest me such as story writing, shorthand, and music.
In sharing as we do, Fran and I offer our personal experiences, ideas, and opinions in the hope others may find them of interest and value. They work for us, but we don’t expect them to be relevant or useful to everyone. Our thoughts and ideas are informed by our respective world views, but we rarely discuss our opinions in the political or moral arena unless they directly affect the topic in hand. There are exceptions. I’ve declared my atheist stance previously, for example, and explored Absurdism in some detail. I’ve likewise shared my positions on gender identity and toxic masculinity.
Aside from which opinions I might be prepared to share, there’s the question of how best to express them. At first glance, the word opinionated suggests an overly pushy attitude, but it’s clear Aimee didn’t mean it that way. “Sometimes,” she said, “being opinionated can be really distasteful, disrespectful, and hard to hear or read. But you have done it sooo soooo soooo well!” The piece in question discussed the kind of friendship I find most meaningful and satisfying. (Spoiler alert: I need to feel a degree of continuity in the connection. As I put it, “I’m not interested in sporadic news updates of what’s happened to you since we last met. I want to know who you are, not who you were. I want to share with you who I am, not who I was.”) I was honest enough that former and current friends might reasonably identify themselves in what I wrote. Aimee reassured me that I’d done this gracefully, conveying the gratitude and respect I hold for all my friends. It’s nevertheless a reminder to express my opinions with humility, recognising they represent my partial and present thoughts about the matter in hand.
People are sometimes criticised for changing their opinions, as though doing so reflects poorly on the strength of their convictions. I disagree. Many of mine have changed significantly over the years. In this, I’m with William Blake, who declared “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.” Having no interest in breeding reptiles of any kind, I’ve sought to develop my understanding by watching debates and conversations between people on either side of various issues. I’m especially interested in arguments for and against the existence of god, absolute or relative morality, and free will. Speakers I’ve come to admire for the clarity of their opinions and ability to discuss them include Alex O’Connor, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Roger Penrose, and the late Christopher Hitchens. I find myself in broad agreement with most of them, but I also enjoy listening to Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and the American Christian apologist William Lane Craig. I have little in common with either of them, but their conviction and ability to discuss their respective opinions is both fascinating and a challenge to my own.
It’s relevant to mention the discomfiture I’ve felt on occasion when I’ve realised people I respect and broadly agree with hold opinions I instinctively and wholeheartedly reject. I’ve had the same reaction to discovering public figures or creatives whose work I’ve admired entertain views that are repugnant to me. It’s a reminder that our opinions and beliefs are not always mutually consistent, and that genuine connection involves accepting each another for the totality of who we are, not just those bits we find pleasant or in agreement with our own.
There’s one more thing Aimee said that I found interesting. Having stated that I’d been more expressive of my opinions than usual, she said “It’s refreshing and honourable to hear you do that. Sort of stepping out of your comfort zone or at least out of the norm for you.” This resonated for me because only a few days earlier I’d encountered the following meme on social media:
Comfort is a drug. Once you get used to it, it becomes addicting. Give a weak person consistent stimulation, good food, cheap entertainment and they’ll throw their ambitions right out the window. The comfort zone is where dreams go and die.
The quotation was anonymous but I’ve seen it attributed to British actor Henry Cavill. I have sympathy for the idea that “the magic happens outside your comfort zone” — likewise Susan Jeffers’ imperative to “feel the fear and do it anyway.” It’s wise to take stock of the stories we tell ourselves from time to time to see if they still serve us or are holding us back. In my case, stepping outside my comfort zone has led to two zipwire slides to raise money for charity, volunteering with mental health awareness campaign Time to Change, performing public readings from our book, and appearing on podcasts and local radio. It’s in this positive spirit that I take Aimee’s assertion that in sharing my opinions on friendship I was stepping outside my comfort zone. I have little time, however, for Cavill’s assertion that comfort is intrinsically negative and addictive. Neither can I agree with his labeling people as weak for preferring consistency over challenge. Far from being the place “where dreams go and die,” the comfort zone — however we might define it — is the place to which we return from our adventures. It’s a refuge from the storms, a place to reflect on where we are and what we want before daring to venture once more beyond the door. It’s home.
Sharing one’s opinions publically isn’t without risk. There are real perils in raising one’s head above the proverbial parapet and declaring “this is what I believe” — especially if those beliefs are controversial or run against societal expectations. I’ve chosen on occasion to withhold my opinion where a vehemently negative reaction could be reasonably anticipated. I will continue to do so. That said, I believe I have a moral responsibility to speak and act where not doing so could be construed as acquiescence or support for views I hold abhorrent or harmful. No longer can I indulge the privilege of withholding opinions on matters because I’m not personally affected by them. In the words of Umberto Eco, “I have lost the freedom of not having an opinion.” This is not an easy situation in which to find myself, but — in my humble opinion — it’s not meant to be.
Over to You
In this post I’ve explored my relationship to opinions, my own and other people’s. I’ve considered reasons for keeping them to myself as well as circumstances in which I feel a moral imperative to speak out. I don’t have all the answers, and I’m sure I’ll want to revisit these topics in the future. I’m interested to hear your opinions concerning this blog post, my opinions as I’ve described them, and the subject of opinions itself. Please consider sharing your thoughts, either in the comments below or via our contact page.
Photo by Steve Johnson at Unsplash.
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