Opinions.

Question of the day: are you entitled to an opinion?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Kind of, read ahead.


It seems to me as though people are very good at thinking they are right no matter what. "No shit man, that's how people work." Well it goes a bit deeper than that. Using me as an example, I tend to think I am correct a large percent of the time. Sometimes I'll even add what I think is a true fact when really I have no idea what I'm talking about. Why am I one of "those" people? That's a question for my psychiatrists if I ever had any. One tool people like that use to prove their right-eousness is the "we're all entitled to our opinion" scapegoat.

To start off, read this article: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/no-youre-not-entitled-your-opinion

That's basically the gist of this post, I may or may not (worth putting your money on the "not" in the situation) go more in depth or present something new to add to the argument. If you're not going to bother reading that article (which will save you time instead of reading this) then here's a short summary:

You are only entitled to spread whatever opinion you can back up with facts.

There, that's it. Short and simple.

"But..."

No.

"What about...?"

No.

The dawn of the age of the internet (almost sounded as awkward as "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes") has given a voice to EVERYBODY involved. The internet has no actual age restrictions of any kind which allows anyone to post whatever they want. That might be the most beautiful thing about us as human beings, putting everyone on what is somewhat level ground. That is only true if you don't count internet restrictions that certain governments have put into place (China, UK, Australia, etc.)

This completely erases any need for soapboxing of any kind. You don't have to hand out flyers, yell downtown, or even physically talk to people anymore in order to get your message out. A person that has no public speaking skills can still send their message out in the most effective way possible, as long as they know how to sound persuasive in one way or another. And so now, this gives people two chances to back away from any form of constructive conversation by saying "I'm entitled to my opinion."

If you've surfed Reddit, 4chan, Facebook, Twitter, and any social media outlet then you'd know how good people are at giving their opinions freely. Even right now, I am stating my opinion that stemmed from an article I read. The funniest part about all this is the fact that even though anyone that is able to "Google" something will still say "That's just my opinion" to back out of an argument although they have every single resource at their fingertips that they can use to back their opinion up with facts.

I'm not saying that every opinion stated is automatically void of evidence, no of course not. But more often than not I have encountered conversations that end in "something something my opinion" than in any other way. If you are not able to back up an opinion with something that is remotely true then what is the point of the discussion in the first place? In the end nothing is resolved and nothing is learned from the opinions shared, it just ends up becoming Buzzfeed.

Why I cited Buzzfeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1EiKys_Uk

Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lni1b3Lw1U&feature=youtu.be

So, moral of the story? Feel free to keep going and discussing things just as you were today because there's nothing wrong with that at all (if you consider right and wrong to be ambiguous and irrelevant). But if you'd like to take a look at a topic critically, then do not hesitate to question an opinion. Just because someone states something does not make it an iron-clad statement. Einstein wasn't even certain when he wrote E=mc2, in fact he expected it to be disproved moments after publishing his papers.

No, you are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to say what you can back up. You are however in the right to state your opinion regardless, it's kind of weird to think about. My Philosophy Prof. told our class that critical thinking has no beginning or an end. It's a skill that you choose to develop and use throughout your life. By questioning the opinions of others you are further building this skill, easier said than done.

Cheers, MarkL

Food | for | thought

Where did I leave off last time? I can't quite remember but i think I'm ok with that. It has been what, a week or so since the last time you heard from me? That's how you can tell Uni is taking its toll on me. Am I suffering? Not yet. Am I sleep deprived? Isn't everyone?

"Art is suffering" - Squidward

That's a legitimate quote, don't even try to debate me over my SpongeBob knowledge. Random thought: people ask me if I want a tattoo of something meaningful. Now I'm starting to think that's something I should take into consideration.

Maybe something classic like this?

 

Perhaps I'll find some pseudo-meaningful symbolism behind it, the dream of every English student. Oh, I just remembered what I wanted to write about today. Yet again I have come prepared, this is very rare so don't get too comfortable.

Highschool level English, specifically North Toronto Collegiate Institute and its approach to English. Experiences may vary, ingest at your own risk. I was taught to believe that a very important part of being an English student is the ability to find and prove a thesis based on the text given to you. This is a very valuable skill actually, to have the drive to read an entire text which can span several pages if not chapters and pull out a thesis or two from it that sums up the piece. But this is not the mark of a good writer, simply a reflection of your ability to analyze a text. Then why are teachers forcing kids to fit a clusterfuck of text into a single sentence?

My professors so far have made it clear that your thesis does not have to take up one single sentence. Here's an example of a slide I got for my Sociology class.

Keep in mind that this is for my Sociology class, so not directly related to English because the nature of this assignment was to do a research paper. But even for my Pre-18th Century Lit class my professor has stated that she wants the thesis to be evident somewhere in the essay. Where you put it, how you introduce it, is all up to you of course. That was not the case however in my English classes back at NT. Here's something that I've probably said before but will say again for emphasis, I failed my English winter exam. The cause of my failure was mostly because I didn't prepare, but the question that could have made me pass but didn't was the question around the thesis of the text we were given to read. I was unable to find the direct thesis that was asked of me, my teacher told us all that the thesis would be "plain to see. It's not too hard to find." Too hard for whom?

Every human being on this planet has a unique experience from the moment of birth to their death. So how could 30 individuals arrive at the same way to capture the thesis written by someone that has had a completely different life compared to mine or anyone else's for that matter. If I am spouting bullshit at any point please let me know because I feel like I'm definitely wrong somewhere. Some people will dismiss this as bullshit, which it might be, because they may or may not believe that it's not that hard to find the central theme of a text regardless of experience. But that's only one aspect of it, because what are we supposed to do with the other significant ideas that pop up throughout the text? Dismiss them completely and forget that they ever existed? There's a reason that on our Beowulf essay outline we were given the option to analyze it from a Feminist lens. That's because someone actually took the time to find significance of Feminism within this several centuries old poem.

That is the beauty of language/text, anything and everything can be found within it if looked deep enough. This also reminds me of an article I read not too long ago and I think you all should too: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/12/05/document-the-symbolism-survey/

I'm starting to believe that like Art, the subject of English as it is taught in any matter has infinite routes to go into. Whether it's finding connections using symbolism, theme, structure, etc. The point is that any argument can be made with the right amount of valid evidence. So why hasn't my education been centered around that instead? Only in the last year of highschool was I genuinely asked to find any thesis and back it up with evidence. Sure there were little moments where I was given creative license in some assignments, but why isn't that taught from day 1? Why all this emphasis on squeezing an ungodly amount of information into 1 sentence that the teacher expects you to find within 5 minutes of finishing the text?

Any opinion that I've stated up here is up to debate and I hope that I find plenty holes with it in the coming days. I was fuming a couple days ago as I realized that none of this symbolism bullshit ever mattered because anything can be a symbol for anything as long as you find the deep enough connection. So why was I tearing my hair out senior year as I realized that I'd never amount to anything so as long as I pursued the study of the English language? Food for thought.

Food

for

thought.

Cheers, MarkL