Friday, October 23, 2020

Opinions

      You have probably heard it said that “opinions are like noses; everyone has one.”  What does that actually mean?  To fully understand you must understand what the opinion is making reference to.  An opinion is a belief or judgment that falls short of absolute conviction, certainty, or positive knowledge; it is a conclusion that certain facts, ideas, etc., are probably true or likely to prove so: political opinions; an opinion about art; In my opinion this is true.

     As an example: If I brought home an apple from the store, it would be my opinion that if I cut the apple in two pieces there would be seeds in the apple.  The certain facts that are true would be that I have bought apples from the store before and when I cut them in two there are seeds inside the apple.  Therefore, I can reasonably believe that the same would be true in the example that I posed to you at the beginning of the paragraph.

     However, my example would fall short of an absolute conviction or certainty in this case until I actually sliced the apple in two and discovered the results of my opinion.  However, some people will want to conclude with a certainty that since it has ALWAYS been the case in the past it will ALWAYS be the case any time that the opinion is made.  That however is not always the case!

     Why do you think that legally some companies or firms who are involved in speculative operations have to put a disclaimer on their ads?  Consider the legal profession.  Some attorney may include within his or her advertising that they get their clients an average of $75,000 per case.  But, somewhere within the ad you will a statement such as “past performance does not guarantee future results.”  Why do they have to say that?  Because in their opinion they should be able to do that since they have been fairly consistent in being able to do it in the past for their clients.  However, until your case is handled, they are only assuming that the results will be similar.

     It is also true that the “opinion question” is the easiest to answer because everyone has an opinion and whatever a person should say could not be considered right or wrong because it is only their opinion.  It is also one of the most difficult questions to ask because of the same reasons.  There is no right or wrong answer so a person can say pretty much whatever they would like to say and not be wrong.

    We would also have to remember that an opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts which are true statements.  That means that a person really needs no factual content upon which to base their opinion because they will never have to “back it up” with solid content.

     Therefore, in certain situations, particularly within the legal and political arenas you will constantly hear comments made by being prefaced with the phrase “In my opinion.”  I recall once sitting in a courtroom and the plaintiff’s attorney approached the witness and said: “So, in your opinion, do you think the defendant is capable of committing this crime?”  Boy, is that a loaded question or what?  I sat there thinking anybody would probably be capable of committing a crime, so why not this person?  The attorney’s only objective was to plant in the minds of the jury that the defendant COULD have committed the crime even if he MAY NOT have committed the crime!

     You will also find that a person’s opinion will have a lot to do with their background, their education, their position in life, their economic standing, their moral upbringing, and even their religious views.  When all of these things play together and someone or some group is perhaps applying pressure for you to lean in a certain direction, we can understand how in some cases your opinion may not actually be YOUR opinion, but the opinion of others that has been assimilated into your psyche.  The reason that this can be done is because we’re only human!  

QUOTE TO CONSIDER


THOUGHTFUL GEM

"We cannot be the person

formed by public opinion."





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