As many of you have undoubtedly realized, I'm a pretty opinionated person.
Scratch that – we're all opinionated people, it's just that I have the luxury to express my opinion often in a publication that has a fairly sizable readership. (The fact that no one else in the office ever wants to write these page 3 columns also plays a not-insubstantial role.)
Here's the thing, though: while everyone is certainly entitled to his or her opinion – and believe me, I would never even think to claim otherwise – not everyone can be right. There's one objective, measurable, recordable, observable reality, of which we are all a part. And if you hold an opinion that runs contrary to that objective reality, well, you're wrong, and no amount of conviction on your part can ever change that.
Let me emphasize, again, that I'm not saying people aren't entitled to whatever opinions, beliefs, etc. that they hold. What I am saying, though, is that not all of said views can be correct in the objective, concrete, quantifiable sense.
I'm also not saying one shouldn't be convicted in his or her views. (I don't mean for half this column to be a series of disclaimers, but something like this deserves some level of clarification, I feel.) I am, without a doubt, probably the most convicted individual I know, and of that assertion I have conviction. A certain level of open-mindedness and plasticity of thought should accompany this conviction, though – there are few things worse, in my conception, than being immutably convinced of something that isn't true.
I also want to make clear that I'm not talking about things like morality – such things, obviously, can't (or at least shouldn't) be thought of in objective or absolute terms. Ironically enough, the same people who claim that that there is such a universal conception of morality are the ones with the most contradictory views on the subject (e.g., those who think that God hates gays more than the violence that is often directed against them, for instance).
As you can tell from my numerous disclaimers and general skittishness, I'm treating this as a really touchy topic, and it is. As (virtually) all of us have been brought up in the egalitarian, populist United States, we've been raised with the implicit notion that one person's opinion as just as good as anyone else's. To this, I retort with an Isaac Asimov quote:
"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
This being said, if I believe, in my very heart of hearts, that I am, in fact, Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyans, I would be wrong. And if I threatened to destroy anyone who questioned me with my Galic Gun technique (or threaten some other form of violence, as those who don't take kindly to having their beliefs challenged are wont to do), it would say a ton about my conviction, but absolutely nothing about the veracity of my claim.
So, if you believe that global warming isn't happening because you feel your personal intuitions about the world's weather patterns are somehow more reliable than the mountain of evidence that confirms global climate change, you're perfectly entitled to think that.
If you believe the earth is only 5,700 years old because you put more stock into a few verses of a book written by Bronze Age goat herders than all of modern physics, chemistry, geology, archeology, and historical scholarship, then more power to you.
If you think that you are Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyans, and long to defeat Kakarot in battle, then great.
But you're still wrong.
Get over it.
Email: eabenoit@buffalo.edu
