Hi, New Morning -
You're getting pretty deep here, fella. Interesting point about the holocaust
"opinion." I see myself as pretty open-minded, a respecter of opinions not my
own. But I see red when somebody starts telling me they believe the holocaust
never happened. So I guess I do take my own opinion here as truth. Am I being
narrow-minded for not saying "I respect your right to believe as you do"?
Taking it further, what if I met a member of the Ku Klux Klan who was
expounding racist beliefs. Would I still say, "I respect your right to believe
as you do"?
Do we respect the right to hold any opinion, even if it's hurtful of others?
Do we respect that Hitler had a right to believe Jews were bums? Maybe we
should respect the right to hold hateful or racist ideas but not acknowledge a
right to act on them. I don't know. You've challenged me to think about this.
One thing along similar lines I do have a clear "opinion" about. That is, how
hard it is to hear another's opinion and even CONSIDER its possible legitimacy
when it is 180 degrees antithetical to one's own. We give them the same
reaction we'd give the holocaust denier or the Ku Klux Klan dogmatist. But
sometimes, that antithetical opinion has merit, with facts to support it. It's
very hard to listen to "supporting evidence" when the mind's made up. But not
to listen keeps the mind within its own confines, unable to grow beyond certain
perimeters.
I know a guy who actually does believe there was no holocaust. He would like
to explain to me all his reasons. I absolutely go livid when he asks to, and
pounce on him about all the hell the Jews went through in the Second World War
and that if it were left to people like him, all that would be forgotten. I
tell him I have friends who lost family in the concentration camps, and it's a
personal affront to me that he tells people their suffering never occurred. In
this case, I KNOW that he's wrong. But how many other issues do I KNOW about,
and could I be wrong on some on them? Can my assurance that I'm right keep new
light from entering my mind?
David Icke is a British guy (former national spokesperson for The Green
Party) who is very brilliant and original but who writes books that most people
think are plumb crazy. I've read some of them. He backs up his wild premises
with countless amounts of evidence. He may or may not be right. Maybe right
about some of it, wrong about other parts. But all you have to do is mention
the guy's name to most people and they go, "oh my god, that crazy guy."
When another person's belief is so out of line with our own opinions and
assumptions, it's almost impossible to bend the mind to form an opening large
enough to consider the radical possibility. I try to bend mine as much as
possible. It's let me find a lot of interesting stuff. But I wonder how much of
what may be real my assumptions still manage to block out. New Morning's
questions make me wonder.
Bronte
"new.morning" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Some opinions are are pure speculation, and some opinions can be
about: i) facts that aren't true that they believe are true, i) facts
that aren't true that they know are not true, but express them as
opinions. Perhaps there is not a meaningful distinction here. but I
wanted to
explore it.
If one holds that opinions do not equal truth, and there is merit to
that, there seems to be something more that a dichotomous is/isn't
situation. For example, if one holds the above (truth <> opinion), and
one holds that the holocaust happened, then it implies that they are
also quite open to the holocaust not happening. I choose this example
because there appears to be so much evidence of the holocaust that not
having an opinion that it happened seems odd to me.
Yet holding that ones opinion is equivalent with truth is frought with
problems.
In thinking abut it, a bit more, I guess a framework I use in parallel
things is also applicable here. For me, opinions are working
hypotheses, of which I am willing to reject any and all if better
information or insight appears. That doesn't imply that one hypotheses
is as good ad its alternative. Some working hypotheses may have a very
high probability of being true (in my opinion -- a bit of a recursive
loop). Others afe 50/50. Others 10% probability, with nine other
hypotheses with similar weights.
[for those on email, disregard my adjacent prior post. I deleted it
and rewrote it here.]
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