What Gives You a Right to an Opinion?

In last week's post, I repeated something I used to tell students in my ethics class and that is "If you can only argue one side of an argument then you have no right to an opinion." This week I was going to expand on the issue of what gives you a right to an opinion and the piece I was writing started to get really complicated. So, I had to put it aside and will pick it up later.

The right to an opinion is not the same as the right to free speech. I absolutely support one's right to free speech. Within the normal restrictions that we apply to free speech, I think everyone has a right to free speech no matter how nutty they may appear.

The right to an opinion, as I am using the phrase here, is the right to be taken seriously by other people for the things you say and to have them consider  your perspectives and they sort out their opinions. So, when I say that you do not have the right to an opinion, I am really saying that you have not earned the right to be taken seriously for your unconsidered opinions by others who are developing considered opinion.

I will follow up further on this idea in subsequent posts.

Two Sides of an Issue

I used to teach a class in the ethics of technology. One of the biggest challenges in teaching ethics is convincing students that ethics in particular and morality in general is not a matter of right and wrong. It is a matter of competing interests. So, while many people see the goal in ethics as being able to convince somebody else of your opinion, it is not. The goal is see other people’s opinions as well and then come to a balanced and reasoned conclusion. “When you make an ethical decision,” I would tell them, “and you feel good about it, you probably didn’t fully understand the decision.” In every ethical decision there are winners and losers. And every ethical decision involves picking the winners and snubbing the losers. I will come back to this idea later. But, for now, I wish to return to the idea of ethics as multiple competing perspectives.

I would tell students, who were quite often very convinced of their ethical positions along with all the supporting talking points, “If you cannot argue at least two sides to an argument, then you have no right to an opinion.” The reason for this is that if you cannot argue at least two sides of an issue you just repeating what somebody else said and don’t really have an opinion. I will take up this issue again in a future post.

Nonetheless, considered opinions require you to evaluate all sides of an issue and come to a conclusion. If you cannot offer even the most rudimentary arguments from opposing sides then clearly you haven’t considered them. And if you haven’t considered them, then you really don’t have an opinion. You are just parroting something that somebody else said.   

Are True Believers the Worst Enemies of Their Own Ideas?

There is nothing so destructive to a good idea as people who accept it without question. Democracy is not without its flaws. Individual liberties must have limits. Individual responsibility must be balanced with community responsibility. And even the Golden Rule has some non-symmetric complexities.

I have chosen some fairly benign example because if I raise any of the more vexing issues of our day people have a tendency to think “oh, he is one of ‘those’” meaning I am among the uninformed who have come down on the wrong side of an issue. Sometimes people will say “the wrong side of history” to strengthen their claim with future perspectives that they are certain will come down on their side. 

An example is in order. Back in the early 1990’s I attended a conference in which protecting individual privacy was a major issue. There was a panel discussion on this issue where everybody was on the same side. “We must do all we can to protect individual privacy” was the subtext of every discussant.  I turned to some people around me and asked “what is the other side of the issue”. I got blank looks, shrugs, and some looks of disdain. There was no other side to the issue and suggesting there may be, for some, bordered on blasphemy.  

But, there are always at least two sides to an issue. And our personal privacy has suffered severely for failing to recognize that.  Most websites, for example, provide us with token privacy options which we give away for the web equivalent of shiny baubles. In other cases important policy decisions cannot be made due to a lack of data – data that has been protected by personal privacy. Had we had a serious discussion of privacy we may have more nuanced and useful public policy with regard to privacy. But, that did not happen because the advocated of personal privacy saw anyone who did not agree with them as one of the uninformed who came down on the wrong side of the issue. There is nothing so destructive to a good idea (protecting personal privacy) as people who accept it without question (“We must do all we can to protect individual privacy”).

I mention this because I may pull the tail on one of your sacred cows in this blog. I may have already done so. But, if I do, please don’t relegate me to the dust bin of “one of those”. I ask questions because no idea is perfect. And by asking questions maybe we can improve them.

I'm Back

I’m Back! Being blessed or cursed (depending on your perspective) with a short attention span I have a habit of starting things, getting excited and energized, losing interest, forgetting about them, finding them again, and getting excited and energized again.  I know this drives people crazy. And I am among the people driven crazy by it. But, there isn’t a great deal I can do about it. So, I live with it.

My blogs are not the only victims of this behavior. I have several unfinished books, both fiction and nonfiction on my website. In fact, I have several promising but unfinished books free for download on my website. Every now and then I get an email from somebody who has stumbled onto one of the treasures encouraging me to finish it and get it published. I feel a pang of guilt whenever that happens. But, the guilt is not enough to motivate me to work on something that I don’t happen to be interested in at the moment.

Nonetheless, I will be picking up this blog again, explaining why play is the answer to everything, and coming up with as many other whacky ideas as I can in an attempt to hold your interest.

I also started a new blog in an area that I am currently interested in. It is PatternsandPredictions. Have a look if you feel so inclined. Quite unrelated to this effort I happened to notice the stats for this Ranting blog. There have been over 11,000 views. I was astounded. I realize that in the world of blogging this is chump change. But, in my world of expectations, I would have been happy with a few hundred views. So I am bowled over with 11,000. I am also energized again and plan to start contributing to this blog again on a fairly regular basis.

 

The Secret to Everything

I have been pestering friends and colleagues, lately, with the claim that I have discovered the secret to everything. While I readily admit that I am engaging in gross hyperbole in order to engage the attention of people whom I wish to bounce the idea off of, I really do think I have stumbled on to something important. So as not to be coy, I will cut to the punch line as say that "play" is the secret to everything. Over the next few posts I plan to develop an argument in support of that claim.

The Role of the Imagination

Way back in August of 2010 I started a thread on the role of the imagination in information systems research. Sadly, I got side tracked by other things and left the thread dangling. While I haven't written much about the role of imagination, I have certainly been thinking about it. And I have come to the conclusion that developing a powerful but disciplined imagination might well be one of the most important roles of education. Yes, I realize, that is another bold sweeping statement. But I would not make it, if I did not think I could back it up.

Since classes are done (except for a bit of grading) and summer time is here, I have the luxury of musing and wool gathering for a while. So I thought I would pick up this thread on the imagination. I will eventually get to the role of imagination in information systems research. But, for now, I just want to develop some foundation thoughts about the imagination.

Do I Really Believe All This Whacky Stuff?

I have gone on some whacky rants in this blog which may leave the critical reader wondering - "Does he really believe all that whacky stuff?" After all, getting rid of teachers to improve education? Come on, now. And claiming that belief in global warming is grounded in apocalyptic thinking? That is just plain weird.

 But the question is not whether or not I believe all this whacky stuff. The question is - Am I willing to explore unconventional ideas to see where they go? The answer to that is - Yes! And here are two reasons why that is important.

First, most of us walk around believing a lot of things that are simply not true. There are so many examples of this that it is hard to pick any for fear of not being representative. But, for the sake of argument, people believe general things like: their spouse is loyal, if you work hard you will reap rewards, and people are basically honest. Specific things include: sure I'll be able to pay off all those students loans, I can rely on social security for my retirement, and this new military action will be of short duration.

 Like good conspiracy theorists we tend to accept, uncritically, confirmatory evidence while ignoring evidence that challenges our views. Sometime we are just naive. Sometimes we are in complete denial. But, what ever the reason we are vulnerable. And the longer we believe a thing that is not true the more vulnerable we become and the higher the cost when we cannot deny the truth any longer.

The only way to avoid this is to allow the unallowable and consider the validity of ideas that we would prefer to reject.  The more naive one is about some things the more likely they are to be naive about other things. Similarly, the more critical they are about some things, the more likely they are to be critical about other things.

The second reason is that the solutions to our biggest problems often lie outside of the range of possibilities that we currently understand. If we knew how to solve them we would have. The problem is that we don't know how to solve them. And we don't know how to solve them because the solution lies outside of our current understanding.

So, allowing a whacky idea and seeing where it goes reduces our vulnerability from beleiving things that are not true and allows us to solve problems that might otherwise be unsolvable. Those sound like pretty good reasons to me.