You are not entitled to your opinion

[ciphergoth]

• You Are Never Entitled to Your Opinion
  
• Sorry, but you are not entitled to your opinion
  
• Why You Are Not Entitled To Your Opinion

You are, I think, entitled to the right to hold and express any opinion without being shut down by the State for doing so; that is where the entitlement ends.

[Poll #1410915]
(edit: removed Harlan Ellison quote, which doesn't really express what I'm getting at here)

Comments

[andrewducker]

I'd rather they said it, so they we can then talk about it.

Silencing the ignorant is not, in my opinion, the route to utopia.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'd rather people expressed their opinions, definitely, I'd just prefer they didn't retreat into "I'm entitled to my opinion" when challenged on them!

[despina.livejournal.com]

The actual phrase "I'm entitled to my opinion", always sets my teeth on edge because it closes down the discussion and is IN MY EXPERIENCE often a way of saying "I don't want to question my beliefs".

But I wouldn't discourage people from saying it.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

But I wouldn't discourage people from saying it. - would like to hear more about this, if you would?

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I'm quite fond of the phrase "You're perfectly entitled to be wrong."

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

You have a right to be wrong!

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Quite. I don't discourage people from using the expression because there are plenty of snappy comebacks. :-)

[simple-epiphany.livejournal.com]

Even though it is true, I don't think it should be encouraged, because it is so often understood as saying more than it actually does.

Specifically, even if you are entitled to an opinion, you are neither entitled to have that opinion taken seriously, nor to express it on someone else's time/money/space. While the phrase itself isn't actually false, it encourages woolly thinking on this subject.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Exactly - I chose the wording of the poll question quite carefully.

Though actually I'm not sure it really means anything very precise; I can think of several different interpretations of what it might be supposed to mean, and that alone is reason enough to discourage people from saying it.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I thought the phrase was "you're entitled to your opinion" -- meaning "you are a first-rate arse who is talking bollocks"...

[simont]

For that, I've always liked "That's a matter of opinion, and I don't give a fuck about yours."

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

There are no stupid answers, only stupid people.

What I mean by this is that no answer (or opinion) is ever 'stupid' or 'wrong' provided it can be explained or justified. (Obviously I take as axiomatic that justifying opinions is useful and meaningful, and I think I'd find it troublesome to have a conversation with anyone who didn't.)

So a far as that goes, yes, people are entitled to their opinions, and I'm entitled to think their opinions are wrong or stupid if they can't or won't explain them.

I do think that the phrase, "Well, I'm/you're entitled to my opinion" is mostly used in two ways. Firstly, it's often used belligerently by someone who can't or won't justify themselves, but wants to be heard all the same. Secondly, it's often used in a conciliatory way, when an argument has become unproductive or threatens to become violent or abusive - it's the debating equivalent of, "Leave it, Wayne, he's not worth it!"

At least in the second instance, I can see its value - sometimes it's more important, at least in the short term, to keep the peace than to be right.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's more important, at least in the short term, to keep the peace than to be right.

So very true.

[ditzy-pole.livejournal.com]

I'm on the border with this one.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but for me it's the equivalent of saying just because when having a debate or a way to hide rudeness when they are critising your views with no other backup.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion - can you say a little more about what you mean when you say that? As the second article asks, what duty does this entitlement impose on others?

[djm4]

It's almost a null statement to me. Trivially true, but with no broader implications.

[djm4]

...or possibly trivially false, depending on what they mean by it, and from whence they think the entitlement came. ;-)

Brain cogs going...

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Fecking LJ comment system. Note to self; write it all in notepad first in future. Bah.

I hadn't any strong thoughts on this ("live and let live" and all that malarky) until I discussed this with a friend and the distinction between this led to the implications of the word "entitled" as a legal phrase.

The issue being the difference between common and Napoleonic (I think it's that) law; the former lists what you are ~not~ allowed to do and the latter lists what you ~are~ allowed to do. In stating you are "entitled" to something it implies that unless you are specifically allowed to do it - you can't; whereas with common law everything is fair game unless it's been outlawed.

I'm all for hearing opinions of people, but if said opinion is libelous or incorrect (Remember PI == 3? ah fun...) then you may be able to believe in it, think it, but express it and you could be in a whole heap of trouble.

Plus it's a bit of a cop out.

Mind you I'm still mulling this one over!

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

It's often used as social WD-40, and I think is possibly useful, sometimes, in that.

From my experience, if it's used as a conversational "safeword" - "Look, I'm getting bored/threatened/unhappy in this conversation" - I'd quite often respect it, and it's useful to have it there for that purpose. It's a way of people backing out of a conversation without revealing weakness as they would if they just said "Look, you're making me feel bad", or escalating the conflict by saying "Would you shut the fuck up, you're pissing me off."

There are other ways to achieve the same thing, possibly better ones, but you can't really expect everyone to use your preferred conversational codes.

In the political arena or the public eye - that's a different kettle of fish. But as a way of making sure a friendly discussion doesn't turn into a violent argument with an evening-ruining blast radius, I'm prepared to tolerate it.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer to use some formulation of "let's agree to disagree" on that one, which has its own problems but I think carries less poisonous baggage. Obviously not everyone will choose the same wording as me, but I do what I can to persuade people not to choose the brain poison.

[just-becky.livejournal.com]

I was recently confronted with a variation of this, "We are all entitled to our own opinions". I think it was an attempt by my brother to validate his opinion as an unassailable right, whilst reducing my fact based argument to that of a mere "opinion".

"But what if my opinion is that you are not entitled to an opinion and that I am justified in doing everything in my power to prevent you having or expressing it?"

If we are truly entitled to our opinions then, I should be allowed to deny him his opinion. If he tried to stand up for this belief we are all entitled to our opinions then he has to deny me the right to have and express my own, which would make him a hypochrite.

There are probably huge holes in my rather "playground level" logic but it did a rare and magical thing, it shut him the hell up for a few minutes :-D

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

No, that's pretty much one of the standard rebuttals of any attempt to assert a right to hold an opinion - at least one of the three articles above goes into it.

[aster13.livejournal.com]

I think that this is quite important, actually.

I *do* think very much that people have the right to hold their own beliefs and opinions, even if i or anybody else thinks that they are bloody stupid, incorrect or offensive. These opinions may very well not be true, and i have just as much right to not have the same opinion, and to think that their opinion is bloody stupid/incorrect/offensive.

If people do not have the right to their own beliefs, then what is the end result of this? A totalitarian state which deems some opinions inappropriate and punishable by...what?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

How could I have been more explicit about this? There's only one complete sentence in the post above which isn't a link or a poll or a title, and it addresses this point.

If you think I'm advocating totalitarianism here, then you're not reading anything I've said or any of the articles I link to, and instead of replying to what I actually think you've picked an unpopular viewpoint that contains some of the same words and replied to that instead.

Please read at least one of the articles I linked to, and reply to what they actually say.

[wight1984.livejournal.com]

I definitely do think people do have a right to whatever belief they want and I think that can be worth affirming sometimes.

What bothers me isn't the claim itself but the way it is used so often. I don't believe that people should have freedom from criticism, yet so many people seem to think that is what freedom of belief is.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

"I definitely do think people do have a right to whatever belief they want and I think that can be worth affirming sometimes."

Please read the second linked article. If this right exists, what duty does it impose on whom?

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Please report to the nearest State Re-education Centre where you will be issued with yours, citizen.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I'm torn between wanting people to stop saying it because it's annoying, and preferring they keep saying it as it's a clear marker that the person is immune to reason on that point and probably a fuckwit in other respects too. See also 'at the end of the day', 'I'm not being funny or anything', and 'I'm not racist but'.

[dudley-doright.livejournal.com]

This. "I'm entitled to my opinion" is the call by which a non-rationalist identifies him/herself. If you can't get them to read and understand the linked articles first, you're pretty much done.

[djm4]

The third article I find ... problematic in places (although good in many others). For example: "You’re not entitled to believe an author means X, when the words on the page are communicating that he means Not X," seems to me to be a qualitatively different statement than "you’re not entitled to believe the moon is made of cheese." There is often a lot more disagreement about what a given set of words on a page mean - and that even goes when the author's available to be asked - than there is about what 'cheese' is and how we could tell whether or not the moon is made of it.

I certainly believe "You may be entitled to believe that an author means X, when the words on the page are communicating to many other people that he means Not X." I don't go so far as to think "all readings are equally valid" - which is probably the extreme post-modernist position he's attacking there - but without a lot of further clarification, I take issue with the way he states it.

And I see from the comments that he prefers Keats to Hume, and thinks that "beauty is truth and truth beauty" is a good counter to "Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them." I mean, what the fuck? If you're using the "beauty is truth" line to counter Hume's assertion that beauty is not an intrinsic quality in things, and if (like Mike Bock) you're not inclined to let people differ about what "truth" might be even when interpreting Shakespeare, then presumably not only do you think that beauty is an independent quality that exists outside of people's minds (OK, show me something that isn't a mind that can measure it), but you think there is one true standard for beauty, and someone who thinks an ugly thing is beautiful is simply wrong.

Perception of beauty is one of those areas where I think it might be reasonable for someone to say "I'm/You're entitled to my/your opinion". It's certainly not at all clear to me why I should think my opinion about whether any given thing is beautiful is any more or less valid then your opinion, or anyone else's. I do still have the "entitled by whom?" issue a little, but in the case of beauty I think it's fair to say "entitled by me, and I'm the only one who gets a say in what I'm 'allowed' to find beautiful, so that's all the permission I need."

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I didn't read the comments. I agree that believing in one true standard of beauty is weird - borrowing a term from E T Jaynes, Eliezer Yudkowsky calls this the "mind projection fallacy".

I'm not so sure about the qualitative difference between statements about the moon's composition and those about author intent, but I think that would take quite a long comment to pick apart and I need to think about it more first!

[ludy]

Ok i still haven't properly looked at the links due to a lack of spoons but in an ideal world i'm enough of a hippy to want to have this discussion with the people who say it! But mostly i'm not going to because it useing the phrase is usually an alarm bell that the speaker is a nutjob (as a person with mental health problems myself i did try to think of an lterntive wording for nutjob but nothing else seems to fit quite so well!)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

i did try to think of an lterntive wording for nutjob but nothing else seems to fit quite so well - Daily Mail reader?

[hamsterine.livejournal.com]

I found the last article particularly problematic. Statements like "No one is “entitled” to hold an opinion that something is true when patently it is false" translates, as far as I can see, as "I am entitled to assert what I/the majority know to be true. If what another individual or minority of people knows to be true is in direct conflict with the prevailing version of truth, then they are not entitled to that belief."

It is impossible not to have one's own opinion, so in that sense it is more a fact than an entitlement. It is also probably not possible to respect all the different opinions that exist, as some will seem bizarre and/or offensive. I think that giving a basic level of respect to all people, even though you dislike or fail to understand the logic of their opinions, is the ideal response to their "entitlement".

When I am told something like this, I try to take it as a reminder to try and have more humility. There are many things I am so sure that I am right about, I simply have to act on the basis that they are fact. If someone disagrees with such apparently obvious facts and can't show me any evidence that causes me to reconsider, I still take that as a cue to aim for a little humility, the crux of which is:

Remember a time, however insignificant or long ago, when you were convinced you were right and then discovered you weren't, or it wasn't as simple as you thought? There may be loads more occasions like this that you never find out about.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The last article is by far the weakest; it might have been a mistake to add it, but I thought it was interesting all the same.

There's a lot of empirical evidence that we all in general habitually underestimate our chances of being wrong about a lot of things, though I'm trying to change my habits on this after being presented with the evidence. But this is exactly why we should discourage people from having "fully general counterarguments" with which to defend what they believe: it's because of this tendency that we should all be doing our best to make our beliefs as vulnerable as possible to being overthrown by better evidence or better arguments.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I hesitated to answer this poll for a while because of discomfort with something in its premises, which I've now figured out what it was. On balance I do want to discourage people from saying that...

but

I think that there is a right to be left alone by others, and I think it extends to a right to refuse to enter debate. If presented with a counterargument to something I believe, I may not have the energy and/or time to dispute it, or I may believe that arguing the point is socially inappropriate in context, or whatever. I'd generally express it in those terms ("I disagree with you but I don't want to discuss it right now").

Example: I was at a pastry shop one time wearing a fairly provocative shirt (http://store.xkcd.com/xkcd/#Science) and the cashier tried to lay an argument for young-earth creationism on me. I was too tired for it and the discussion would have pissed off everyone behind me in line. I said something along the lines of "I don't want to hold up the line arguing about it" which she accepted with good grace.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Addendum: I would also allow a right to exit an argument on grounds of fatigue, without conceding the point. Again, the phrasing I'd choose is more like "I still disagree but I don't want to argue about it any more".