I got an email last week from a gentleman in Oregon lambasting our recent reporting on the Piceance/East Douglas Herd Management Area. Interestingly, the only negative feedback we’ve received is from people who don’t actually live here, but who still have a lot of feelings and opinions about the situation based on “what they know.”
It’s indicative of a growing problem when it comes to information and opinions. We are inundated with massive amounts of information every day, more than at any other time in human history. From that information we formulate opinions. Opinions, as Plato taught, are the lowest form of knowledge known to mankind. Yet we’re all quite comfortable saying, “I have a right to my opinion,” which is true. We do have a right to our opinions, but that doesn’t give us the right to foist them off as truth to everyone we encounter, and it certainly doesn’t give us the right to persecute those who don’t fall in line with our way of thinking.
One of the most uncomfortable things journalism has taught me is that the more you know, the less you know, and what you think you know is probably only partially correct. Going into a story with a preconceived notion (bias, which we all have as humans) and asking questions and conducting interviews and checking facts only to realize that preconceived notion is flawed is a continuously humbling experience. It requires an open mind and a willingness to lay aside those cherished opinions for the sake of truth and reality – even if it’s not our personal truth or reality. It’s much easier to find our “tribe” and camp there, where everyone agrees with us, than it is to admit we might be uninformed (don’t know enough), misinformed (know incorrect information), or worse, disinformed (lied to by unscrupulous parties with an agenda).
Which brings me to the idea of “staying in our lane.” Have you ever accidentally driven the wrong way down a one-way street and wondered why all the cars are parked the same direction on both sides of the street? (Thankfully, I pulled this one at night in a quiet residential neighborhood with no traffic.) It takes a minute for the brain to realize you are the one going the wrong direction, and then you have to admit it and course correct. But what if you didn’t? What if you insisted you were going the right way, despite evidence to the contrary? Accidents, damage and destruction would follow. What if you lacked the moral fortitude to acknowledge that your opinions and accompanying rhetoric and emotional investment were even a smidge off base? What if you valued your prevailing belief over and above anything else, to the point of lashing out at your presumed opposition in word or deed?
I think Plato would tell us we’re seeing the result of that in society today. Everyone has opinions on literally everything, and we’ll defend those opinions to the bitter end, unwilling to course correct, unwilling to yield or bend or see there may be value in a different perspective.
I wonder if the dinosaurs knew it all, too?
By NIKI TURNER – editor@editorht1885.com
Might seem Orwellian, but opinion becomes fact when enough people hold it.
Truth can morph into fiction and vice versa. Propagandists and marketers understand this and use it to steer crowds and populations in directions that benefit their clients. (A current example of this is the national – NATIONAL!- discussion about gender and sexuality. How did such malarkey gain traction?)
Is anything true? Is anything fact? Sir Isaac Newton developed his laws of mechanics and for centuries after societies relied on them. The whole Industrial Revolution was predicated on them and mankind progressed! Then along came Albert Einstein who said “Well, not really. It doesn’t really work like that”. So Truth and Fact are the stuff of opinion. That is, the man made versions.
I believe there are eternal truths and eternal facts. I believe that within each human being, handed down from the creation, there is a core of eternal goodness and the DNA of God himself that the course of human history has buried, concealed, and perverted.
Read, study, listen, and conclude all you want. But we fumble along in a world WE commandeered and in a society and culture that is our own mutually agreed upon construct. There isn’t too much left here that would approximate what our Almighty Creator had in mind.
Excellent “Editorial Opinion” Niki. Love it.