Driven by opinions

Driven by opinions

There is a commonly repeated idea of the modern West: “Respect every opinion! The principle should be that every one’s opinion counts equally. This type of dialog is the goal of our society. Anyone who argues that one opinion is superior to another, is the enemy.” Even if I don't take into account that this is applied rather selfishly most of the time, I tend to disagree. Respect the person, not the opinion! Respecting a factually false opinion is a great disrespect to the person. Letting someone, who is wrong, stay wrong out of respect is no respect at all. We better ourselves by correcting our mistakes, but how could I correct my mistakes if no one points out that it is a mistake in the first place. Being wrong is humiliating and sometimes even dangerous but totally natural. You wouldn’t hesitate to shout at someone dancing on the railway tracks. They think it is safe, they enjoy it, they never asked your opinion, but you are more than allowed to warn them. The truth can’t be replaced by opinions. Sometimes it is easy to see and sometimes it is almost impossible, but it is always a duty of anyone who wants to live in a culture or a society, to look for the truth instead of, or at least before forming an opinion. And then there is this other danger we are growing to know so closely. If no opinion is wrong then what will stop the extreme, what will stop us drifting further and further away from each other? If you let all sides go to ridiculous extremes and let them believe that those are equal to the truth but then they are forced to live amongst each other, the pressure will just build and build until our whole world blows up. It might be shocking, but I don’t think we made the mistake of applying too little respect, quite the contrary, we actually applied too much. We respected the ridiculous so much for so long that dialog is out the window. We are back to flag waving and motto shouting. We can call each other out, but it is absolutely pointless. What could you say to someone who denies global warming or claims a third sex? And more importantly what can they say to each other? The answer is simple. We see a great return of politically driven assassinations on a scale last shown before WWI. I cannot respect any false opinion, especially if they can be easily disproven by science. Two plus two equals four, not green, not red, not blue and not even six, it is, was and will always be four. But what we started to agree on is that someone who is not willing to take part in this “civil war” is the actual evil. How come? Are there no more Newtons allowed anymore, who would look for the truth for truth’s sake? We make everything surrender to our comfort, joy and self-respect, but statistics show that we are more depressed and have less true self-RESPECT than ever. Happiness is a balanced and true life, not a chain of joys and lies, and self-respect is always bettering yourself, not trying to band reality and society to your own comfort. Granted, great ideas can come from the most unusual of places, therefore we should respect and listen to everyone, but never to everything. Respect the person, not the opinion! Respect the person enough to challenge their mistakes! Respect yourself enough to look for a challenge of your opinion, so you might be better tomorrow than you were yesterday! Look for the truth as no one can be happy in a chain of lies!

Dominus Illuminatio Mea!