One reason a person like me starts a website like this is because I have a lot of opinions and my husband is tired of listening to me. Ok, not exactly. I will say this for my husband, as opinionated as I am he’s never called me an idiot. And I have moments when I am less than brilliant. I’ve been checking out other blogs this week and I’ve noticed a lot of comments posted by readers that do not qualify as opinions. “You’re an idiot” is not an opinion, it’s an insult.
What Are Opinions?
To clean up a familiar quote: Opinions are like noses, we all have them and most of them smell. As a result, we often need to express our own opinions, as they are often the only ones that pass the sniff test. Have we forgotten how to share these ideas? Have we forgotten how to disagree with someone without hurling insults? In case you, or someone you know has forgotten, here are a couple of examples of opinions:
“I disagree” or “I agree”—Concise and appropriate when you have nothing further to add to the discussion.
“I disagree with you because I know your husband and he always appears to listen to you” or “I agree, you are very opinionated and this is a great outlet for you”—These types of opinions add value to the discussion without personally attacking. They state a reason for agreement or disagreement and often contain the word ‘because’. They can be used to disagree with an opinion as a whole, or a portion of an opinion.
Let’s consider these the guidelines for opinions on this website. Thanks for listening. I’ll try not to be an idiot.
Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles
Spot on!
Applaud another voice for civility in discourse. I'm often dismayed by the imparative to be "right" concerning a particular topic. There are "many paths to the same destination" and consideration of another's point of view without making an uniformed assessment of their mental capacity would be a great step forward! Now if we could get the media, Congress, etc to join in.
I was just wondering how you “try not to be an idiot”. I always thought that idiotness was either a natural state for some people, or an assigned state. A state that is assigned by an other who has a divergent opinion and is trying to achieve superiority by label. Neither of which is controllable by “trying” While I can understand someone “trying” not to be inane, blathering, irrelevant, incoherent, thoughtless, or uninformed. I choose to disagree that one can avoid ID 10 T status by “trying”. Respectfully – Harry
Harry-Perhaps a better statement would have been: \”I\’ll try not to say anything that will cause you to assign me the label of idiot in an effort to assert your superiority\”. Of course this assumes you do not consider that to be my natural state 🙂