Playing the Opinion Card

[Galadín]

The ideal of respecting everyone's opinions is laudable but something which has been irking me lately is whether or not respect should be given to an "opinion" even though it contradicts not only itself, but is used in an improper context.

I was recently discussing with someone the probability of aliens on Earth, something which scientific logic has already researched and shown to have virtually zero chance of having occurred, whereupon pointing out these facts earned me a butt-hurt expression and a small protest of: "We obviously have a difference of opinion here, I hope you respect mine". Given the extreme lack of evidence and their general inability to produce any convincing argument I felt a wee bit indignant as the discussion had been reduced to a question of opinion rather than hypothesis. In playing the "opinion card" the discussion became a pointless one as it had turned into a matter of preference rather than fact. The icing on the cake of course was the issue of respect, I had somehow disrespected this individual, or rather, they felt I was showing at least a modicum of disregard.

The way I see it, opinion is a matter of taste (e.g. I like chocolate) whereas discussions like the one above, would be a question of concept where people are posing ideas which they think are true and offer evidence to support their point; the more valid the evidence the more credible is the "belief". You cannot disrespect fact; discredit it, certainly, but it's not a question of respect. Hence why I was pretty wrong footed, and have been on occasion, when engaging in such conversions.

So here's the rub: since opinion is based on preference and fed by experience, where does one draw the line between respecting an opinion from abandoning factual reasoning? Does anyone else find it difficult navigating through discussions where people are prone to "play the opinion card"? Do you ever feel like objecting to the whole "I'm entitled to my opinion" which seems to crop up right in the middle of your reasoning!

...and I'm well aware of the irony in asking for opinions on this one. I'm inclined to cheat and call it feedback!

 

[Shaissa]

The problem I see is that unless you are start the conversation with "Let's theorize for a second aliens are out there" I think that you are automatically going have going have an opinion discussion versus a theory discussion. I actually don't see that as the problem at all. I mean I think if anything having different opinions in a discussion makes it more interesting as long as it doesn't turn into an argument about whose opinions are right. I mean I have done the "opinion cop out" when it comes to some things (religion being the main one, mainly because it is hard to theorize for me the fact that we know what God is... but that is a different topic)

I see more of a problem when opinions come up is that people use them as "facts." Like an example, let us say we are talking about a video game, I like it and you don't. Then I go and tell you how your opinion is wrong because it is a good game.... That is where I see more of a problem versus people using the "opinion card" as a cop out.

Sorry that was a tiny bit side track from your main point at the end...

 

[Galadín]

I see what you're saying there Shace. Having different views and interpretations is the spice of a discussion and it would be dry and boring starting conversations with "let's theorise!". However if a person's opinion is based on flawed logic or it implodes on itself (I'm not a nark! You know who call people narks? Narks, you nark - and all that jazz) is that still something you need to respect because of that respect opinions thing or would it be acceptable to go "nope, that's just rubbish"?

 

[Shaissa]

The problem with trying to prove someones logic is "flawed" is that firstly, you have to prove without a doubt it is flawed, which in a middle of discussion can be very hard to do, secondly you have to get the person to changed their mind about that flawed logic, which again in a middle of a debate that can be very hard to do, especially if the person is a stubborn mule . I think in that situation it is best to give your opinion, state your reasons, and try to show why the reasoning for them is flawed, and if they can't see it, then that is the best you can do. Many people out there will stay stubborn about some things, I think we all have those things we stay stubborn about for one reason or another, and I think respecting their reasoning can be just as important as trying to prove something is flawed.

 

[Linnaete]

I'll distinguish between belief and opinion for this post, because there is a bit of a significant difference between the two. I know in some context the words are interchangeable, but if I talk about the former, it may involve discussing religion, which no one probably wants to hear.

Just to present an overview on my take on the terminology, an opinion is a subjective judgement on something that typically has some essence of reality, be it widely accepted norms, empirical data, observations, etc. It's usually not as strong as actual belief in something; a belief has basis more on personal and values-laden conviction and as such can be more difficult to rationally argue against. An opinion can form the basis of a logical argument while a belief is more something personal to you. You're not going to find many belief-based articles in say, a peer-reviewed academic journal.

You're right to also distinguish between opinions that boil down to purely subjective taste "I think red is a lovely/disgusting colour" from conclusions that one arrives at when they interpret data themselves. Definitely. The act of interpreting is largely subjective (heck, history as an academic subject is all about this!), so I'll afford a little more leeway to someone who can show that they at least tried to reach their conclusion through some kind of logical reasoning based on well-regarded data, even if that conclusion is bizarre. But hey, the world once thought of people like Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin as nutters at best and dangerous heretics who must die at worst!

But if it's something as bizarre and so seemingly divorced from accepted reality as say, the opinion (which may extend to even genuine belief) that the Earth is flat like Terry Pratchett's Discworld, though presumably minus the elephants and the giant turtle, I see no reason why I have to "respect" the opinion as it were. I'll probably hear it out and consider it, but to me a flat-Earther has ignored Occam's Razor. There's a reason why Occam's Razor is one of my favourite principles ever. What is more of a leap? The opinion that the Earth is indeed a near-perfect sphere and par for the course for a celestial object of this size, or the opinion that there is a worldwide conspiracy perpetuated by every governmental and non-governmental authority there is to hide the truth from us for...reasons, with countless manufactured evidence to try and suggest otherwise?

Unless it's something 100% subjective and casual like "I like cheesecake", the "but it's my opinion" card smacks of admitting defeat. It rings of this person not being able to sufficiently back up their claim in the face of the person they're having a discussion or a debate with, so it's a means of trying to flip the table and paint your scepticism as hostility and a personal affront to them. It's also a horribly weak response if the person comes out with a rather abhorrent opinion and has for example denied the Holocaust. "But it's my opinion" does nothing to me. All you have done is a pathetic doubling down on an opinion that is both outrageous and divorced from widely-accepted records and testimonies. But if I ever have a conversation with someone and it led to that, it's probably a conversation not worth pursuing any further. And depending on who the person is and what was said, perhaps it's not worth interacting with that person again either.

 

[FinalxxSin]

There's quite a few tiers of opinions out there....

I'll start with the most credible and work my way down....

1. Theories - No no, I am not talking about the ones that every day people come up with, but the ones that have been accepted into science. These tend to hold a lot of value as a good number of them end up being taught at some point. We accept them as credible with the mindset in the back of our mind that evidence in the future could debunk such theory.

2. Logical opinion based on objective facts - This tends to be very credible in terms of discussions. A person uses a lot of objective information to be able to come to their own logical opinion at the end of the day. For example: "Flash can run so fast he can create time warps (fact), therefore to me he's a badass." (this part is opinionated as we all won't have the same standards for "badassery".)

3. Ill-logical opinion based on objective fact - This is when things start to get rocky. These still use objective fact, but the end result opinion is often jarring. For example: "Hitler was responsible for the death of millions of jews (fact). Because of this, Hitler showed great judgement and leadership skills leading his people to a better tomorrow (opinionated)". *Side note there are seriously people to this day that worship Hitler and really do think he was the greatest thing ever.*

4. My Opinion is FACT! - Yep this is the worse kind there is. Often this contains a lot of head canon information, and very little credible information.
For example: "This series sucks. I hope it dies in a fire. There is no depth and no strategy in this game. This game has no character development at all! It was never explained why these people are doing what they are doing." (These type of remarks are the easiest to refute by presenting objective evidence debunking every point they have made).

All in all, if what a person is typing falls in category 4, then by all means use facts to show how flawed their viewpoint is. It is possible to also accomplish with number 3, but it'll be harder due to different interpretations.

 

[Shu]

You guys/gals and your opinion about opinions . I think it's of course subjective and as someone previously mentioned "conviction." How hard does someone hold on to that belief?

Here are two examples:

1) Respect should be given to someone with a certain title or class or age.
2) Respect should be earned.

Well the first one has way too many questions. How does one argue this if they don't know how the person earned the title or earned the class? If it was automatically assumed that everyone earned the respect, what if the person also later down the road did something where they were no longer respected.

What if the person was a miserable old person, and they basically were ignorant and stubborn?

I think opinions can be had, but if there are too many loose ends to an opinion, I think a debate could be never ending. I don't think Opinions can be bullet proof either, or else they wouldn't call them opinions.

I think often times opinions are more experienced based. If Bob has a pleasant experience in Spain and Kelly has an awful experience in Spain then one has to take into account all statistics.

1) Bob had a good time due to weather was nice, he met someone to have dinner with and explore with, and last but not least he experienced his first "running of the bulls."
2) Kelly had a poor time due to the weather was so - so, she was an introvert and did not get out and meet or explore, and lastly she experienced her first "running of the bulls" where she watched a person get trampled with disgust.

So who's right? They both are. Which matters the most.. well there is always a good and bad, but if Kelly went back and had a friend well her experience and opinion might change due to a different outcome.

All I'm saying is.. opinions without experienced are never ending debates. "Aliens exist" What Proof? "Well on Mars.. yada yada and Earth is just one planet."


So I prefer to argue with folks who have had the same experience as I. It makes for a little more of a conversation.

 

[AuronX]

You're free to believe what you want to believe about anything, but that doesn't mean you're right. You're also not required to like the truth, but whether or not you do does not affect its status as truth.

To be honest, if I play the 'opinion card', it's probably on an internet discussion that is going nowhere and taking up far too much of my real life time, and so rather than keep it going I try to end it in the most respectful way possible. Because I do and can respect people who hold opinions I believe are flawed, because there aren't many individual opinions that define a person in their entirety. So I respect someone for the many other things they are besides their erroneous ideas about whatever. In that sense I don't really respect their opinion(s), but I respect them as a person and their freedom to hold that opinion, however wrong it may be. I'm not oblivious to the fact that there are inconsistencies in some of my own ways of thinking that I have yet to recognize and weed out. The least I can do is have the humility to recognize that my opponent is no less human than I am, nor am I more human than they are.

So I suppose I just see the act of 'playing the card' as it were a bit differently. Although I would argue there is a right and a wrong way to play it, even if this is the underlying motive. "What you believe is just your opinion" is not really the right way to go about it. That's just very confrontational and condescending. "I see we are not likely to reach an agreement therefore I hope we can respect each other's opinions" is a very different attitude.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

For me, the most important thing is just openly distinguishing fact, theory, and opinion (obviously those can be broken further down into more categories as well). But I also think there's a strange gray area in between, which I am now coining as "cultural opinion". This doesn't have to be culture specific; it can transcend that to the point of being a near universal human belief. But it's distinct from both fact and opinion, in that it's an opinion -usually based on facts- that's so commonly held that you can sort of use it as a loose fact.

For example, voice acting. I recently had a conversation on YouTube with someone who absolutely loves Legend of Dragoon. Now, it's not a game that I dislike, but I think it's hugely flawed in some glaring ways. One of the areas it's flawed in, is the voice acting. While I admitted that I find the voice acting charming, I staked the claim that it was realistically terrible. The person I was talking with disagreed, and took the stance that it was at very least rather good for the first half of the game. We then both went on to explain our stances of course.

While there realistically isn't any truth to the statement that LoD's voice acting was terrible, I believe such a statement can be backed up by the cultural opinions that dictate what techniques/choices are both good and bad for voice acting. Similar to how theories are treated in scientific fields, there are professionals in entertainment who dedicate large portions of their time to breaking down what audiences most commonly look for, what techniques tend to work the best in given situations, and what the intentions of the scene/character/etc. are when dealing with voice acting (and the same is true for every facet of artistic creation). And when these ideas are generally agreed upon by most people, I think that this can be used as a sort of pseudo-fact to strengthen -as FinalxxSin put it- Logical Opinions. Things like an actor sounding distinctly 'uninterested' when acting out a scene where their best friend just died, can be 'culturally objective' in a sense, by becoming a cultural opinion. These ideas almost always change or grow over time, though I believe some of them stay rather consistent.

As far as the broader topic of opinions goes, I think people all too often deal in absolutes/hyperbole, frequently ignore use of cause-and-effect, and try to dismiss arguments by claiming it's all subjective. This tends to lead to less meaningful discussion -opinion based or otherwise- because it becomes more of a sparring match of semantics and definitions. A game that's running flawlessly at 60fps, with a consistent frame time of 16ms, is objectively checking for controller inputs twice as often as a game running at 30fps and 32ms. That means (cause and effect) players have twice as many chances to react during the same amount of time. Both of these statements are fact. So it only stands to reason that if a game requires extremely high levels of precision, like say a fighting game, a higher framerate is objectively better for the goal of precision controls it has. If you choose to still prefer 30fps because you're used to it, or 60fps makes you sick, or whatever, that's fine. But that doesn't change how the technology actually works, and the goals of the game.

I use games as an example, but this is something I see extremely frequently in all types of conversations, and using facts to back yourself up can lead to people throwing out the "Well this is all just opinion." card all the time. I think it's because humans are wired to fuse their choices, opinions, beliefs, and ideas to their self-worth. It's difficult to avoid doing so. If someone likes it when a game objectively runs worse, in there mind it comes down to two things; they're wrong, or there's something wrong with them. It's much easier to just assume or pretend that the people who disagree must be wrong. Most people never stop to separate the two, admitting that so-and-so game runs poorly, but that they still prefer it that way.

It's difficult, because it's not easy to defend yourself when someone claims everything you're saying is opinion. It's an atomic bomb dropped on the conversation, because such a statement is a be-all-end-all answer to everything you could possible counter with. No matter what you have to say, "Well that's just your opinion." can always apply, even if it's not at all true. In some ways, it's no different than just plugging your ears and yelling "I'm not listening!" over and over. I'm really hard on people who play that card, unless the conversation legitimately calls for it. I don't see the point in disrespecting the hard work others put into conversations you chose to take part in. If you don't want to converse anymore, just be honest and say it. If the conversation is primarily just harmless opinions like "I love chicken sandwiches.", then it's kind of already implied that nobody's statements have more worth than anyone elses. So don't be a butthead by stating the obvious, as if the other people in the conversation didn't know that already. But when facts are involved, it's really rude to devalue facts as a way to 'level the playing field' or avoid 'losing' an argument, or whatever. It's also stupid, but that's another topic entirely. There are times when it's a valid statement to use of course, but I'd say those are more the exception than the rule in most debates.