Taxes I suppose.
Regardless, almost everybody has opinion of their own. It’s more prevalent than IPod in our society. Just log on the internet and it will overwhelm us. Sometimes, I swear I’ll puke if another person gives me a piece of his mind. This and that and that and this all over again – it just doesn’t end. It’s a perpetual blabbering that makes people goes nut. Yet, I and many others can’t seem to have enough of it. I still want to announce the world of I feel and I’m still willing to listen to others’ two cents. After years of trying to listen, I think I’ve reached a stage where I could categorize most opinions into a number of classes based on several dimensions.
In my not so humble opinion, opinion may be described by five dimensions:
Informed-uninformed dimension
An informed opinion is the best kind of opinion in this dimension. A person that expresses an informed opinion is usually familiar with the field he or she is commenting on. This doesn’t have to be the case but usually it is. As such, this kind of opinion comes from those of whom are from tertiary institutions and professional circles or at the very least, those that with knowledge or experience on a particular field.
Below informed view is one when if we see or hear it, we won’t be able to agree or disagree without further information. There’s some truth to it and we might want to believe but to accept it without scrutiny is irrational. It’s simply something that best kept at the back of our mind and revisit it later when the time is right.
At the other end of the spectrum is uninformed view. This kind of opinion is definitely disagreeable at first sight and it’s disagreeable not due to point of views or biases but purely because of facts. In short, it’s bullshit – like global wamring causes worsening earthquake or Bush is an alien from outer space. Pretending experts and worst of all, trolls, belong here. People with uninformed opinion are usually field outsiders though outsiders do offer respectable opinions from time to time.
Intelligibility
Opinion could also be seen from intelligibility. I can think of only two classes – articulateness and incoherence. An articulated view is the one that we’ll get the point even with the most artificial skimming while incoherent opinion is akin to reading or listening to a Martian. Incoherent views are usually ignored by most people and occasionally however, flaming may occur due to misunderstanding or frustration. Intelligibility is also dependent on a person ability of being concise.
Friendliness
Friendliness is highly dependent on point of views. Therefore, an opinion may be seen as friendly to a person but offensive to another.
No blood boils when one reads a friendly view. At least I won’t. This view is not too critical of an idea and there are flowery congratulations, praises and agreeable people abounding almost everywhere. Biases also an implicit characteristic – hey, they say birds of the same feather flock together.
Number two has a neutral stance. It’s could be critical or giving credit where credit is due but the bottomline is, it’s done in good faith. Most opinions of this kind are positive in nature; positive as in descriptive or antonym to normative.
Then there’s hostile view and here’s where most polemicists sit. This, coupled with incoherencies, is a recipe for mudslinging. It’s all about right versus left, Ann Coulter and Al Franken or Malaysian blogosphere own illogical Menj and silly Rajan. This particular class is where all hope of intelligent discussion is already forsaken at the earliest possible point. It’s fun though – it what makes a crowd cheers for a bull’s eye and murmurs when a punch is thrown below the belt.
Agreeability
Like friendliness, agreeability is dependent on point of view. Perhaps, agreeability depends on the previous three variables too.
Freedom
This is probably the most important variable there is when it comes to opinion. It is the one thing that determines if there is anything to hear to or read in the first place.
I once heard a joke about free speech – if here’s my two cents and it costs a penny for your thought, what happened to another penny?
Like I said earlier, taxes.
