So with that said, I ought to discuss my opinion on opinions. As the adage says, opinions are like belly buttons. Everyone has them. My feelings on the belly button-opinion analogy run a little deeper. Opinions, like belly buttons, are essentially meaningless. They serve a purpose, but it is an incredibly limited one with a time and a place that can outlive its usefulness. This is where the comparison stops. We live in a society today where the opinions of individuals are glorified in the media with new trends like "iReporting" and the Citizen Journalist finds infinite ways to express himself or herself via the internet through means very much like the one through which I write to you today. This is a trend that in some ways ought to be valued, but in others ought to be condemned. The opinion of society is obviously hugely relevant. It is the vehicle on which our society makes its collective decisions regarding governance and the everyday social norms that govern our behavior. However, when broken down to the individual level, the Citizen Journalist has created a dual trend that worries me greatly.
First, it has cheapened the work of the thinker. Because of the rapidity and fluidity of modern news cycles and the pace at which lives are run, there is little time for the kind of quality analysis you really only see on Fareed Zakaria GPS nowadays. Instead, we have created a news cycle built around catchphrases and ideologues. The individualization of opinion has given meaning and self-importance (I will discuss this in depth later) to a whole new range of people, many of which frankly are unqualified to be given the attention they receive.
I am of the Humean school of thought when it comes to qualifications. In discussing art, Hume argues that good art is determined by what he calls "the critic," which receives qualification of opinion via extensive work that is validated by the collective agreement (or if not agreement, than at least respect for the level of rigor involved in his or her judgment process) of peers with his or her assessment. I extend his example of "the critic" to my judgment of social commentary and its worth. I feel as though only those who have the expertise and knowledge of a given subject have opinions worth validating. How are we to decide a standard by which qualification can be determined? I suppose I have two answers. First, I hate to use the Supreme Court's obscenity defense, but qualification is something we tend to "know when we see it." For example, while I may know things about politics, I am not the man with whom you would trust your car, plane, cooking tasks, or newborn child. Likewise, I am loath to trust a man or woman who has read a book on the Middle East with resolving Yemen's water crisis or making peace between Israel and Palestine. Second, debates regarding the domination and "tyranny" of pre-existing institutions with determining authority aside (particularly within academia), I think it's pretty safe to assume that if you're a PhD candidate in a subject, you probably know a thing or two about your subject, and Joe the Plumber of 123 Main St. probably doesn't know more about you than the subject you are studying. Furthermore, differences in opinion do not count as disqualification. I doubt that despite their differences, Bob Keohane and Kenneth Waltz are second-guessing their qualifications to make political statements, nor are Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia asking questions about whether or not the other is an expert on the US Constitution. So in sum, qualification is something that we know when we see it, and it's fairly easy to determine who is qualified and who isn't, differences in belief set aside.
My other big issue with the Citizen Journalist is the self-importance it creates. This sounds hilarious coming from someone with a blog, as even in my opinion, a blog is in some ways the ultimate show of self-importance. However, what terrifies me about self-importance is the intractability of opinion it creates. Because news outlets, whether they be MSNBC or Fox News, glorify the opinion of the Average Joe, Average Joe feels as though his opinion is, well, relevant. And this feeling leads to an unwillingness to change one's opinion, as it creates the sensation that the feeling has been vouched for by some higher power. Let's use a famous Joe for this example. Joe Wurzelbacher, more famously known as Joe the Plumber, is a fairly average man. Aspiring small business owner, middle-aged, blue collar, from the American Midwest. Joe famously asked then-Senator Barack Obama whether or not his tax plan would "stifle the American dream (a phrase with which I have my own qualms, but that's for another day)." After his famous confrontation with the President, Mr. Wurzelbacher became a media sensation, making numerous appearances and was even a correspondent for conservative website pjtv.com about the Israel-Palestine conflict for ten days. This in itself wouldn't be a huge issue. What I struggle with is the ways in which his opinions were assumed to be meaningful.
To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Wurzelbacher does not have a college degree. He is not fluent in Hebrew or Arabic. I'd be curious to see his knowledge of the taxes he hates so much, given he supposedly owed several thousand in back taxes. In spite of these facts, Mr. Wurzelbacher was toured in front of the nation, asked about his opinion on numerous issues, and went so far as to call into question Barack Obama's loyalty to the United States. While Mr. Wurzelbacher is certainly entitled to his opinions, he has not given me any reason to believe that I should care. I doubt he's giving out well-sourced opinions about the moral or practical concerns regarding taxation. I'm sure his opinion of the Israel-Palestine conflict is informed more by his values regarding Israel's victimhood than reality, speaking as someone who is shamelessly pro-Israel. There are others, whether they be Alan Dershowitz or John Mearsheimer, who know far more about the conflict than Mr. Wurzelbacher ever will. Why are we consulting Joe the Plumber when we could be asking people with real, evidenced opinions? With the sorts of options we have today and the increasing accessibility of the academic and policy establishments to the general population, the greatest shame here is that this resource is not utilized more often.
This glorification of mediocrity and "averageness" is uniquely American. There is glory in the middle class. We bemoan its suffering, as we should. These are hard-working Americans for whom I have as much respect as I do anyone else. However, I will not find myself asking my mechanic for his opinion as to whether or not we should attack Iran, withdraw from Iraq, or counter a rising China. He is not an expert. He's damn good at fixing cars, but not solving humanity's eternal problems. His opinion, like his belly button, is meaningless.
In conclusion, why do I blog about my opinion? I do it because I feel like it. Sometimes I have thoughts on various things, and this is how I choose to put them down. However, I do not expect any of my readers to take my opinion as law, nor do I feel as though my opinion is necessarily meaningful. If you learn something, I've done my job. If there's an interesting conversation that gets going in the comment section, people at least get some gratification out of it. But 9 times out of 10 I will not be an expert on the subject I'm discussing, and I expect anyone who finds my opinion interesting to read more about it and draw your own conclusions. Humility is something to be valued, and acknowledging that we don't have all the answers and can always do a little better is possibly the most important quality in people that is unfortunately all too lacking today. We expect people to have all the answers, so much so that we even expect it out of those who should not have the answer we seek.
EDIT: Just read this article in Time that did a really good job outlining my feelings on the subject (subscription only, unless you have an iPhone): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2010191,00.html
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