One of the strangest things about saying everybody is entitled to an opinion is that we apparently mean it only when the opinion is reasonable.
That’s not much of a right.
Of course you’re allowed to have a reasonable opinion.
Nobody needs to protect the opinions everybody already agrees with.
The entire idea matters only when somebody believes something the rest of us think is stupid.
And I mean actually stupid.
Not, ‘I respectfully see it differently.’
I mean an opinion that makes you wonder: How in the hell could a functioning adult possibly believe that?
They’re still allowed to believe it.
You’re allowed to believe something that is wrong.
You’re allowed to believe something based on bad information.
You’re allowed to misunderstand something.
You’re allowed to reach a terrible conclusion.
You’re even allowed to hear every argument against your position and still say: ‘No. I think I’m right.’
That doesn’t mean anybody else has to respect the opinion.
That’s another distinction we’ve screwed up.
You are entitled to have an opinion.
You are not entitled to have everyone tell you it’s a good one.
If I say something stupid, you can tell me it’s stupid.
If I say something ignorant, explain what I don’t know.
If I say something completely unsupported by reality, show me.
That’s how this is supposed to work.
What you don’t get to do is quietly change the rule from ‘Everybody gets an opinion’ to ‘Everybody gets an opinion after the rest of us determine that the opinion is acceptable.’
Because then you don’t actually have a right to an opinion.
You have an application process.
And somebody else is approving it.
Think about how absurd that gets.
Before I’m allowed to believe something, I apparently have to bring the belief to another human being and ask: ‘Is this okay?’
And then that person gets to form an opinion about whether my opinion is permissible.
Well, why does their opinion get automatic approval?
Who approved the approver?
That’s the part of this that keeps breaking down for me.
At some point, if people are actually free to think, somebody has to be allowed to be wrong.
Somebody has to be allowed to be offensive.
Somebody has to be allowed to misunderstand.
Somebody has to be allowed to believe something almost everybody else hates.
Otherwise, what we’re protecting isn’t freedom of opinion.
We’re protecting consensus.
And those are not the same thing.
Actually, consensus doesn’t need much protection.
The unpopular opinion does.
So yes.
You are allowed to think something stupid.
And I’m allowed to think what you think is stupid.
You’re allowed to tell me that.
I’m allowed to tell you why I think you’re wrong.
Maybe one of us changes our mind.
Maybe neither of us does.
But the alternative makes no sense to me.
Because if you’re only allowed to have an opinion after somebody else decides it’s acceptable…
you don’t really have an opinion.
You have theirs.
