|
you cannot be serious. an opinion is a position taken on the basis of information. all aspects of it can be wrong--the information can be wrong, the interpretation can be wrong and the position itself can be wrong.
unless you take opinion to really be a device that enables a reversion to some infantile state in which your desires rule everything because you can't distinguish inside from outside.
it's funny to me that this discussion is happening in a thread that's about a sociological study on the patterns of inequality in the distribution of wealth in the united states. it's not like the problem of inequality in the distribution of wealth is new. it's been a characteristic of american-style cowboy capitalism for the whole of its sorry existence--cowboy capitalism reversed trends that were in place after world war 2 which tended toward a somewhat more equal distribution of wealth. the irony of the politics which sold cowboy capitalism is obviously the extent to which its memes appealed to people who were far from being the principal beneficiaries of the massive flow of wealth into the hands of the top 5% and away from everyone else. most folk who are **really** committed to the mythology of cowboy capitalism are properly speaking the victims of exactly the unequal distribution of wealth and educational and cultural opportunities that they champion. go figure.
given that, it's doubly ironic to find folk from the right (or who are ultra-right but deny that it's the case) defending know-nothing positions. made a fool of by the ideology they defend, they process things by denying reality, denying information which generates dissonance. the apex of this is:
"this is my opinion and because it's my right to have an opinion it necessarily follows that the opinion i have is correct."
that's just nutty.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|