Fluctuating Opinions

I wrote this post over a year ago, however I still feel the points raised apply today even if the contextualisation is partially outdated. So without further ado here it is.

This is a concept I think I should get out the way fairly early on, so here goes. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are reflective of my views and opinions at the time of writing. Just because I have written them here does not make them set in stone and does not mean my opinions cannot differ in the future. All it means is that at the point in time where I hit the “Publish” button, I am behind these opinions. I still retain the right at any point in the future to alter my opinions. And this should be more than a right, this should be a duty, this should be what is expected of me, and of anyone else. That shouldn't have needed to even have been said. I shouldn't have to clarify that my opinions will change over time. it should be taken as given that when new facts or opinions are brought up they may alter my own opinions on an issue, and yet I feel I have to actually have go so far as to make a post explaining this. We live in a culture where to change your opinion, to alter your viewpoint based on new events and evidence, is a sign of weakness, an admission of defeat and with it the victory and correctness of anyone you had previously disagreed with on the issue. It is even built in to our very language; you either win or lose an argument, a debate, you are either for an issue or against an issue. And that is just wrong, and has caused all sorts of problems even recently.

 — Abortion trigger warning for Case 1 only —

Case 1: Something that has been making the rounds recently, the news that a 13 year old girl self aborted using a pencil. Now this is a pretty horrific story and a good example of the importance of legally accessible abortions for all. (Two things of note: I will not be dealing with the actual abortion argument right now. Secondly, I do support the assertion that abortions should be legally accessible to all, and at the ultimate decision of the person having the abortion; however I do also think the parents should be informed that the child is having the abortion. This is all linked in to the nature of being a legal guardian/dependant and again, I will be dealing with and backing this up in a later post, I just wanted to make that clear now.) But anyway, what I actually wanted to get at with this is the assertion by “pro-life” (I hate those terms and will be dealing with them in the future as well) campaigners that this was a victory for pro-life because if abortions were legal the girl would not have been hospitalised forcing an explanation and the rapist would not have been identified and the girl would still be involved with him.

For starters, the above mentioned insistence that the parents are informed and that the abortion went through official channels would have allowed that anyway without the need to make abortions illegal so declaring it a victory was itself illogical. Anyway what I actually wanting to get at with this is that the pro-life campaigners felt the need to spin this out as a victory or risk losing their standing on the issue. And it is wrong that they have to do that. What should have happened is that pro-life campaigners looked at this issue, stopped to think “wow, our proposal isn't perfect after all, we should reassess where we are coming from and take this in to account when forming our opinions in the future.” Now please note that in no way means they have to stop being pro-life just that they have to take reality in to account. But they can’t do that, because it would mean altering their opinions, and that would be seized by pro-choice supporters and used against them (see, both sides are at fault here). It is so ingrained in our culture that changing an opinion, even by a small amount, is a matter of losing, and that it invalidates your previous arguments, to the extent that people are forced to stick to their overall argument even when it takes them to the ludicrous extent of describing a hospitalising home abortion as a victory. People should be freely able to change their opinions as new evidence and opposing opinions are bought to their attention, in fact, not ‘able to’, but applauded for doing so. Dogmatically sticking to either one side or the other helps no one and brings us no closer to a resolution. 

Case 2: Climate Change: If any uncertainty or altering of position is shown by scientists looking at climate change then it is immediately seized by climate change deniers as a validation of their opinion. Unfortunately for the scientists who are just trying to get at the truth of the matter regardless of the political ramifications, this means that they feel pressured not to admit to conflicting peer reviews, to hide evidence that goes against current models even if it in no way invalidates climate change, they find themselves unable to question and review their own hypotheses, to draw conclusions from experimental data, in short, they are unable to follow any semblance of the scientific method for fear that any discrepancies with the current model will be used against them to convince the public that climate change deniers are right, even if the scientist know themselves that these discrepancies in no way show that to be the case. (The scientific method being immensely awesome and a brilliant system for assessing pretty much anything which I will again be covering in more detail in the future.) So again, the cultural view that a change of opinion is a failure of the opinion holder is causing real problems because we refuse to accept that changing opinions is a natural and useful thing that should be expected of any reasonable and sensible thinker.

Case 3: Creationism vs. Evolution, a topic I could talk a lot more about and at some point intend to do so. All I want to say here is similar to that in Case 2, any instance of uncertainty of a change of opinion on the part of evolutionary scientists when new evidence is discovered is instantly seized by creationists as proof that they are right. Once again, the change of opinion never actually validates the creationist’s point and is just the scientific method in action, but it is still used to wrongly convince people of their unsupported arguments. And why are they successful in doing this? Because as I keep saying we are still living in a world where a change of opinion is equated with the opinion holder being wrong and the other party being correct.  

And this is why I will be happy to change my opinions as necessary upon the analysis of any new views, evidence or arguments presented to me. And why I will in no way feel obliged to limit myself to agreeing with or standing by previous views I have expressed on here or anywhere else.