It seems that over the past couple months or so, I started having and engaging in more political discussions (on account of the presidential election). When you’re in that space, it feels like you need to have an opinion on every little thing. Geopolitics, taxes, financial policy, etc. How important is it to educate myself and ask questions? Do you feel that pressure to have an opinion on everything?
edit: I don’t think this question is about politics, but if it is, I can delete this.
short answer: yes
long answer: opinions are kind of a privilege. if you’re someone working 9 to 5 you probably couldn’t give a shit about anything other than relaxing and winding down from the stress of a work week. if you’re someone who manages to still be involved, congrats. pushing this unto other people imo is not fair. ideally people would work less and have more free time to get situated with how their surroundings are being legislated
I have a hell of a lot of respect for people who are forthright and just say “You know, I don’t have a lot of experience regarding <subject>, so I don’t think I can weigh in on that”
it amazes me how seldom people are brave enough to admit they don’t know something.
Not having an opinion is MUCH better than sticking to an uninformed opinion with stubborn fervor. Nobody can possibly know everything, so it’s perfectly fine to take time out to research something, or decide that it’s not worth your time and forget about it completely.
Deciding to ignore something that causes people to suffer because it doesn’t affect you is wrong. Not having a set opinion on how to fix it is perfectly normal. Not everyone can understand the details enough to form an informed opinion. Just don’t decide something isn’t a problem because one group says it’s not without real evidence, especially if they’re the ones who created and/or benefit from the problem.
“I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion about this” is an admirable stance to take.
When it’s a cop-out for not wanting to be politically informed, it’s a crappy place to be. It can sound a lot like “I don’t know and I don’t care”.
I’ve often said that in order to redirect a conversation because I don’t like the opinion of the person I’m talking to and not because I’m actually ignorant about the subject.
This happens at work mostly, and I can’t just nuke that bridge with the person because we have to keep being able to work together. I’d like to tell them off for being ignorantly intolerant, but instead it’s more effective to just take away their enthusiasm for whatever they’re talking about. Do it enough times and they’ll eventually find someone else to bother.
That can backfire and then you get a retarTed Talk about how their viewpoint is the right one.
I just say “Bless your heart.” and walk away. Works best when talking to northerners because they don’t know what that means.
I’m in South Carolina, so that wouldn’t work so well here since everyone already knows what that means. I do agree that not giving them the opening to elaborate is key.
I have no opinions on Israel vs Palestine except that it’s bad and I want it to stop because it’s hurting so many people. I don’t understand the conflict or why we should want one side to win over the other. I realize Israel is controversial but I don’t really know why.
I don’t have an opinion about this.
Me neither!
Yes, not having an option on something is fine. when people push you can always whip out “I don’t know enough about the topic to have an opinion.”
And if you want to fuck with conspiracy wackos you add “So I would just refer to experts on the subject if I wanted to learn about it.”
Also an excellent way to end conversation about a controversial topic when needed.
Yeah, I don’t know about that- that could definitely seem like an invitation to " explain" it to you
It’s fine to not have an opinion as long as you aren’t making a decision based on that ignorance
On something, yeah. On everything? No.
I would say it’s better to not have an opinion than to have an uninformed opinion.
Like a kid who has a strong opinion on a food that they’ve never tried. How can you know you don’t like something if you never tried it? Sure.
You could look at the ingredients and if you don’t like anything that goes in it you can assume that you wouldn’t like the end product, but at least some thought went into at that point.
I would argue that if you recognize you lack the knowledge to form an opinion, you’re doing better than 90% of people online.
Certain things are OK to not have a political opinion on. Example: Taxes are complicated and most people don’t understand them; most probably want to pay less of them but do not really need to put their limited political energy to focusing on them.
That applies to most nonpolitical subjects too… most things to have an opinion on like food, movies, music whatever, are generally of little consequence.Things that affect the base existence of large swaths of the population, aka human rights, are not something a living citizen can admit a “don’t care” opinion on. You either want to live free or you don’t, and having no opinion on such is how you end up without the legal right to any opinions…
The key to both is to have a complete information stream before forming any opinion or comitting to not having one. I do a nonzero amount of research even before writing a lot of comments here on Lemmy to make sure my facts are straight, and maybe 40% of the time discover it’s either not worth my time to write, or I was initially wrong and my comment shouldn’t be made.
Everyone thinks they need an opinion on everything until they order a sub from Subway and the server asks if they want 25 or 26 sesame seeds on their buns.
25, I wouldn’t notice the difference but it is more eco friendly.
Or 26, because if I don’t pay extra for the 26th seed, it would be economically irresponsible for me not to take the free sesame seed.
I don’t care whether it’s OK or not
