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.
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
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 don’t have an opinion about this.
Me neither!
“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.
IDK man.
Of course, it’s okay. Being able to say “I don’t know” is a sign of intelligence in itself.
A huge number of people form opinions based on very limited knowledge, but these opinions then become part of their identity, and they feel compelled to defend them tooth and nail. I think the middle ground here is the idea of “strong opinions, loosely held,” meaning you have an opinion, but you understand it’s based on the best knowledge available at the time. You leave room for new information and allow your opinion to evolve. In fact, most opinions probably should be like that. There are very few views I hold that I feel are almost guaranteed not to change.
The Dunning-Kruger effect plays a big role here. When someone gains a moderate amount of knowledge on a subject, they often feel like they have a good understanding of it. But as they keep learning, they realize just how little they actually know. Uninformed people, by contrast, don’t know what they don’t know. These are the ones who write comments on social media pretending they’ve solved complex issues with simplistic solutions like “just do X,” while completely ignoring all the nuance. When you then try to introduce that nuance, they dig their heels in, taking it as a personal attack rather than a critique of their idea. This happens because they didn’t leave room for new information - they locked in their opinion, made it part of their identity, and threw away the key.
I mean, it’s okay to not have positions on a lot of things. People tend to get upset if the position you’re dithering over is whether they or their loved ones deserve to live or have equal human rights. Most other things, honorable people may differ.
How important is it to educate yourself and ask questions?
Very. Everything is political, and ignorance about politics is a luxury. It allows others to make decisions for you, often ones you wouldn’t choose yourself.
About pineapple pizza? Yes. About Nazis? No.
I think it’s better to be quiet on a matter you don’t understand.
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.
Don’t have an opinion. Have a code of ethics and empathy. That’ll dictate your opinions when they are needed
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.
It depends on what the opinion is on If you don’t have an opinion on whether strawberry or raspberry jam makes no difference
But if it’s something that affects you or people you care about (or people you should care about) and you don’t form an opinion that reflects badly
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.
Yes. I think it’s good not to form opinions about subjects you don’t know much about.
When it comes to voting in an election, it’s possible to make good decisions about candidates without forming opinions about every policy issue. That’s kind of the point of representative democracy.
