The past few years have been rather contentious, and every subject matter is a trigger point – Covid, Vaccines, Politics of course dominated the discourse. Other subjects like economy, tax policy, security, terror and global issues formed a part. To argue with passion is one thing, to do so with conviction is quite another – especially when one is expressing an opinion and nothing more often. Here is an opinion about opinions.
Everybody has an opinion on everything, but to dissect this, our opinions are shaped by the following.
- Personal Experience
- Reflected Experience
- Subject Matter Knowledge
- Data related to the subject & Information
- Emotion
Personal Experience:
A person in distress can be helped by one who in the eyes of law may be termed a criminal. Politicians, organisations, touch peoples lives differently. There is neither 100% good or bad. Even in a despotic dictatorship there are those who get helped/ benefitted while others suffer.
At another level this experience could be about the helping hand given in success, business, health by a system rather than an individual. One’s experience with the police, government, hospital, college etc can be vastly different from another’s.
Few years back, on a voting day, I noticed a middle-aged lady very distressed as she ran from table to table trying to find her name in the voter list. Venturing to help I found that her name was indeed missing. She then started weeping, as she trudged home with a defeated look. I was intrigued and asked why casting a vote was so crucial. She said she was a widow, lived in a shanty, had an only son, in his 20s, who had worked hard to feed them both. Son got disabled in an accident and the local MLA had helped him get a job, a wheelchair and encouraged them but unfortunately the son finally died. She said she would never be able to pay back the MLA for the help rendered and the least she could do was cast a vote in his favour. While there will be folks who will abuse the same politician, for her, he will always remain her god.
In every case a person who has been helped, benefitted will hesitate to harshly criticise or even oppose their benefactor, government, organisation – even if like I said, judged criminal in the eyes of the other. This is normal human psychology.
Reflected Experience
This is a rehash of what is explained above except that this would be from friends, family who one trusts and who’s experiences also influence our opinions about a person, system or situation.
Subject Matter Knowledge
This is the trickiest one since we are loath to admit that we don’t have subject knowledge. We see Bruce Willis films, we are commandos, we manage the home budget, we are finance ministers, we get elected to the apartment resident’s welfare association, we are political leaders, we are well travelled globally, we are foreign ministers, children in USA, we know how POTUS functions. I am sure you get the drift. Add to this the inane WhatsApp forwards and we have a recipe for disaster.
We often mistake general knowledge for subject matter knowledge. The crucial aspect about subject matter knowledge is NOT about knowing, lets say, the Newtons laws of motion, it’s about understanding its application in everyday life. How many amongst the most educated, well-travelled folks wear a seat belt when sitting in the rear seat of a car? and, tell you that city traffic speeds in India are so low that wearing one doesn’t matter? A vast majority!!!. Obviously, this middle school physics lesson has been lost on them, but they are experts who know the subjects but not the implications.
For the curious, a person weighing 50 kgs, in a car travelling at 20 Km/ hr speed in an accident experiences an impact of about 1,968 Kg force.
Extrapolate this to the big picture issues like tax/ economic/ foreign policy, anti-terrorist operations, riots, crowd control at an event, war, etc and we soon realise how highly ignorant we are of the nuances, the details which actually matter in decisions made by governments and organisations. An Indian Army Captain leads around 120 soldiers and is responsible for their lives. When in some remote jungle he has to take split second life/death decisions, but sitting in our homes we will critique their failure. True honesty in admitting “lack of knowledge” is where I heard a Lt General level officer talking of his experience with a commando. Lying still in a jungle, not making a sound for hours, he was told by the young Captain that if he needed to pee/crap, he just needed to roll over a couple of times, do his job and roll back into position - silently.
Data related to the subject and Information
Lets face it, opinions which drive decisions are made by the amount of data and information one has. Data is NOT information. Data is like knowing Newton’s laws of Physics, Information is knowing that you can get maimed/killed even at 20 Km/hr without a seat belt.
A government/ organisation can have a mountain of data – which is useless, or insufficient data or even be given false data, but rarely ever will have complete data and information that they can rely on 100%. The ability to make an opinion that translates into a decision based on what is presented will need both subject matter experts and those with the experience of having faced a similar situation. Over time to collate and record every single experience, variable and impact on decisions made is data. Juxtaposing that data with the situation on hand creates information and help make informed opinions/ decisions.
As citizens how many can claim to have this level of data/ information/ subject matter experts to judge issues and form opinions ?
Whether a 10% or 18% GST is better is not an opinion based on which is lower. One needs to understand the entire chain of costs across the whole chain of a product till the last molecule. The opinion could then be that 18% is better. One can question whether a Government does such a level of analysis, accurately, but that is a different subject for debate. The point being that one needs such level of data and experts with the ability to convert that to information to form opinions. Not that 10 is lower than 18, so better.
Emotion
This is the minefield which most of us step into. An amalgam of the above variables, an irrational exuberance or anger drives our opinion on most issues. We cover that with rational arguments, little realising, it is our emotions that are driving the opinions. Our ability to introspect, be self-aware, do critical thinking, is in general poor. We get triggered by that last post on X or reel on Instagram. The more well-made it is, the more we fall prey.
Just because there is a demand by some vested interests, popularised on WhatsApp, that tax be 10% instead of 18%, our emotions will make us clamour for 10 and blame the government. We have no data on how the chain operates. If most inputs in the chain are taxed at 18% (which is neither known to us nor do we realise that we don’t know), then taxing that item at 10% means an increase in cost by 8%.
Again, this is not about taxes, government or such, it is that a lot of our opinions are driven by emotions since we want to believe what we want to believe.
Conclusion
In today’s algorithm driven world what we read is driven by what we told the world we want to hear. The world of technology is a ruthless beast. Depending upon what your interest is, it will give you such a dose of it, fake or fact, that you start believing it so totally that it’s scary.
It’s reached a stage where, when someone speaks, every word they say is judged not from what is said, but based on how we have judged them in various ways and we react not based on what was said, but we decided was said/ implied based on our pre-decided judgement.
We no longer form opinions by research, studying, debating etc but one post or 10 seconds of a reel. We are convinced about anything that’s peddled as long as it matches our opinion. We are so convinced that we will fight, argue, break up relationships just because someone else disagrees. When one analyses based on the above parameters it is often 100% emotion, and everything else is tailored to justify the emotion. Anybody disagreeing becomes an enemy.
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