Skip to main content

Year End Musings - An Opinion on Opinions

 

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
Be it the Prime Minister or the Private citizen, none can claim to have all of these on an issue to express an opinion that can be taken as the final word. Nobody is at 100%. Decisions are where our opinions get converted as actions. Decisions are based on a combination of the above which as a sum, we believe to be 100%, which in reality is never true.

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.

Its time to admit that we don’t know what we don’t know.

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

Opinions are driven by all the above factors, in varying degrees and our ability to critically analyse an issue keeping the above in mind before making an opinion is very poor. We believe we are knowledgeable, intelligent, have enough data and information and above all believe that our personal biases (based on experience) don’t exist, and we are making rational, reasoned opinions. When people disagree, our emotions kick in and we start believing the other is intolerant, biased, opinionated, obstinate etc. We seek validation by this urge to change someone’s opinions.

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.

Today it’s a war of narratives out there and thanks to these algorithms, technology will make you believe what you want to convincingly and become delusional. Organisations with pride, proclaim they no longer work from offices. Start ups offer 10-minute delivery and someone shared that an app delivered 122,000 condoms on new years eve. Apart from funny comments, just see the reality. Nobody seems to plan anything or be organised anymore. No more monthly grocery. As and when you run out of something you order it.

We consume so much of information, that we believe everything that’s fed to us. People are becoming like zombies faster than one expected. Kids stay at home so much; their social skills are poor if not non-existent.

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.

The only people laughing are the rich, famous, powerful because they are not stupid by any stretch of imagination. They are creating a modern-day version of slavery except they make you feel you are the most important, intelligent, aware, informed person whose opinion on everything from cosmetics to cosmology is the truth, you are also totally free. Never mind they can shut down your car, bank account, your whole existence itself in a microsecond if you dare disagree with the powers that be.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Very Good, as usual. You are multidimensional personality. Here, you expressed many subjects with nice integration. You rightly mentioned that Jack of all but it will be not be wrong if we update to Master of all.
Vasisht said…
Humbled...Thanks..

Popular posts from this blog

The INDI Alliance has indeed won !!!!

Quite a long time back when I first got the opportunity to sit in a company board meeting, I noticed the Chairman making a strange remark as he opened the board meeting. He used to say something like – “Please unhide your hidden agendas and keep your vested interests outside”. Young, intrigued I finally summoned enough courage to understand this from some other seniors and got a lesson I have never forgotten. He said that be it a person or an organisation, in many a situation, they have a stated intent and a real intent. Meaning that when they approach a situation, they explain what is their intent which would be more popular, acceptable and palatable to the audience but the real intent could well be very different. Most likely the real intent would be self-defeating or unpopular. In this just concluded election for the Lok Sabha we saw this happening in full flow and to my mind the BJP likely missed reading the message. It is not as if I have some inside information but am using log...

The Trump Victory

The Defining Moment in POTUS 2024 Elections Enough and more is being debated and discussed about the victory of Donald Trump in the USA Presidential elections. Here is my take on the issue. Before the elections, one felt that Trump had a chance but given his unpredictable behaviour, was most likely to lose. Further, it was obvious that the left socialist deep state did not want him in the White House. The popular expectation was that the deep state would use the election system to legally rig the vote in favour of the democrats. With Joe Biden as the opponent, his chances were optimistic. Then suddenly Joe Biden nominated Kamala Harris in his place and walked away into the sunset. At that time – she had everything that was perfect based on what we heard/read – Black, Woman, Active proponent of LGBTQ, Abortion etc. Soon the Hollywood glitterati and Silicon Valley corporate honchos officially endorsed her. Given the long line up of big names, a very partial list here, her winning was a f...

Review of Budget 2025 in Advance

A largely facetious, partly serious take on the impending Budget 2025 - stated for tomorrow. For a start, one can print the reactions of the various voices to any budget in bulk and simply rehash it every year. They are so predictable that the only person who can say something different is Shashi Tharoor because he will use new words that make you think he is saying something different. The other would be Suhel Seth. He takes on various people right from correcting their grammar and spellings to his hilarious responses in his trademark style. Unlike Shashi, Suhel uses Shakespearian English to insult the political folks, and they don’t even realise they are being insulted. That said here are a few typical comments that will come from the opposition, and these are a collection since the 80’s when I first heard what a budget was. Obviously in 40+ years nothing has changed, and I share my own comments in italics and red against some of the comments. If any budget is not for development an...