Some Things I Think We Should Stop Saying

and why I think they're dumb

“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion”

This is a weird one to have on the list, because it’s actually true. Assuming you’re not living in some failed state, you really are entitled to have whatever opinion you want, and in most cases you can say it out loud without being arrested.

The problem is, there’s often an extra layer snuck in when people say this. When they say “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” what they really mean is “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion not being criticized. Also, please fuck off”. It’s a full stop on the disagreement, that aims to shut down any further scrutiny.

The idea that we should allow everyone to endorse whatever opinion they want without being scrutinized is silly. There’s are loads of opinions that are obviously false that we should challenge.

1. Murdering for fun is permissible.

2. The Earth is flat.

3. Joe Biden is a lizard from outer space.

The mere fact that someone can have these opinions, doesn’t mean they should have these opinions, and (assuming they’ll listen to reason) it’s worthwhile trying to debunk them.

Another variant of this is “That’s just your opinion”, as if highlighting the fact that some view is an opinion robs it of all it’s value. It implies that the opinion was arrived at arbitrarily, or on a whim - just the sum total of our feelies. But sometimes that’s not the case. A lot of people’s opinions are the result of rigorous thought and evidence, which means they’re worth more than other people’s opinions that aren’t.

Listen to any climate scientist, and they’ll tell you that climate change is real and the result of human activity. This is “just” their opinion - but it’s worth more than the opinion of your conspiracy theorist friend at the pub. This is because they have good reasons for their opinion, and that means we’d be irrational to dismiss them out of hand.

It’s intellectually lazy to demote any view you disagree with to a mere arbitrary opinion, because it absolves you of having to substantiate your own view. We should be able to justify our owns views. If we can’t, maybe the person we disagree with is right.

“You can’t compare X and Y!”

This one is often paired with outrage or scoffing. People have a bad habit of thinking that by comparing two entities, you’re saying that they are identical in every aspect.

Prime example - during Liz Truss’ disastrous time as prime minister, there was a debate on television about her time in charge. (Fun fact: she spent so little time as prime minister, that I forgot her name and had to type “Woman who was Prime Minister for a little bit” into Google). Unfortunately I can’t find the clip, but I remember the conversation.

One member of the panel made the observation that it was very early in her term, and it’s hard to determine if someone is a good leader in such a short span of time. They made the comparison that Winston Churchill was supposedly unpopular in his early time in office. I’m not into political history, but let’s just assume this is true.

Upon hearing this, Piers Morgan exclaimed “Surely you’re not comparing her to Winston Churchill!” and the crowd cheered for him. He then became so erect, the table he was sitting at flipped over, and the gravitational field of his crotch levelled the studio. Like I say, I’m working from memory here, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.

Piers, and the crowd, missed the point. The first panel member was merely using Churchill as an example of a time when someone had low approval early on but later showed themselves to be competent. By doing this, they demonstrated that it’s possible that Liz Truss could eventually show herself to be competent despite having a bad start (It turned out she wasn’t competent, but that’s not relevant. the point was that she could be competent, not that she would be). In order for this comparison to be accurate, this is all that was required to be true.

1. It’s early in Liz Truss’s term and she is unpopular

2. Early in Churchill’s term, he was unpopular

3. Churchill ended up being a competent and popular leader regardless.

That’s it. Nothing else needs to be equated between the two. This is the only similarity that he was trying to point out, but Piers straw manned him for cheap laughs and cheers.

Another example. I once had a conversation with a person about animal rights. He said that attitudes would never change. I highlighted that there have been a lot of moral attitudes that people thought would never change, but in fact did. If you went to the 1800s, people would never have thought that women would earn the right to vote. He was offended and told me not to make the comparison. Again, he missed the point. This was all that needs to be true for my comparison to be valid.

1. People think attitudes on animal rights will never change

2. People thought attitudes on women’s suffrage would never change

3. People’s attitudes on women’s suffrage did in fact change.

These are all true. Accepting these doesn’t commit us to saying that women are animals, or even that they have the same moral value as animals. It also doesn’t commit us to saying the the issues have the same urgency (although, I do happen to think the animal issue really is that urgent). All the comparison points out is the mere fact that people think a moral attitude won’t change, doesn’t mean it in fact won’t. Which is true!

Drawing similarities between two things does not mean you’re saying they are totally identical. It means you’re highlighting one way in which they’re the same. In fact, if we did require that two things were identical before comparing them, there’d be no point ever comparing things. They’d be the same in every aspect. It’d mean we’d only ever be able to compare women’s suffrage to…what? Women’s suffrage? Compare it to itself? What’s the point in that?

“You shouldn’t force your views”

This is somewhat similar to the first one, as they tend to appear at the same point in the conversation - after you’ve said something someone disagrees with, and they don’t like it.

What’s different about this one is it’s normative component. It’s not just that they’re entitled to their opinion, but also you shouldn’t put their view under pressure. Usually, that it’s actually morally wrong to put their view under pressure. There’s two problems with this.

The first is that there are obvious counter examples. There have been loads of occasions where it was not only permissible to put pressure on people’s views, but it was actually morally required. It was morally required that we force our anti fascist views on the Nazis. It was morally required that civil rights activists forced their views on racists. It’s morally required that we kill people if they hold me up because they only start to look in their wallet after they get to the ticket barriers. Any sane person would accept these.

It’s also self defeating. Usually when people say “You shouldn’t force your view”, they aren’t talking about being held up at gunpoint until they agree with someone. They’re saying that other people shouldn’t make arguments (usually because it makes them uncomfortable). The problem is, “You shouldn’t force your views” is itself a view that they’re now forcing onto the other person. What if I don’t think I shouldn’t force my views? You shouldn’t force that view on me!

“We’ve been doing X for hundreds of years!”

I’m not really sure why this is said so much. You’ll make a case that some practice should be changed, and people will appeal to how long the practice has been in place. Why? Bad ideas don’t become good because they’ve been followed for a long time. If anything, the fact that we’ve persisted in ignorance for so long is probably a reason to finally stop.

If we agreed with this point consistently, we would just never progress. There was probably once a caveman who, upon seeing the wheel, proclaimed “but we’ve been carrying shit on our back for hundreds of years!”. Thank god we didn’t listen to him. I gas out very quickly.

“You can’t talk!”

Sometimes if you endorse some view, people will respond by pointing out all the ways in which you fall short of your ideal. Now, it might be the case that their criticism is justified. If we shouldn’t do X, and you’re out there doing X - get your shit together and stop doing X.

However, the wrong move people make is thinking that highlighting your hypocrisy counts against the original claim. Their reasoning is like this.

1. Steve says that we should do X

2. Steve doesn’t do X himself

3. Therefore it’s not true that we should do X

This argument is obviously invalid. Why would one person’s actions hold any bearing on whether we should do X? Sure, maybe Steve is a hypocrite, but sometimes hypocrites are right.

Let’s say I say we shouldn’t punch old ladies - but as it happens, you saw me just that morning throwing the smackdown in a retirement home.

Now, you’d be right to think that I’m a hypocrite (a badass one at that). What you’d be wrong to think is that because I am a hypocrite, I am wrong to say that we shouldn’t punch old ladies. It’s still true that we shouldn’t punch old ladies, even though I’m a hypocrite. When assessing claims, we should evaluate the reasons for and against the view, not get bogged down in whatever behaviour the person endorsing the view happens to engage in.