Your opinion sucks and you should be ashamed of it

“All opinions are equally valid, and you shouldn’t shame someone for expressing theirs.”

As a child this is something my parents and teachers told me, in order to teach me that asking questions and debating differences of opinion should be seen as a way to learn from others. This openness to differing views served me well.

It prompted me to ask questions about religion, politics, history, and science, and lead to many hours debating friends, teachers, and anyone who would lend me an ear throughout my school years. This lead to a love for reading and exploring new ideas and discoveries, and even more hours of booze-fuelled debates during my university years which, in turn, lead to several lasting friendships

It also inspired a healthy level of respect for the scientific method and how it has allowed humans to improve their lot in this universe.

Within a few decades we went from being totally at the mercy of our environment and whatever plagues or natural disasters were threatening to wipe us out at any given time, to being able to banish most diseases with a simple jab, communicate instantly with anyone anywhere on the globe, dash across oceans and continents in giant metal tubes, and grow staple foodstuffs all year round.

Humans have never had it this good, and this may be why it’s all going to hell.

We have it so good that we forget we are only two generations removed from a time when the the average life expectancy wasn’t even 50. Our parents’ generation still feared contracting polio and spending their lives confined to an iron lung, while some even lost siblings to diseases which we now cure with a quick dose of antibiotics and a lollipop.

This level of comfort we have attained has allowed people to become so ignorant to the amounts of work and intellectual labour which goes into all our daily conveniences that we now have people who believe it all just magically appeared out of thin air.

We’ve reached an age of anti-intellectualism that would make Pol Pot giddy.

Claiming that all opinions are equally valid has now become something people with uninformed opinions say to make themselves feel better about not having a clue what they’re talking about, while they keep talking and insisting their opinions should hold just as much weight as that of an expert.

It’s an age where people believe the ramblings of whichever tinfoil hat-wearing, conspiracy-spewing YouTuber or TikTok personality the algorithm throws at them, and gobble up any and all misinformation without even questioning the source or the expertise of those disseminating it.

Don’t get me wrong. There have always been conspiracy theorists and lunatics among us. In the past they were dismissed, laughed at, and became the weird guys screaming that the sky is falling, while kids made fun of them.

But things have changed. Tolerance and a relatively more accepting society means these people are now embraced and given positions of prominence in society. Nowadays we applaud and reward the most agnorant.

They have television shows, where they rant against science and facts, with their equally batshit guests. They lead trade unions, and question a potentially life-saving vaccines’ value, and slate it for potentially being “non-organic”, while thousands die of a deadly virus.

Others belong to political parties whose sole raison d’être is the denial of science and reason, who call press conferences where they tell people to rinse the same deadly virus out of their noses with soapy water, and threaten to sue government for not allowing the use of poorly tested treatments.

Hell! They even become presidents.

And as we have seen in the past few months, these people’s detachment from reality becomes even more dangerous when their followers start taking to the streets and demanding that the sane world give in to their whims.

They threaten wars, become walking petri dishes, and even threaten any hope of South Africa catching up with the world in terms of technological advancement, by destroying 5G infrastructure.

My favourite modern-day philosopher George Carlin said: “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that,” and he’d be devastated to know that he’s never been more right.

It’s not too late for mankind though.

All we need to do to turn things around is return to the past, and maybe shed a little of our tolerance.

Let’s stop allowing ignorant cretins to express their opinions unchallenged. Let’s go back to a time when people were afraid to say something ridiculous in public, because they knew they would be mocked and their families shamed for raising them to be such a blithering bumblef**k.

We need to bring back public shaming, and we need to teach young children that no, all opinions aren’t equally valid, and opinions are not equal to facts. Teach them to verify information, and read proper, peer-reviewed science on complex topics, instead of becoming Facebook university researchers.

If someone you love spews some unsubstantiated claptrap, you have a duty to round up a group of children from your neighbourhood, and have them point and laugh at them for an hour or two.

Maybe if we can get it drilled into our kids’ heads that publicly sharing ill-informed and harmful misinformation not only has the potential to hurt society, but also make everyone treat them like the new village imbecile, our kids will have a better chance of navigating this world than some of us currently do.

But that’s just my opinion.

– Douglas Adams: “All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.”

Earl Coetzee

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