Of opinion and judgment

“Salvation is offered, redemption indeed is promised at a low price of the surrender of your critical faculties.” -Christopher Hitchens to Tony Blair, Munk Debate 2011

AS you may have caught on from reading My Wit’s End, I will keep on coming back to the theme of organized religion and belief systems. It is not so much that I hate religion, it is more in the fact that it keeps people from evolving to their potentials. It is a self-limiting crutch.

A fortnight ago, I had a weird philosophical night of discussion and merlot with fellow columnist Rhona Canoy. Among the many things we talked about was the subject of truths, specifically on the subjectivity of truths.

Of course, Rhona and I were on the opposite sides of the fence on this one. Well, truth be told, I held on my definition of truth until she gave her Yoda-ish logic on the subject matter.

I told her right away that there shouldn’t be versions of any truth. I pointed out to gravity or gravitation as an example of a truth. You cannot possibly argue your way around that truth. It’s not like you can debate away gravity’s attraction to you from all other objects, from atoms to photons, from planets and stars.

She debunked my argument by simply saying that gravity is a scientific law. Laws of physics are hardly debatable after all. Unless, of course, you’re from another plane of the multiverse that we’re all in.

For the purpose of our debate that night, she added, truths are based on the perspective of the observer. Perspective, meaning, it depends on the upbringing and all the biases formed during the formative years. This includes how we are taught how or what to think.

I realized that I inadvertently confused truths to facts. My bad. So, I chose to shut up and listen to what Rhona had to say on “social” truths.

She gave a simple exercise to point this out. She held out her glass of merlot and asked me if we are in agreement that she is, in fact, holding out a glass of merlot. The answer is yes, I agreed. However, I couldn’t be positively sure that what she was looking at from where she was sitting was the same exact thing I was looking at from where I was sitting. Ergo, the void for interpretations of the truth that she was holding a glass of merlot.

The truth that we were talking now is actually malleable.

So, after I picked up my jaw from the floor, I likened this understanding to the difference between opinions and judgments.

All netizens on social media platforms also confuse the two, all the time. We treat opinions and judgments as one and the same. It is not.

On one hand, opinions actually reserve a room for doubt. That is because the observers spew out opinions on any given subject based on the facts they have gathered. So given the limitations of an observer’s access to facts, the observers tend to be open for corrections or realignment to their observations which they present as opinions.

Opinions, although based on facts, are malleable because no can really gather all the facts. Opinions, however, open avenues for discussion because the recipient might have some facts that the observer has left out or was not privy to.

On the other hand, judgments are rigid. Although judgments are also based on facts, there is another variable at play in formulating these. How they were raised to nurture age-old biases also comes into play. In this way, judgments are like the belief systems people have. It may not be supported by hard facts but you grew with it anyway.

Judgment is an opinion hardened by hubris.

I, too, am guilty of this. As I’ve told Rhona that night, I have always kept an open mind and reserve judgment, and so I form opinions. However, it is that hubris that sometimes makes me think of rebuttals while other persons are still presenting their opinions. That is a behavioral tic that I consciously want to wean out from.

After two bottles of merlot, we came to an agreement that critical thinking is key to evolving from our biases and rigid perspectives.

Critical thinking in the sense that one should realize where the observer is coming from. The peripherals in that observer’s life that made them form opinions and judgments. Critical thinking, to me then, is not just limited to scrutinizing the facts on which the judgment is based on but also their perspectives why they formed these.

So, the next time you come across a person with judgments, instead of shutting them out or bashing them, try your earnest to understand where they’re coming from. Take solace in the thought that nobody can really “judge” you into accepting other people’s opinions.