Opinions

Opinions

Writing is a good way of forming opinions. Because writing is almost always about something (in a way that other art forms aren’t necessarily), we tend to forget that it has immanent qualities just like other mediums. That is, the very act of writing has ‘content’ and value. Writing things down is not just an aide memoire but an active process of idea formation.

Writing also externalises those opinions – which is good – but we have a habit of putting our names next to them – which is bad, because it undermines their autonomy as ideas and causes us to consider them our property. When we think we own ideas, we think we are being attacked when they are; we ascribe value to them (as possessions) that leads us to flinch when they are damaged by others.

Opinions, like children, should be birthed into the world and left to lead a life of their own. They can be corrupted by the wrong crowd and bitterly attacked by their enemies, but if you raised them well, they can withstand it. And if they’re a reprehensible little fucker then they should die anyway.

Opinions should be as rigorously constructed as sound scientific theories and abandoned as readily as superseded ones.

You are not important, but your opinions are.