Daily Truth May 4, 2022
You have a responsibility to know what you believe in and why you believe it.
As I returned to my computer this morning, after my Tech-free Tuesday hiatus from the world, I opened my inbox and Twitter to find a lot had happened in a day. The top two stories responsible for riling everyone up include the leak of a possible Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and a turnover of 80,000 pages of information by Pfizer. Wow, even in a world of constant news and upset, these were some big ones to unfold while I stepped away for a mere 24 hours. Funny how those two issues happened on the same day but I won’t speculate, dare I be labeled a conspiracy theorist.
As I scrolled headlines and tweets, I was reminded just how little people know about issues to which they attach such strong opinions. Images of women sobbing in the streets over the back alley butcher shops that will now pop up all over America to serve women seeking abortions. I must add, sobbing in the streets over any issue is highly dysfunctional behavior but that’s a topic for another day. While pro-life influencers and Fox news pundits are beating their chests triumphantly claiming this will save the 2362+ babies per day being aborted (yes, that’s the actual number). Neither of these claims by either side are true.
Most people have very little knowledge of how Roe v. Wade impacts abortion rights and I assure you not many spewing opinions have actually read the 1973 decision. If they had, they wouldn’t be making extreme claims. This goes for both those in support of abortion and those against it. It is clear most people take talking points from their respective “side” and forego any responsibility to educate themselves on the issue.
This isn’t only true in terms of hot topics like abortion rights, it’s true in most of our opinions. This has always been the case to some extent but in recent years, this is developing into something extremely destructive to society. Nobody really knows much about anything, yet they claim to know just about everything. Even those who are not posting their opinions on social media are quick to formulate an opinion without much thought. Guilty as charged.
The trouble we face is not a lack of information - check your email inbox for proof of that. It is our lack of education. I’m not talking about formal education, I mean we are not educating ourselves before forming opinions. Ignorance is to be found everywhere.
Some powerful examples are as follows….
A 2020 poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans between 18-39 had no idea 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. 12% of this group had never heard of the Holocaust.
A poll of young British people in 2016 revealed that 50% had never heard of Lenin, while 70% had no idea who Mao was.
On recent events, the lack of knowledge is equally startling…
After the killing of George Floyd, polls were conducted on how many unarmed black men were killed by police officers. The responses varied based on political affiliation, but the answers averaged around 1,000 to 10,000 assumed to be killed. The actual number is 2019 was 10. (Let me be clear, I am in no way downplaying this killing. I am merely pointing out how people lack facts in forming opinions)
Covid misunderstanding was the most remarkable with little to no one realizing that 3x the number of people in San Francisco died of drug overdose in 2020 than died of Covid.
The vast majority of people believed the vaccine had been tested on pregnant women, which it had not.
We were told the vaccine had a 95% efficacy rate, which has now turned out to be 12% with a decline all the way to 1% after 7 days.
These facts matter because they impact our behavior. The more we understand about any given topic, the less we are pulled solely by emotions. The greater the understanding we have of a topic, the more equipped we are to form sensical opinions.
In all of our defense, there is too much information coming at us to know what is true and what is not. Understandable. What is not acceptable is for us to form unwavering opinions without the knowledge to back them up. We have to know something about something for us to rightfully have an opinion. We also need to accept that our opinions are just that, opinions. That does not mean we are always right and it doesn’t mean we are the sole keepers of truth.
One of my favorite quotes, which I have written in my morning prayer journal is by Carl Jung -
“Let no day pass without humbly remembering that everything is yet to be learned.”
This is a keen reminder that we don’t know everything.
Our character is tied to our opinions and how we behave. A lack of personal understanding of what we believe and why we believe it reveals a lack of character. Those with strong character are not easily swayed or manipulated. We have no desire for our thoughts and views to be under the control of one “side” or another.
Whether your politics leans right or left, those people don’t care about your character. They care about adding you to their column of who is right. They want you on their team. They have no regard for whether you are informed in your beliefs or not. Don’t be a pawn to their game. You are a free agent. You have the right and responsibility to make educated opinions for yourself.
We are seeing more and more each day how divisive and destructive this pull to take sides is becoming. People are blindly making medical choices, ethical choices and life altering decisions based upon their political ideation. They are choosing friends and enemies without any understanding of the topic upon which they are siding.
Our government has gone so far as to assign a Mary Poppins-ish singer to police what you should believe and what you should be able to know. This will end tragically for anyone playing this game.
If you know what you believe and why you believe it, you will avoid the pitfalls of people who don’t think through their beliefs. People are fighting to make you their pawns, don’t fall for it. Resist the urge to surrender the power of your beliefs to those who don’t really care what you believe, so long as it is in agreement with them.
Before you solidify an opinion on anything, ask yourself what you really know about the topic. Not what your favorite news source or journalist has to say, but what you actually know about it. I like to use a sort of litmus test on my own opinions by asking, “If I had to discuss this topic with an expert, could I intelligently discuss my position?” I did this recently on the issue of removal of confederate statues. After getting honest with myself, I realized I had formed an opinion based upon a lot of nothing. I knew what my “side” had to say, but I personally didn’t know enough about the time period between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement to form an independent opinion. I read a few books and now I know what I believe and why I believe it.
I’m not telling you to go out and read a dozen books on every topic we are currently being bombarded with. Contrary to popular behavior, it’s ok to say you don’t know or don’t know enough to voice an opinion. In fact, it’s quite admirable to do so.
You don’t have to know everything, but it’s important for you to know enough about what you believe to be able to defend it. We need more educated discussion and less emotionally charged dogma. Our society is hinging upon it.