O.D.D.

Everywhere I look I see people with a bad case of O.D.D. What is this terrifying condition, you ask? It stands for Opinion Dysfunction Disorder, and it lives up to its moniker-it is very odd, and can be infuriating, to anyone that's spent the time to develop their beliefs fully. Please keep in mind: nothing I'm about to say is in the pursuit of being callous or close-minded. This article is in the pursuit of intellectual honesty, reality and general toughness. O.D.D. is something most of us have experienced; rote talking points, character assassination and contradictory thinking being used by someone to defend an idea they don't really have an opinion about. Before we get into that, though, we've got to understand the concept of opinions better.

Everyone gets to have an opinion. Notice I don't say you're "entitled to an opinion". Entitlement would indicate that you get to have one no matter what-with no bar for entry or standards to claim it. The necessary components and requirements to claim to have an opinion, what I call the bar for entry, are important because an opinion looks very different from what, I think, the general public thinks an opinion is. An opinion is simply what you think about something; it's your perspective on a topic of conversation or interest. It sounds simple but, like most things, it’s not. You've got three major pieces to this as I see it. The first is fact, which is the basis for opinions in the form of objective, provable truth. The second is a statement, usually used as an absolute. Sometimes they're generalized and sometimes they're not. Statements are usually referencing an idea or it could be speaking to a larger opinion on a subject, but they're not opinions in and of themselves. While statements come in varying degrees of quality, statements do have a higher tendency to be either poorly developed attempts at opinion or completely undeveloped mind-vomit. Finally, you have opinions: fully formed beliefs built upon fact, morals and personal philosophy. A true opinion is a defendable and discussable belief on a particular issue that someone holds inside of their broader worldview.

For me, for something to be classified as an opinion it has to have a few things:

1) It must have facts, of some type, to support it. I'm not talking what you heard on CNN. I'm talking FACTS. True and verifiable information that you've researched, learned from and used to formulate your perspective. There is nothing wrong with having passion or emotion invested into your opinions to an extent, but a real opinion cannot be purely predicated on an emotional response to a topic. Emotional responses tend to get injected into people's ideas in lieu of fact. Too much emotional, guttural reaction regarding any topic begins to erode the opinion away from reality and into the world of emotion-driven fantasy. Fortunately for all of us, the world doesn't function on our feelings and how we feel about a particular topic changes literally nothing about reality.

2) An opinion must have some level of consistency to it, usually based on some underlying personal philosophy or principle that acts as a moral compass in its construction. This isn't to say that true opinions don't have flaws, but the whole intent behind having an opinion is having a cogent worldview that can guide you in your interactions with a given topic. Because of that, an opinion requires a certain level of consistency and a correlated lack of contradiction.

3) It must have logic; an opinion cannot be an opinion without logic and reason invested into it. In order to exist as a defendable opinion, it cannot function purely on subjective perspective alone. To build an opinion, one must use logic and reason to consider as many ideas as they can and build their belief, based on that work, using their logic and personal philosophy to guide them to a fully formed opinion.

Opinions used to be judged on their merits once constructed. People would listen to each other's thoughts, weigh them against the facts, weigh them against their own opinions and discuss the topic like adults. Now we don't do that. Our society has developed a new disease of intellectual degradation where we assume that just because someone has a half-baked, poorly supported statement tumble out of their mouths that it constitutes an opinion and should be respected as one. In the event the opinion is not "respected", or possibly refuted outright, the person presenting that opinion will usually try to high-road their opponent in some way. They'll character assassinate and, in general, attempt to use the victim card to legitimize whatever stance they’ve chosen to espouse. THIS is Opinion Dysfunction Disorder.

If you want someone to respect what you say, present a pattern of thought that is respectable: clear, well supported, logical and discussable. There are a lot of people in my life I disagree with on a slough of topics. Most of them have opinions I respect. But I don't respect them simply because they let a partially-formed idea roll out of their noisehole. I respect those people's opinions because they're clearly formed, researched and well communicated. These opinions are multiple layers deep. We can dig into them and, when I disagree, we can debate it and that person can explain to me their position.

Now, a lot of you might be saying "I do that!" and you probably do from time to time. But let's get something clear: "I believe in the 2nd amendment" isn't an opinion. It's a statement. The opinion would be why you believe in the 2nd amendment. If you can't dig into the political philosophy and historical underpinning as to why it's such an important piece of our constitution, you don't actually have an opinion. You have an idea, and that idea is "the second amendment is good". While I wouldn't disagree with you, I would say you've got lots of material to work with to fully-form that opinion.

One of the key pieces to having an opinion, before we get too deep, is to understand that to have an opinion you can't just know facts that you can use as defense in discussion on the topic. You need to have thought through the ramifications of what it is you believe. You need to have a personal philosophy-a worldview-that helps you make sure you're not contradictory or fallacious in your thinking. Across all of your opinions, you should (theoretically) be consistent. Since I'm going to use a 2A example, I'll explain it this way. Have you thought through the philosophical and moral implications of use-of-force in self-defense scenarios? How does that jive with your thoughts on the sanctity of life? Do you understand how someone employing true violence against you is a threat to your rights?

Lots of folks have tons of ideas. These ideas, or belief statements, get used synonymously with "their opinion" when they don't actually have a developed opinion at all. Any 2A proponent has seen this phenomenon. The conversation might go something like this:

You: "I believe the 2nd amendment is one of our most important rights." (Opening Statement)

Liberty-hating arms abductor: "You don't need 30 rounds to hunt" (Statement, not opinion)

You: "I disagree. My 2nd amendment wasn't designed for hunting. It was designed to defend a free nation against the tyranny of a ruling class like we defeated in the revolution." (Opinion)

Liberty-hating arms abductor: "The second amendment only applies to militias". (Statement).

You: "That's not entirely right but, assuming it was, the militia was comprised of free citizens like you and me." (Fact)

Liberty-hating arms abductor: "Well all they had then was muskets" (False Statement)

You: "That's actually not correct, either. Firearm technology had come a long way even then, and there were even early versions of full auto weapons at the time the Bill of Rights was written. Don't get me wrong: I don't know that they were mass produced, but you can't say they only had muskets because that's not accurate. Besides, your logic is fallacious. If the 2nd only applies to muskets, the 1st only applies to newspapers." (Opinion)

Liberty-hating arms abductor: "REEEEEE, no you're wrong! You're a Nazi! I hate you!" *insert vampiric hissing here*

See, in today's society, we call them talking points when we're not the ones employing them but our liberty-hating gun monkey would also call their stance their "opinion". It is no such thing, but we've taught ourselves that there is no intellectual effort required to have an opinion because everyone is "entitled" to one. Not only are most of the "opinions' you hear not opinions, but the person using it thinks you're required to respect it-which is layman's terminology for 'accept my premise as true or you're a bad person'. This is O.D.D.

I've seen it on the left and the right. And, to be fair, we've all done it. We've reached a point, though, where we have to understand the danger connected to it. We've watched it turn our civil discourse into uncivil monologues where both sides are only listening to attack because they're not presenting opinions. They're shouting talking points, making statements and trying to "win" via volume. None of those conversations are valuable unless you find them funny (which, let's face it, sometimes they are).

The only way to "win a debate" is to actually...….DEBATE! You can't Jedi mind trick people into agreeing with you. The best you can do is to know as much as you can, and never stop learning about the subjects you're passionate about. Press forward and enhance your understanding of it all. Try to master them. You never will, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Who knows? Maybe you'll come closer than anyone before you.

O.D.D. has got to be stopped. We can't allow these "conversations" to continue the way they have been. We're not communicating with each other, and we're making no headway because of it. On the right, we have a bunch of folks that stopped researching and learning once they figured out what they believed. On the left, we have a gigantic group of toddlers who scream and stamp their feet when someone tells them they're wrong. And both parties are to blame for this issue. The only way out of this mess is through, and unfortunately to get through this we have to start developing real opinions again.

I don't like stupidity, and I like feigned intelligence even less. Period. I'll respect your opinion, but first you have to prove to me you actually have one. I'll leave you with this quote as food for thought:

--Dawg