This is my very first diary entry in the blogosphere.
I have enjoyed interacting with some of you in the comments threads over this past week.
But as a diary blogger, I am a virgin. Be gentle with me.
I have a lot of ideas that most people think are false. Yet, when talking with people one on one, in person, many people say to me, "That is just your opinion."
But this is a misuse of the word, 'opinion.'
A proper use of the word is as follows:
On rare occasion, someone gathers a small amount of information on a topic, and feels confused. As this person tries to come up with a tentative theory that would explain this small amount of information, that person may call that theory an impression, or an opinion.
But most of the time, the person calling an idea an 'opinion' is talking about an idea presented by someone else, and is really saying the idea is false.
Clear, simple, narrow, well thought out ideas are usually fundamentally true or fundamentally false. We tend to think in those terms, true or false. We are not in the habit of thinking that a lot of ideas are maybe true, maybe false. If I state an idea that is not widely accepted, I am talking as Copernicus and Galileo were talking 400 years ago. I am stating that the Earth is a ball that spins and travels around the Sun. I know that most people think the ideas I state are false. But popular perception does not make a fact into an opinion.
So, as we blog, as some of you post comments on my essays, if any of you tell me I am presenting opinions that are just not really facts, I will presume you are saying that you think I am just plain wrong.
It would be better, I think, to ask me about sources of information to support the idea. Ask me how much research and thought went into the idea.
But please understand that when I write an idea, I see it as a fact. Please do not dismiss it with the phrase, "That is just your opinion."