I don’t care — you don’t have to have an opinion about everything

Sometimes I feel like everyone has an opinion about everything. And everyone demands that the other person takes a stand, no matter how complex the subject is. Don’t let it fool you and say more often: I don’t care.

Let’s be honest: How much do you know about the Yemen conflict, genetic engineering, cruises, lady gaga, or the species-appropriate keeping of cats? You may still know about one or two of these topics. But about all of them? Hard to believe.

Let’s assume that this is true for most people. Then how is it that some people judge everything and everyone? Why do we feel compelled to take a stand on such questions when someone asks us about them?

The herd instinct

Everybody knows it: You open Facebook and scroll through your timeline. Suddenly you discover the thread of a good friend with many comments.

Curiously, you click on the post and notice that your friend has spoken about a topic that is being hotly debated everywhere. The comments can be assigned to two camps: One group disagrees with your friend’s opinion, and the other defends him.

The more comments are added, the rougher the tone becomes. Initial insults are exchanged. One declares the other either stupid, naive or radical. You notice that both sides somehow seem to have good arguments, but you can’t judge them because you know absolutely nothing about this topic.

So you close the thread and deal with something else. A few minutes later, you get a push notification when a friend has tagged you in a post. You click on the message and end up in the thread you just left.

Your friend’s friends will call their troops together to win the opinion of the thread, and you will be asked to express yourself.

But you don’t have an opinion? What now?

The first reflex is usually to join the opinion of your circle of friends and take sides for their opinion. But then you must defend your supposed opinion immediately against the other group because they will attack you.

At this point, it becomes unpleasant, because you have no idea how to defend your alleged opinion. You don’t know the facts, and you have never dealt with them. All you can do now is defame your opponents and react emotionally or arrogantly.

Now you are in the middle of a conflict you never wanted to have anything to do with. The herd instinct has lured you into this trap, and you don’t know how to get out.

It would have been better if you had not expressed yourself from the beginning.

How to escape the herd instinct

In the above example, the mistake was to react at all. Of course, you could have participated in the discussion and said that you didn’t have an opinion on the subject, but that would have caused other problems for you.

In this case, you might have been attacked by both your friends and your friends’ opponents. Some would have asked you why you didn’t support them. It is obvious that the others are idiots.

The opponents, on the other hand, would have made fun of you or would have had the intention of pulling you to their side. You could have only lost anyway.

Instead, you could have seen the push notification and told yourself: I don’t care. Nobody would have noticed that you didn’t react. The participants would be much too busy with their discussion to continually check whether you have already answered.

The next day nobody remembers this thread anyway and even less that you didn’t participate.

Dogmatism

Are you one of those people who always think they know everything? I understand that you need to share your knowledge with the world, no matter how rudimentary it may be. You have already read something on every subject, so you can also form an opinion on it. Right? Wrong!

A well-founded opinion should be based on more than a newspaper article or blog post. Do you know the arguments of the opposite side? How can you refute them? What data and facts are available? These are all questions you should be able to answer if you think you need to comment on a topic.

Being well informed is exhausting, not a question. That is why there is a great temptation to rely on your gut feeling rather than on facts.

If an opinion feels right to you, you think you can rely on it, but that can be deceptive.

Why do you stress yourself out to be a part of everything? That’s exhausting.

How to escape dogmatism

Question yourself before you get into a discussion. Do I know enough about the topic? Do I advance the debate when I appear? Is my opinion based on facts, or do I only feel that I am right? If the latter is the case, you should consider that you might also be wrong.

So lean back more often and tell yourself: I don’t care. Nobody likes smart-arse people who want to have a say everywhere without having a clue. Don’t be one of them.

You have the right not to have an opinion.

Sometimes a topic seems to be so crucial that you absolutely have to have an opinion about it. But of such issues, there are infinitely many.

Climate change, the global economy, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, child-raising, international politics, disease control, and a thousand other fundamental issues dominate our daily lives and influence the future of all of us.

Nevertheless, not everyone can know everything. You can try to learn more about these things and make up your mind to form an opinion on them, but as long as you don’t know enough to make a judgment, you can be without judgment.

No one can force you to take a stand if you are not ready to do so.

You too should not put yourself under pressure. Silence and reflection are not weaknesses. They are virtues. And even if, after long consideration, you realize that you really don’t care about a specific topic, then that’s your right.

And good advice at the end: Always remember what Dirty Harry said in “The Dead Pool”:

“Opinions are like assholes; everybody has one.”

Remind me of new articles

suscribe here http://bit.ly/ReneJunge

Read also: