Opinions et al

I’ve been pondering how people who consume news from different media seem to have different opinions on the same subject and I just can’t shake the observations of influences by the media. For one, I’m starting to grow a contempt for the TV news. Of course, the news hasn’t always been about just facts. It’s a news story, written by a fellow human being. And such a story can’t be devoid of the writer’s opinions. In that case, the TV doesn’t give the viewer any chance to even ponder over the facts in the news story. The headlines thrusts the opinionated statement in the viewer before one has any chance of gathering the facts and forming a well-informed opinion. I once had a cousin lament about how some people are lazy to attempt any critical analysis and consume data as they come. So, if one has to draw out a well-informed opinion of something, it becomes one’s own responsibility to read extensively, before stating so. There’s no dearth of examples around us, where everybody’s rushing to form opinions in this age, because people are expected to. A recent conversation at the lunch table was,
“Hey! What’s your opinion about <latest hot news topic>?”
“Nothing. Yum… this chicken’s so good”
“Uh?!”
Well, that’s not so bad, since we’re starting to having deep or possibly intellectual conversations, but what doesn’t seem appropriate is the approach itself. Not having an opinion can sometimes be a better stand than an ill-informed one.

But, who has the time to read up extensively to dig deeper and gain a better clarity of things in this age of information? I was once asked if Twitter wasn’t just information overload and remember responding with “‘Tis all about who you follow”. Twitter helps me in identifying people from whose posts, I could get information of relevance to me and different individuals possibly use different tools for the same. And access to information doesn’t make an intellectual! Could somebody be brilliant just by passively reading up everything there, without any critical analysis? Isn’t it all about connecting the dots and patterns, and pulling out the mapped info when required and its application? Now, that’s what we call wisdom. And, while at it, I found this excellent essay by Maria Popova. I shall end thus.

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