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Ending The War On Error

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On a recent thread, Bob made the point that there seems to be a contemporary trend for being very very sensitive about criticism of one’s opinions.

In an era where differing points of view have never been available in greater quantity, variety or vapidity, it seems curious that their perceived currency should have multiplied, rather than reduced, but that does rather seem to be where we are just now. Attack the opinion and you attack the author, the two are simply indivisible.

Perhaps it’s a function of the tendency for the ad hom in Internet debating – the impersonal is never more than inches from getting personal. Perhaps being given a platform for our thoughts has give us delusions of grandeur. Perhaps we’re all just narcissistic tossbags who’ve spent too much time navel gazing and expect the world to roll out the red carpet for us and our pathetic musings.

It seems a great shame to me. Very few of my own views are worth getting seriously aggravated over, other than for the sport of heated discussion. They’re just opinions, everyone has them, they don’t mean much to anyone else. Plus, if you’ve an audience of a hundred people, it’s simple Internet maths that at least one will think what you’re saying is The Worst Thing Ever, and hate you until you die. It’s all good.

But what really concerns me is the prospect of an entire generation painting themselves into a corner. Of being required to form instant views on all manner of topics, and then to hold and defend those views forever, no matter how ludicrous they become, how utterly and publicly they’re debunked. Even on this very site, we have Grafeful Dead fans. I’ll say no more.

Changing your mind, or (even sexier) having your mind changed, is one of life’s greatest pleasures. It liberates you from your own dogmas, opens your eyes to new ideas and makes you immediately and viscerally 20% more attractive to your chosen sex. It’s how you experience new stuff, meet new people and avoid the mental rut. It also gives greater substance to those opinions which remain unchanged.

It doesn’t, as common thinking now suggests, denote you as woolly headed, lacking in moral fortitude or indecisive. Rather, it demonstrates that you’re a listener as well as a talker, that you’re adaptable and engaged in a truly honest inner dialogue, and – most of all – that you’re genuinely open to life. Plus, it means you can adopt any opinion you like, safe in the knowledge that if if doesn’t work out, you can always just change it. You’re not marrying the bastard.

Best of all, it means that when you’re online and someone slags off something you’ve just said, you don’t have to let it bother you. Today’s opinion is tomorrow’s chip wrapper, and what do they really know about you anyhoo?

So then, this is a thread to celebrate the alteration of views. A thread on which to tell us about the most notable times you’ve changed your mind, and how that worked out for you.

I’ll start with my own top five:

(i) I genuinely used to believe as a teen that physicality (other than football, natch) was somehow base, and in opposition to the intellect. Gyms were for meatheads, surfing was for fools who would trade valuable book reading time to sit around in cold water. There was nothing you couldn’t learn from reading. Literally a good decade wasted.

(ii) I didn’t think Trump could win.

(iii) I used to believe that Bob Dylan was a genius, and that there were geniuses in pop music. Nowadays, that view seems nonsensical to me. Albert Einstein was a genius – he fundamentally changed the way we view the entire universe. Bob Dylan wrote some pretty great lyrics and tunes.

(iv) I used to believe the Rocky movies were moronic franchise fluff designed to appeal to the worst elements of man. Then I actually watched them and discovered that they’re fantastic stoic parables, full of life wisdom and truth behind the bluster.

(v) I once told a large gathering of friends that I would never have children, on the basis that (as I’m frequently and gleefully reminded): “if children were people, you wouldn’t be friends with them”. Ahem.

There are many, many, many more. I’ve been wrong at least as much as I’ve been right, and goddammit it felt good every damn time.

I would just like to add that in the course of writing this post, I bore witness to the actual Kay Burley taking a massive stack while entering the lobby of a fancy building, ostentatious “please don’t notice me, oh go on then notice me” sunglasses on. I believe this augurs well for the thread’s prospects.

Then again, I may be mistaken…

Over to you.

4

Comments

  2. Back in the 80s I was living in Spain and rejoiced in telling everyone that I knew about how wonderful it was to live in a truly sunny country. I would never return to a cold country like England again.

    Just to prove my point, a few years later I moved to Scandinavia…..

      • Right off target there, Sewer. I discovered the pleasures of bouncy things far later.

        To my amusement and embarrassment, I must report that my great treat in life in those days was the Saturday afternoon roller disco!

        Earth Wind, Fire and Skates! Unbeatable!

  3. Things I’ve changed my mind about:

    God
    What a fucking relief that was, age 15 or so, to realise I could let go of that huge bag of nonsense I’d been given as a child. There’s still a part of me that thinks I’ll burn in hell for eternity for walking away from Jesus, but that’s only because the shit they feed you as a kid never really leaves your system. If I get to the pearly gates and my name ain’t on the list, fair cop. I’m not sure I want to spend eternity with that lot anyway.

    Disco
    As a snarly teen I thought disco sucked. This is because I never really listened to it. Part of the problem was that squares liked it, man. It was overproduced, but underneath the tinsel, oh my god. Off The Wall, everything by Chic, even Stayin’ Alive, which funks like a french cheese if you strip it to the waist – I missed out on 20 years of joyous dancing to those. I’m catching up now, much to everyone’s embarrassment.

    Meat
    I went vegetarian when I was 17 to impress a girl. Unfortunately we ended up staying together for five years. I was whip thin, glossy-coated and absolutely gagging for a burger when she finally left me. I get that cows are killing the Earth, but so are children, and I don’t have any of those. So I get to chomp steak while you breeders bring more hungry mouths to the last crumbs of the feast.

    Trump, Corbyn, Brexit
    Not so much changed my mind as proved wrong in each case, which means the opinions I thought were majority ones were in fact nothing of the sort. That’s what comes from only ever talking to people who agree with you. Isn’t that right, lads?

    • All of these, except the meat. As should be woefully apparent from my Falstaffian, er, jollity, I’ve never met a burger I didn’t want to order another one of.

      I change my mind all the time. About people, about politics, about all sorts. And allsorts (not true; I’ve always loved them).

      I think the main thing that’s changed for me is music, though. I definitely used to have that guitars-are-best attitude as a younger chap, but that strikes me as a really teenage thing. Always find it odd in grown-ups.

  4. I used to hate, I mean really hate, “Country”. Somewhere north of Luton (I am pretty positive Luton is in Alabama?) I tuned into a local radio station “Hi Dunstable, it’s 74 degrees and the sun is hotter than an armadillo’s arse. Before we get to today’s phone-in let’s play something from Nanci Griffith’s One Fair Summer Evening”.. cue scales falling, realisation I was once again Wrong.

  5. A Career in Information Technology

    I was mistaken in thinking it would be interesting and reasonably lucrative. At the moment it’s a trudge through ineptitude and confusion. Both mine and some of those around me. I’m aware that because of it we can do so much and so easily. This very forum as a for instance. But my bit is I’m afraid so very very dull.

    Songs

    Well, yes, I’ve never not liked or appreciated a song. A lyric and a melody together. But for a long time it seemingly had to be guitar-driven, played by a ‘band’ or a ‘named artist’. But now, all I really want is to be moved by the song. Played on whatever sung by Tom Waits or Daniel O’Donnell. If it’s a good SONG, I’ll listen.

    Trump.

    I didn’t think he’d win either. Though, has he? He’s fucking drowning in his own incompetence and swirling venom of the liberal media in America, who are after his balls. Deluded he may be, but he can’t want any of this.

  6. The older you get, the Wronger you realise you are. Admitting as much to yourself is a relief. Admitting it to others (usually younger others) frequently opens you up to ridicule or disdain. Never mind.

    Trump and Brexit though: there is a difference between getting a prediction wrong and simply mulishly (“mulishly,” is that Wrong? Ah, who cares) holding to a position of Wrongidity. Getting that sort of thing wrong doesn’t make you Wrong, just slightly sad.

  7. In the abiding spirit of this thread, can I just say that everything you’ve all written here so far is EXACTLY the kind of moribund bollocks that could only come from the keyboards of moral deviants, tuppeny halfwits and unrepentant pigeon fanciers.

    There…. doesn’t it feel great to read that and not care? Because it’s just, like, your opinions I’m talking about.

    Enjoy that warm glow – it’s reet proper wisdom.

  8. It occurs to me that the way people express and argue opinions online, on any and every subject that catches their passing fancy, does not occur half as readily in any other social context.

  9. Children – I was never going to add to the burden on Mother Earth. I have two adult offspring and they are the greatest joy in my life.

    Marriage – never doing this because clearly it would only perpetuate sexual stereotypes and reinforce patriarchal privilege. I celebrated my 27th wedding anniversary on Friday.

    Management – I was going to be a reporter all my life change the world with the might of my pen. I did a lot of good, but also ended up part-owning a media company.

    Homes – property was theft; not so much these days.

    In old post-punk money I’m what we used to call a sell out.

      • Marriage to this woman has been the greatest thing I have ever done.
        Without her I would never achieved a fraction of a my successes or understood that a family can be joy not pain.
        From what you’ve written before, I predict you’ll be back for round two.

    • I almost added a number six: I once confidently informed a friend that Cristiano Ronaldo “will never have an end product”. Little did I know that one day that would literally be all he would have.

      • I was at Old Trafford to see United v Spurs sometime in the early 90s and a very young Paul Scholes was warming up for the subs’ bench by putting long-range hopefuls over the crossbar.
        I sagely predicted that he could probably expect a moderate career at a mid-table side but he wasn’t going to be good enough for United.

  11. Running.
    Ask me three years ago and I would have said it sounds boring, and basically undoable. With a side order of middle aged bores waxing lyrical about their trainers and GPS devices. Fast forward and I’m fine for a 1 hr 10k, and contemplating a half-marathon next year.

  12. Why do people say “opinions are like arseholes – everyone’s got one” ?
    I have hundreds of opinions and just the one arsehole, last time I looked*.

    Also, I can easily have no opinion about something – I am sure I am not alone in that. So not everyone’s got an opinion.

    Let’s face it, it’s a rubbish saying.

    *I have never looked

  13. Moving to the OP, I changed my mind over music. From scratchy, earnest, tune-free, radical posture late 70s agit-pop to The Land of Make Believe and Hungry Like the Wolf. It was much easier to like a lot more than you dislike. I like most things.

    As a football fan I also decided to stop “hating” other teams and their fans. Waste of energy (my heart wasn’t in it anyway) and sometimes you got punched. I want to say “Heyyy! Isn’t football great?” and hug everyone.

  14. Oh I’ve just remembered a huge thing I changed my mind on: work.

    I spent my twenties and thirties trying to sort of prove I was no longer the indolent slacker I’d been as a teenager. Strive strive strive, I went. Look at me striving!

    Admittedly, as a teacher my striving wasn’t quite the corporate moneybags business that it is for many, but I worked hard to be the best teacher I could be, rose fast, was senior mgt in slightly under 10 years. Always focused, at least in part, on the next step. Once I got there, I looked around and went, “Well. This is awful.”

    It took another 3 years of being miserable, a breakdown and the unrelated end of my marriage to remind me what happiness feels like. Everything ended, and I suddenly realised that – at least when it came to the work thing – I didn’t give a fuck. I’m a lot poorer (and had never been more than “comfortable” anyway because teaching) but I know something about myself now: I don’t want my life to be about the job I do. I like my job a lot, now that I’m just doing the good bit of it, but when it’s done it’s done. I go home. (A major advantage to being senior mgt is that I learned how to spin plates and work fast and well: the actual teaching part of the job hardly encroaches on my non-classroom time at all as a result.)

    For me, at least, work couldn’t be further from the point of my life. It’s a fairly enjoyable way to pay the bills, which leaves me time to actually live. That’s a huge change of mind, and mindset.

  15. 1. Technology. Music….on a computer? A phone that means you can check your emails etc. any time of the day, anywhere? A small device with headphones onto which you can , uhm, ‘download’ your music? Watching a film or TV program on a small screen you can carry around with you? What is this nonsense?

    2. Online communication. Why would you interact online with people you may only tenuously know, and solicit their views and opinions? What’s wrong with face-to-face communication? Which is obviously better.

    3. First impressions of people. I almost always get people wrong and I’m trying to stop having ‘opinions’ about people.

    4. As with others above, political predictions. I used to have a resonably good strike-rate but after Brexit, Trump etc. etc. but….hmmmph.

    5. Marxism, Marxist-Feminism. Look, I was 18.

    Things, opinions and people I initially rail against end up becoming my new favourite things. At the moment it’s tattoos, so I’m starting the countdown until I get a full sleeve.

    • Oh I disagree. I think lots of people really don’t like being contradicted or disagreed with regardless of how it’s done. Very often, perfectly mild or teasing rebuttals are taken as insults. Happens all the time; less on here than elsewhere, but still a lot.

      It seems like answering opinion with fact these days is considered a bit of a dick move, like you’re being unsporting or not quite entering into the spirit. Someone on Twitter (mental) called me a racist the other day for pointing out (when they said the EU march looked pretty white) that demographically so is the UK. I pointed out that the BAME population of these islands is about 13%. He honestly called me a racist and said “you know it’s more like 60”. It was batshit.

      That’s an extreme case, but so many people are so ANGRY about being gainsaid. Nobody wants to be wrong! Being wrong is glorious, once you realise he world isn’t going to end.

  18. For a while in mid to late 80s I was pretty snotty about music. Turned my nose up at chart friendly pop, preferring instead indie – which I viewed as superior and somehow more ‘real.’

    But really all I was doing was denying myself the pleasure of lots of good stuff. Pop music can be utterly joyful and great fun.

  19. Lord Byron once said that opinions were meant to be changed – otherwise, how will we arrive at the truth? I’m pretty flexible, and I’m happy to admit if I know nothing about a topic.

    It’s amazing, and slightly depressing, that due to the sheer amount of information in our lives, we can come to almost define ourselves by what we DON’T like. People say things like, “pineapple on pizza…it’s just wrong.” A moral judgement replacing the aesthetic? Slavery is ‘just wrong’; pizza toppings are between you and your tastebuds.

    I don’t particularly care for Scandinavian Death Metal, but if you like it… fine. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I’m diametrically opposed to it – it’s just not for me.

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