In My Opinion
The American education system really did the country a disservice with how they taught people to write "persuasively" and how to write in a "formal" and "academic" style. I'm sure many people remember being instructed to avoid using phrases such as "I think," "In my opinion," I believe," etc. I personally remember being specifically instructed to state my opinions as if they were fact when writing a persuasive essay or speech for standardized testing.
The thing is, opinions are not facts, and most people struggle to recognize that in multiple harmful ways. "A lie repeated" doesn't just apply to propaganda, it applies to personal beliefs as well. The more people state something as fact, the more they become personally convinced of its truth.
Opinions become statements become truths become foundational aspects of the self.
Its known that attacking someone's beliefs is more likely to entrench them further into those beliefs than to draw them out. An attack on a belief is an attack on the self, and must be defended against. When opinions are treated as truths everything becomes more extreme.
I feel like this is a pretty well understood problem, but it's not the one that inspired this post. This style of writing and thinking contributes dangerously to the spread of misinformation. People don't generally start their posts and comments with "It is my personal belief..." We've been taught that this is redundant; if you didn't believe it, you wouldn't be saying it.
But this isn't occurring in a vacuum. These aren't graded papers. People are reading your opinions, your feelings, presented as fact. Hyperbole and context get lost in the telephone game of retweets, reblogs, and reposts. We are at the most risk when these are things we agree with, things that fit with our world view. We hit like and share and accept the statements made by another as truth.
We lose an aspect of the process that wasn't drilled as heavily as "don't use first person." Every claim and statement made should be backed by a source. Hardly anyone does that, these aren't graded posts after all, and the statement is true isn't it? Isn't that enough?
I'd expect that for many this is an unconscious style of writing, it is habit engrained by years of schooling. While writing this I personally had to be conscious of my phrasing because these are just my thoughts. They are drawn from things I have read and been exposed to over years of life, they are drawn from my experiences. I have no sources, but these thoughts ring true to me.
I could have written this post the way I was taught. That these things are immutable facts, and it is the responsibility of someone else to refute them if they are not. But I don't think that is the way we should interact with others. It's okay to believe things, and to hold to those beliefs strongly. But it's important to be able to change your opinion and way of thinking when faced with contradictory facts, and that is easier when you remember that your beliefs are not by nature guaranteed to be flawless.
