In 1854, British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote a book titled, On Liberty.
Here are a couple of quotes:
Popular opinions … are … seldom or never the whole truth. They are part of the truth; … but … disjoined from the truths by which they ought to be accompanied and limited.
. . . .
Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.
. . . .
[T]he opinion which it is attempted to suppress by authority may possibly be true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course deny its truth; but they are not infallible. They have no authority to decide the question for all mankind, and exclude every other person from the means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. Its condemnation may be allowed to rest on this common argument, not the worse for being common.
. . . .
If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
12 angry men. Henry Fonda.
Take care.
Most people are sheep. They follow the crowd, go along to get along, and at the first sign of danger, they panic and run away.
A small but sizable number of people are wolves. These are the dangerous ones who prey upon the sheep. They are cunning, cruel, and always hungry.
The sheepdogs are the ones who keep the wolves at bay. Though they are also dangerous, and have more in common with the wolves than the sheep, they have pledged themselves to protect the sheep at all costs, even their own lives. Firefighters, police, EMTs, soldiers–these are just a few of the sheepdogs.
But without the shepherds, the sheepdogs often do more harm than good.
The shepherds are the leaders. They are the thinkers, the truth tellers, the coaches, the parents, the mentors, and the role models. They are the ones who refuse to follow the herd over the edge of the cliff. They are the ones who rescue the lost sheep and lead the flock to pasture.
The US Constitution was not written for a nation of sheep. It was written for a nation of shepherds, for a nation of sheep can never truly be free.
The flipside of the coin of liberty is responsibility. You cannot have the one without the other. Unfortunately, we Americans have by degrees abdicated this responsibility, to the point where we are now a nation of sheep. Our government is run by parasites and reality TV stars, our police patrol our streets like a military occupation, and our military is constantly creating new enemies and starting new wars. Meanwhile, the wolves run the banks and financial institutions, under the banner of “too big to fail,” enriching their cronies in government as they destroy the value of our dollar.
In medieval Europe, the serfs were bound to the landed estates and worked to enrich their lords. Today, we are bound to our mortgages, credit cards, and student loan debt. Which is worse? At least in medieval times, the lords had feudal obligations to their serfs.
It saddens but doesn’t surprise me that millennials largely reject freedom of speech. They’ve been taught from their birth to be good little sheep. Only a dwindling few are prepared to take the mantle of the shepherds.
DONT TREAD ON ME
Reminds me of Gandhi’s statement, that even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
But then we get back to Pilate’s question: what is truth?
Truth is a full stomach.
Or an empty one.
A rock to the head or a baby in your arms.
Truth is what you live.
Truth is objective reality; everything else is spin.
Popular opinions … are … seldom or never the whole truth. They are part of the truth; … but … disjoined from the truths by which they ought to be accompanied and limited.
Depends on the scope of the issue.
No, it really doesn’t.
+1
The popular opinion that New England won SuperBowl LI is really true. The scope of the issue is the winner of a specific game.
That is not a matter of opinion, but of fact derived from the conventions of the game.
An opinion may be based on fact.
The popular opinion that Atlanta lost SuperBowl LI is really true.
An opinion may be based on fact, but the fact itself is not an opinion.
That New England won and Atlanta lost are not opinions, but facts.
An example of an opinion is that Atlanta had the game in the bag, and New England ought never to have made that comeback and did not deserve to win. That is a matter of personal judgement, and nobody is obliged to agree with it. We are each of us entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.
I should like to know why you are being obtuse on this point. I suspect you’re trolling.
Ages ago in logic class, fact meant a statement that could be true or false–a stipulation, something you went on to verify or test. But I assume the scope of that was argumentation.
“Women are equal to men,” is a fact, but it’s also an opinion. Some would say women are NOT equal to men and offer defenses for their statement. It may in fact be an opinion to some and a fact to others. The scope may be what is under law or the sphere of a religion or a particular culture. Women are not equal to men in X but are equal to men in Y. Scope matters.
That’s cool. So in logic class you had true facts and false facts? Or did it stop being a fact once you had verified it?
Opinions have content. The content may be based on fact.
…or fantasy.
Most commonly, fantasy.