On Opinion, and Mission Statements

This morning, I caught myself thinking about how much I despise the expression ‘In my opinion...’, particularly when it occurs as a statement opener.  The phrase implies nothing but one’s own admission that the case he or she is about to present is wonky at best, and at the very least partially flawed.  In my mind, there are two cases in which the ‘In my opinion...’ qualifier is used; the case in which it does not need to be used in the first place, and the case in which it is being used in an attempt to pressure the reader or listener into accepting even the most nonsensical subsequent proposition as valid. 

Consider, for example, the two statements; ‘In my opinion, we should not slaughter and eat animals’, and ‘In my opinion, the world was created in six days, five thousand years ago’.  The first presents a legitimate view which may be backed by some logical thought and justification, and may in turn lead to a reasonable individual choice of what one consumes and does not consume.  The second, on the other hand, bears stronger witness to the right to be a fool than to the right to have an opinion. 

In the first case, the opinion premise could be altogether omitted, and the statement ‘We should not slaughter and eat animals’ could well stand on its own.  In practice, as long as the vegans do not try to take my steak away, I respect their choice, and I may even come to acknowledge some of their reasons for sticking to tofu.  In the second, the opinion premise is only masking total hogwash.  Whilst vegans may present some points to support their position, one will never be able to present any reasonable point for a history of dinosaurs trotting onto Noah’s ark in fulfilling some divine master plan. 

This fallacious nature of opinion is why I will not be using this space to attempt to form and share my own.  Rather, here I intend to present some insights and knowledge I hope to gather during my time as a doctoral research student in anthropology, doing ethnography in Malta.  I will also seek to share any collateral thoughts that come to me during my journey.  I shall consider this to be a reflexive journal of sorts.  Some reflections will be about mundane current affairs, others about more pressing existential matters.  I shall seek to discuss both as openly as I can, and to keep my writing accessible to a wide audience.     

Whilst my aim is to become a good ethnographer and not a great blogger, I shall give this space as much time as I can afford.  I pledge to try my best at networking, and at welcoming feedback and open discussion from colleagues, students, and men of God alike.

Because supposedly, it helps.