Thinking About Arguments

First of all, I would just like to thank Molly for providing a thoughtful and substantial response to the question I posed in my previous post. As for the rest of you: what are you waiting for? Get on the ball!

I have a new observation to make today, which is also about arguments, but not gender this time. Something I've noticed and been thinking about lately is that in my classes and just in general, people seem to be scared to voice their opinions about things, especially important world issues. My professor asked us in class recently why that is, and I couldn't think of an answer at the time. However, now that I've given it more thought, I've come up with a theory.

First of all, I think the question is actually misleading. To say that people are scared to voice their opinion would assume that people even have an opinion in the first place, and I don't think that's a safe assumption to make. It seems like a lot of people are apathetic or confused or ambivalent about many of the issues, and they don't formulate an opinion one way or another. So the question then becomes, instead of why are they scared to voice their opinion, why do they not have an opinion?

I think it's partly due to the failure of our education system, but moreso than that, I think the media gets a big chunk of the blame for this one, mainly in the way argument is presented on talk shows, news shows, etc. If you flip through the channels every now and then, you're bound to see people yelling at each other and really "fighting" with their words. They get emotional and upset, and often even resort to name-calling and insults. Let me ask this: have you ever met someone who talks a lot, and very loudly and assertively, and you rarely say anything to them because you simply don't feel like raising your voice to talk over them. I think this is what a lot of my generation is like. Everyone we see on TV has their snotty, stinky, loud opinion, and they're yelling it at us, and we just don't feel like thinking over the noise, so we turn our backs instead. It's not that we truly don't care what's going on in the world, it's just that the forum in which people express their opinions about those things is like nails on a chalkboard to our ears.

I don't know, what do you think? I'm mainly thinking about this for myself, trying to figure out why I've been so apathetic about politics and global issues for the majority of my life. And I'm not trying to fix all the blame onto something else. I blame myself, too. But I'm thinking that maybe the reason why I struggle to form opinions about such things is partly that I've rarely had a good way to do it modeled to me. Maybe.

~Ken, Born of Fire