People’s Opinions Are Not Their Own
Most people don’t even realize that when it coms to politics and world events, that is to say things to which they are not intimately involved with, that they don’t actually have an opinion. That the thing or idea they espouse to believe is just a regurgitation of what they have been told.
How else do you explain people supporting foreign wars that kill millions of innocent people that they have never met and have never threatened them, fought in a place they have never been to?
How else do you explain why people would so easily agree to shut down their businesses, stay locked inside for months, and allow loved ones to die alone in hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics?
Would it really be the opinion of the average person that this was all ok had the ideas not been shoved down their throat?
The same goes for the love and hatred of certain political figures. How do you explain why so many people hold Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, in such high regard, despite the fact that they have participated in genocide, overthrowing foreign governments, and the relentless bombing of foreign countries.
People hate Russia, China, and Iran, and yet most of these same people have never been to any of these countries (most of them probably don’t even hold a U.S. passport). Most of them have Russian friends, Chinese friends, Persian friends, or have met people from these countries and have never had more than a disagreement with them, and yet they believe, because they’ve been told, that these countries and the people that populate them are bad.
They view these countries as evil and cheer on any talk about destroying them. Whether it is by financial and economic ruin, or through physical aggression. They view it as just and reasonable. And they believe it is an opinion they have formed. It never occurs to them that these countries might just be filled with people similar to the ones they have known in their own lives.
It’s similar to a conversation Jen and I were having during our recent trip to Guatemala. When we told friends and family we were going to Guatemala, many of them said things like “Be careful.” “There’s a lot of crime there.” Which is the same reaction we got when we went to Mexico a year earlier.
We realized that only the people that have never visited these countries say things like “be careful,” “I wouldn’t go there,“ “couldn’t you go somewhere else.” While the people who have been to these places say things like “you’re going to love it.” “Have such a great time!” The former have formed their opinions based on what they see in the media and what they are told. The latter have formed their opinions based on real life experience. Going to a place. Seeing it with their own eyes. Meeting the people.
I don’t really understand what it is about the human psyche that makes people want to stick their neck out for a belief with absolute certainty without actually having firsthand knowledge of it. I don’t understand how people don’t hesitate and question what they are being told, and look back to their real life experiences for the answers.
It feels like the whole world is suffering from amnesia, forgetting how many times in their lives they’ve been lied to, and how many times something they believed to be so absolutely true turned out to be so absolutely false.
It’s so frustrating to live in an age of information surrounded by people who are uninformed and unconscious, and yet hell bent on making “their” opinions heard. People who just accept what they are told, and then repeat it as if it’s facts they’ve uncovered. It’s an insane world to live in.