I Know What I Believe

Every now and then I write a blog about some aspect of the way we live today that seems remarkable to me. I have dwelt before on people not being willing to change their minds about things and indeed the people who think that shouting at strangers on Twitter is an effective way to change people’s minds. However, one observation I find myself making frequently these days is that not only must everyone have an opinion on everything, but they must also express that opinion at every opportunity.

Try this scenario and see if you recognise it. You say to someone, ‘I like courgettes’. They reply, ‘I can’t stand courgettes’ and you note that. Then you start to tell them about the incident that happened at the age of five which convinced you that courgettes were the super-green food for you. I am not saying that your conversation is particularly good here, just that this is what you are saying. The other person replies to this with, ‘I can’t stand courgettes’. Why? They have told you already that they do not like courgettes, so why repeat it? You are talking about your own feelings on courgettes, so why do they need to repeat their own opinion? They could assume that you heard them the first time and nod sagely.

I think that the problem is one expressed in a quotation I once shared from Jonathon Carroll. On the one hand, we are told that we are all special and unique individuals and that we must express our individuality at every opportunity. On the other hand, we are told that we must align with certain groups, certain peoples, certain brands and all sorts of other organisations. We must be part of a collective whole. As Mr Carroll (or perhaps the person he was quoting) summed it up – you must be individual, but not too individual. On a small level, this becomes a desire to express a personal opinion at every opportunity.

It is not that there are big incidents that I can describe here, but that makes it all the more annoying. When I was re-decorating a room in my house a couple of years ago, I told someone that I was painting a room green and she replied, ‘I don’t like green’. Hold on, this was my house and my choice of paint and she had never even been to that room (and was unlikely to get an invite after this). Why should it matter to me what she thought about the colour green? Why did she think that it was relevant? She could have at least asked me why green if she was worried about my choice?

Dating is rife with it. Perhaps it is nerves, perhaps it is too many middle-aged people told that they must go out and ‘be themselves’, but you will hear this kind of random opinion expressed on all sorts of things during first dates or speed dating. I should make clear that I am not saying that people should be quiet or not express opinions, just that they should be able to judge the relevance and timing. At its worst, there is a story told to me by a friend of mine of when he was about to have sex with a woman for the first time, she removed his trousers and ... criticised the brand of underwear that he was wearing. Yes, nothing turns me on like a woman being rude about my clothing tastes ... said no man ever.

Rudeness is the word too. Yes, people who recite Monty Python sketches are annoying because they often fail to grasp that what makes comedy funny is timing and delivery as well as writing. However, it is harmless fun for people to share that bond of something they like. I once knew someone who would react to this by saying, ‘I never found Monty Python funny’. Well, good for you, obviously some people do, so there we go. Except that she would then repeat that opinion if anyone tried to continue to quote Monty Python. At that point the repetition starts to suggest ‘I am superior to you and therefore my opinion must be listened to and obeyed’.

I will give you a contrary example. Recently I was talking to a woman about the experience of working in an all-male or all-female environment. We both agreed that any organisation which was run by just one gender suffered for it. Diversity is good, hopefully we are all agreed on that anyway. She then said that she could get on well with men because she ‘thinks like a man’. This is nonsense. There is no ‘male thinking’ and no ‘female thinking’, there is just thinking. I will grant you that social conditioning can make it appear that men and women think differently but it is trained rather than innate.

However, I did not stop her and tell her that she was talking nonsense. She was making a wider point about the organisation that we were discussing and it seemed pointless to stop her on this minor disagreement. I am secure in my beliefs, I do not need to push them on other people to make myself feel better or more confident about them. Here, I think, is the key. What comes across to me as arrogance is actually insecurity. People think that they have to express all their opinions all the time because that is the way to show that they are an individual and that they have ideas of their own. Perhaps they think that it shows that their opinion matters.

I could blame social media for this, but I suspect that all that social media has done is amplify this. In fact, I have a very similar example from the social media age to the example I gave earlier from before the social media age. Last week I was eating my lunch at work in an empty room. Seeing as I would not disturb anyone else, I loaded up YouTube on my phone and left it to play ‘you might like’ suggestions. One of these was a Morecambe & Wise sketch from the 1970s. It was not one I had seen before, but it was typical of its kind – the joke itself is thin (M&W are providing musical accompaniment to a famous singer, Ernie seriously and competently, Eric in such a way as to undermine everything) but it is performed with such skill and timing that it is funny. Something often forgotten about performers of those days was how much they practised – Morecambe & Wise toured their act in between TV shows just to perfect what you see on film. It takes a lot of practice to look spontaneous.

The point of this was that I made the mistake of scrolling down to the Comments section and, of course, someone has written ‘Morecambe & Wise were never funny’. If that person watched the video and did not find it funny, why did they need to comment rather than finding something that they did find funny? What does it add to the video or to anyone’s understanding of comedy that some random YouTube user does not like Morecambe & Wise? It seems like a remarkable level of effort for nothing. At least on TripAdvisor you can claim that you are informing others (though I am reminded of Sandi Toksvig’s claim that the first online review she had of a book that she wrote was, ‘I haven’t read this book but, if I did, I think that it would be the kind of book that I wouldn’t like’).

I repeat that I am not suggesting that people should keep quiet or avoid comment about issues that upset them or where they feel passionately. Things like challenging racism or sexism are important. However, given that no two human beings have the same opinions about everything, then it seems strange that people seem so keen to convert others to their opinions. I am sure that we have all also met the person who thinks that insulting other people’s tastes is a valid way of saying that they disagree.

There is a song from the 1980s by Voice of the Beehive which contains the lines, “I know what I believe / Don’t need to wear it on my sleeve” and I wish that more people had that kind of security and basic politeness. Other people are going to disagree with you, other people are going to have different tastes to you, this does not make them inferior to you, it just makes them different. Enquire about their ideas and their tastes if you want to know more, but think about whether you need to comment. We are always being told how much more communication there is these days, but could we not aim for good quality communication rather than just more of it? That means knowing that sometimes you do not have to tell people your opinion. If you are on the internet, this is far more often than not.

I know what I believe, don’t need to wear it on my sleeve. I would like to have that printed on a t-shirt.