The thing about opinions is that we are all sure that ours is the best. One way to say "My opinion is the best opinion" is to say "My opinion is not in fact an opinion -- it's the TRUTH!" But that's a side issue.

The whole Activist board is about stating opinions, backing them up with experience and illustration, and listening to others do the same.

There are of course many ways in which this can be done. It can be respectful or it can be cantankerous.

I have long been a proponent of the respectful side, but you notice that I don't come to Activist as much as I used to, and that is in part because the cantankerous side was taking prominence. And, yeah, you know, I lose my temper here and there, as you are well aware.

But to say, "This is the truth" instead of "This is what I think" indicates (I think) an unwillingness to hear anyone else's experience or opinion. Even those who are your ELDERS (nudge, nudge) and who may know better because of greater experience (note that I say "may").

Peace.

If nothing else, at least psychoanalysis provides me with an intelligent, educated interlocutor, especially in these times of mediocre ambitions and pretentious ignoramuses. An era when intelligence is muffled and lifeless, like a limp prick, because the vast majority (we live under the dictatorship of the Vast Majority) live and die without ever using it.

-- Cristina Peri Rossi, "Dostoevsky's Last Night"

~ ~ ~
All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

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='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people