The Endgame

Newsletter #59 - The age of opinion

Toronto, March 17, 2024

The age of opinion

These days everyone has an opinion on everything—on Kate Middleton, Trump, Trudeau, Gaza, Ukraine, the cost of living, identity politics, gender identity, freedom of speech, you name it. And everyone wants to make certain you know what their opinion is.

Social media is the main megaphone. All day long opinion pours in through internet plumbing. Your inbox is stuffed with newsletters, your Facebook feed is clogged with posts, X oozes misinformation, Instagram rocks, TikToks. The cacophony of opinion is deafening. Many of the views expressed are ill-informed, ill-thought-out and poorly expressed. There is no curation, editing, or serious regulation: The expression of modern opinion is unbridled. The effect on the recipient is a powerful urge to shut out all the noise, even although this runs the risk of eliminating the good with the bad, the melodic with the dissonant. And yet we do not act on our desire to shut out the noise. Our brain circuitry is so degraded that we are compelled to doomscroll into the night.

It's not just social media. Opinions are expressed in many ways, in many forums. The granddaddy of opinion expression is the written statement, generally formal, ponderous, virtue-signalling, often evasive, slippery, meaningless, typically released to an uncaring media. An “open letter” signed by worthies and addressed to no-one in particular (hence “open”) is a version of the written statement. Slogans, flags, posters, stickers, spray paint, and T-shirts are lesser weapons of opinion. All can be deployed in various ways as needed, including on social media. Most are useful in marches and demonstrations.

On some issues not only can you have an opinion, you must have an opinion, no matter what it is. If you don’t have an opinion, you’ll be considered irresponsible, stupid, feckless, cowardly, disengaged. No explicit views on the war in Gaza? Perhaps that means you side with a colonial oppressor and just don’t want to admit it. Or maybe you’re a closet antisemite. Or maybe you don’t care about the misery and suffering of others. Particularly egregious is the pressure put on universities and similar institutions to issue opinion statements about geopolitical issues. It is one thing for a university and similar institutions to have formal positions and rules on, say, freedom of speech, but it’s not their business to have geopolitical views.

In the modern age of opinion, you don’t actually have to know anything about the issue in question. Ron Hassner writes in The Wall Street Journal: “When college students who sympathize with Palestinians chant “From the river to the sea,” do they know what they’re talking about? I hired a survey firm to poll 250 students from a variety of backgrounds across the U.S. Most said they supported the chant, some enthusiastically so (32.8%) and others to a lesser extent (53.2%). But only 47% of the students who embrace the slogan were able to name the river and the sea. Some of the alternative answers were the Nile and the Euphrates, the Caribbean, the Dead Sea (which is a lake) and the Atlantic.” 

But, I hear you say, what about the beauty and importance of a crowded and unfettered town square, an agora where any citizen is free to express his views to anyone who will listen? The freedom, the joy, that there is in that! In the town square opinion is no longer the exclusive domain of an unrepresentative and arrogant elite. Anyone can cry out against any injustice. Let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend. There is merit in this view. But what if the cost is chaos?

Of course, this newsletter is only my opinion.

A few of the comments received from readers of #58 in which I suggested some changes to Medicare

One cynical reader had this to say: “This is a brilliant idea. I'm sure the government of Canada would be able to put this together in a flash. (Might require outsourcing, but tech is our strong suit.)”

Another reader pointed out: “Medicare is a double redistribution - from the rich to the poor and from the healthy to the ill. Your suggestion maintains the first but dilutes the second.”

One reader wrote: “You make it seems as if we had options. Being really sick doesn’t present to the patient options of his choosing. I’m not quarrelling about standards of care, I’m questioning your assumption we have control of the process. Medicine is an art and accurate answers are not certain.”

A reader who is a doctor commented: “There needs to be some incentive not to abuse the system both on the part of the doctor and the patient. I don't think that the current system is sustainable through the baby boomers’ massive increase in utilization which is just beginning. (Not to mention the new approach to work/play balance on the part of the younger generation of physicians.)”

One comment began with a patronising admonition: “I'd suggest staying in your lane. As a guy who has written about social policy for more than half a century [sic], I am afraid that your ideas for 'saving' health care are old hat, have been discussed and tried and are wrong and/or impractical in both theory and practice. First, you need to have a better understanding of health economics...” (For the complete takedown of my old hat ideas, see this reader’s full comment on Substack.) 

And finally, from someone who clearly does understand health economics: “Although I have no religious affiliation I suggest leaving it to St Peter at the Gate to compute our overuse of healthcare.”