We give an opinion on a topic. We get indignant, we argue, we get sick, we become effervescent, ruthless, exultant. Opinion, my opinion, your opinion, opinions enjoy good press today: in the literal sense (the press, the mass media, are based on the concept of free opinion) and in the figurative ("well, that's my opinion. .. you have yours, and both are fine, we respect each other ", simulation of a statement that we hear ad nauseam in any corner of the neighborhood).
The sophists (5th century BC) proposed something similar: there are no truths, there are opinions, and the opinion that wins is the one that is best said. In other words, the sophists did not seek the truth - they did not believe in it - but rather sought to win, win, impose one opinion on the other, at all costs, by any means, with all the devices of language: omission, lies. , the obscurantism, the beautiful saying.
These guys "finished the f*ck up" when Socrates arrived. This philosopher fought them for heaven and earth. Why? Because for Socrates the truth did exist, he did not believe in the importance of opinions, everyone could speak, but we did not have to tolerate unfounded opinions, that is, little words that come out of someone's mouth for the mere fact of having vocal cords, tongue, teeth, and air in the lungs (and the language proficiency that only being born in a certain territory cost him).
Socrates was looking for the truth, for that he analyzed (analyze: disassemble, disassemble a speech into smaller units) the opinions of the sophists and crumbled them, reached their core and once there he demonstrated that their opinions were dead paper.
Our time - beloved daughter of the revolutions that ended the monarchies and installed the republics under the banner of freedom - is characterized by a hyperbolic defense of opinion. That is, our age is NOT Socratic at all: we cry out for the sophists, we acclaim the sophists, we are sophists, we admire sophist journalists, sophist friends, sophist lovers, sophist taxi drivers, sophist politicians. Our time will be remembered as a time of reappearance of sophistry: we do not care about the truth, we do not believe in the truth, we care to win in conversations, we care to think that we think: it does not matter to think, it is important to pretend that we think. Why? Because another of the essential characteristics of our time is that we disdain the essence and devour the appearance: a single example: we choose the largest and reddest tomato in the greengrocer, we get home, cut it in the middle and discover that its interior is white: tomato hyper transgenic, but we do not care (its essence) but its appearance (it looks like a good tomato).
Yes, exactly: the famous distinction between doxa (opinion) and episteme (knowledge). We are a lazy race for the episteme, but who drink insatiably from the source of the doxa. Due to laziness, comfort, lack of time and -in many cases- bad faith.
We think that we think, I myself at this moment think that I think, and perhaps all this is nothing but a ridiculous invalidity of reason with the appearance of truth. Because thinking is fucked up, back fucked up, super fucked up. Our reason is shaped by language (something exogenous to us), by books (something exogenous to us), by movies (exogenous), by friendships (exogenous), all our thinking is the result of an extraordinary combination of facts , conversations, knowledge, opinions exogenous to us. The immense mass of opinions that we see every day are not ours, we believe they are ours, and they are not. That is why Descartes will always be the figure of the legitimate thinker: to doubt everything, to have enough ovaries and testicles to be left alone in front of ourselves, alone, alone to think and dare to walk blindly through the doxa until we reach the land of the episteme.
But, of course, the doxa is more comfortable. Obviously it is more comfortable, it is more at hand: it is enough for me to repeat what the newscast said, what a friend said, what a neighbor told me: because we are sophists, we express our opinions not to contribute to truths but to overcome, socially impose a idea. It does not matter if that idea is true or a lie, because the truth does not matter: opinion matters.
Freedom of opinion is the great workhorse of the ignorant: ignorant in the good sense of the word, that is, in the humble sense of the word: we are all ignorant because we all do not know something.
