Opinion-making

Everyone has an opinion about almost anything, and it’s good that we foster this attitude and habit, for it can mean one is trying to contribute something to society. Obviously, everyone has to realize that opinion-making has its standards and requirements that should be met as strictly as possible.

 At the very least, opinions give everybody else an idea of how one thinks and feels with respect to an issue. They give us a picture of the situations and predicaments of people, since these get reflected in their views. In the end, they can give us a good reading of a society’s pulse and culture.

 For this reason, we should encourage everyone to express their opinions and teaching them how to do it. With our new technologies, this concern should not be hard to attend to.

 We should make the mentality of not making any opinion or keeping our views to ourselves a thing of the past. We need to be more participative of our society’s developments. Government and other institutions, like the media, should build up the appropriate structures and mechanisms to foster opinion-making.

 For sure, there are instances when we need to be silent for a while. Prudence and discretion require that. But in normal circumstances, we should be quite free to say what we think and feel toward a particular issue. Our life, both personal and social, is so dynamic we just cannot keep its developments in total silence.

 We just have to make sure that the views and opinions are expressed with due sense of responsibility. They should be meant to uphold the common good and not just to reinforce one’s individuality or showcase one’s talents and other advantages through wealth and power, an exercise of lording it over others.

 Precisely because of that, these views and opinions should be preceded with due study and reflection, considering the different aspects involved and anticipating also the positions and points of view of others. Our views can never be one-way streets, unilateral in character or isolated in a vacuum.

 In fact, we should welcome reactions and responses from others, no matter how different and even in conflict they may be with ours, as long as these too are done with due study and reflection, and with sincere intention to contribute to the common good.

 Thus, we need to understand that opinion-making has to be firmly anchored on God, the source of all good things. We need to know and follow his commandments, his will, designs and ways, since it’s in these where we can ultimately find the elements of the genuine common good for us.

 We just cannot follow our own ideas, without relating these ideas to God. No matter how brilliant they may look and sound to us, if they are not based on God’s will, they are bound to give trouble to us sooner or later.

 Views and opinions not inspired by God’s love would most likely be contaminated with envy, hatred, greed, pride, vanity, and these have no other effect than discord and division. As St. James said, “For where envying and contention is, there is inconstancy and every evil work.” (3,16)

 It’s when opinion-making is infused with a religious sense, with a clear reference to God’s designs, no matter how mysterious these may be, that we can have a better chance of serving the cause of objectivity and fairness better.

 Our views would be respectful of the those of others. We can practice restraint, moderation and courtesy, and avoid falling into the pit of bitter zeal. We can develop broadmindedness and shun rash judgments and undue biases. And when we commit mistakes, it would be much easier to rectify. The autonomy we enjoy in exercising our freedom of expression should never be understood as putting God aside in forming our views and opinions. If anything at all, that autonomy should make us feel more urged to go to God, to pray and ask for enlightenment, so that even in the midst of many legitimate and even conflicting opinions, we can still manage to serve the common good while respecting everybody.

 That is why, professional opinion-makers, who express their views in public, should consider the importance of prayer and contemplation when they do their job. They have to realize that they are accountable before God and men for every word they make.

Theirs is a very delicate job. They should avoid knee-jerk reactions and reckless shooting from the hip. They also have to clear up the air when it gets dirtied due to unavoidable conflicts.