Is everyone really entitled to their own opinion?

Tobold posted an interesting blog post today about the everlasting controversy over whether or not bloggers are considered journalists and to what standards bloggers should be held, I highly suggest reading it to anyone interested in blogging. I'm more interested in something he mentioned offhandedly in his blog, in which he was able to put into words a concept which I've had a hard time explaining recently. He said, "By definition for opinions there is no absolute truth, an opinion can't be right or wrong (although the arguments supporting an opinion can be)."

Many people, when I tell them that their opinion is wrong, attempt to make the argument as stated in the first part of Tobold's statement, that an opinion by definition cannot be right or wrong. The problem with this thinking is exactly as he so eloquently put it in the second part, if the arguments supporting an opinion are false that invalidates that opinion as something that should taken for consideration. Someone may hold the opinion that automobiles are operated by hard-working gnomes under the hood that take directions from the driver's interaction with the steering wheel and pedals but the premises for that opinion are demonstrably false, invalidating the opinion as well. Well, what is my point?

My point is that oftentimes the media treats two sides of an argument equally because both sides are "just opinions" and opinions cannot be false. The problem with this kind of reporting is that, in many instances, one or both of the opinions are based on premises that can be proven false beyond any doubt and yet they are still often reported on as if the opinion remains valid in some way; as if a rational person with evidence may hold that point of view without contradicting reality. This kind of reporting is passed off in every major media outlet as well-balanced and accurate, however never addresses the factual problems inherent in the opinions at the base of the argument. The media needs to acknowledge when there are factual contradictions behind an opinion and stop reporting it versus an opposing idea as if they were equals. They are not and treating them so is as dishonest as the people coming up with these opinions.

Creating a New View of Reality

History is truly a discipline unlike any other. History is simultaneously limited by it's exclusive attention to the past and unlimited in its use of, and application to, every other discipline. Though it is unique in this way, history is a discipline that shares much in common with others in purpose and methodology, making ample use of the similarities and differences alike, allowing historians to create a comprehensive picture of the past. John Lewis Gaddis said, “We know the future only by the past we project into it. History, in this sense, is all we know.”1 Only through history can society gain the perspective needed in order to make informed decisions about the future.

History shares much in purpose with other disciplines, its defining purpose being it's exclusive dealing with the past. One of the main purposes of history is shared with the field of geography in its representative qualities. “History, like cartography, is necessarily a representation of reality. It's not reality itself.”2 While geographers represent places in space through the use of maps and other geographical tools, historians represent events in time using generalizations and narratives. Anthropology shares this purpose with history as well in that, “They act as mediators between different worlds, seeking to do justice to the other world while speaking to their own, much as historians do.”3 Like historians do not recreate the past, the anthropologist's job is not to recreate the societies and peoples that they study, but instead to give a thorough representation of them.

History also shares a purpose with many other disciplines in creating accounts of existence, giving the field a direct tie to that of philosophy. “Since philosophy explicates thought processes, it has a great deal to say about how historians fashion arguments, the sorts of explanations they offer, their assumptions about how the past can be known, their models of causality, and so on... Like sociology and anthropology, philosophy offers general accounts of human existence.”4 While philosophy is an attempt at explaining a range of subjects, history attempts to create an explanation of the past. Social Science shares in this explanatory purpose in its attempts to explain the structures and behavior of societies, “Marx continues to be of interest, less so because of his failed predictions than for his analysis of the structure of power in capitalist societies and his comprehensive view of the close interrelationship of economic class dominance, political power, and ideology.”5 Anthropology also finds common purpose in its attempts to explain human activity. Clifford Geertz created his own account of human existence in his attempt to explain Balinese society through the lens of the cock-fight, saying, “As much of America surfaces in a ball park, on a golf links, at a race track, or around a poker table, much of Bali surfaces in a cock ring. For it is only apparently cocks that are fighting there. Actually it is men.”6

In addition to these roles, “Part of the historian's task is... to demonstrate that what is was not always so in the past and therefore need not be so in the future. The historian must be, in this sense, a social critic.”7 W.E.B. DuBois is a perfect display of this purpose in the field of Social Science, “In keeping with the reformist ethos of the time, DuBois believed in the utility of scientific research in the solution of outstanding social problems.”8 This purpose is also apparent in economics as shown by Joseph E. Stiglitz in Making Globalization Work as he asked, “How can we take the economic forces of globalization – which have so far been injurious to the environment – and make them work to preserve it?”9 Geography too may play the role of social critic at times as shown by David Harvey, who worried that, “The geographical ignorance that arises out of the fetishism of commodities is in itself cause for concern. The spacial range of our own individual experience of procuring commodities in the market place bears no relationship to the spatial range over which the commodities themselves are produced.”10

In addition to purpose, history also shares many of its methods with other disciplines. One of the key historical methods is the use of theories from many other fields in explaining a historical event. “History is eclectic, hence the range of its debts and the complexity of its relations with other disciplines. Sometimes these are to be understood in terms of the use of theories; indeed 'theory' can be a useful concept for clarifying relations between disciplines.”11 No field shares this trait with history as much as geography does, as it is also, “Rather eclectic, and to the extent it has theories, these are shared with other fields, such as climatology, economics and other social sciences.”12 History also shares with geography the ability to distort space and time to suit the purposes of understanding. Just as geographers can compare different landscapes of their choice, “Historians have the capacity for selectivity, simultaneity, and the shifting of scale: they can select from the cacophony of events what they think is really important; they can be in several times and places at once; and they can zoom in and out between macroscopic and microscopic levels of analysis.”13

When there is no way to reproduce a scientific experiment in a lab setting the only tool left is one that historians have always had to make use of, deductive reasoning. “It's here that the methods of historians and scientists – at least those scientists for whom reproducibility cannot take place in the laboratory – rough coincide. For historians too start with surviving structures, whether they be archives, artifacts, or even memories. They then deduce the processes that produced them.”14 History also benefits from other tools that many disciplines commonly make use of, the most obvious of these being the creation of theory and generalizations. In the process of writing narratives historians cannot but help making generalizations, while theory can be extremely useful in providing an explanation for the causes of historical events. Many sociological theories, such as Marx's theory about the mode of production,15 Weber's iron cage,16 or DuBois' Veil,17 are directly applicable to historical events largely because the authors of these theories were using a historical approach, bringing together varying interdependent variables from the past to explain the social structures of their times.

With all of the tools that history shares with other disciplines there is one that is completely unavailable to historians, that being hands-on research. The historian's subject lies in the past, ensuring that they may never experience it first-hand as W.E.B. DuBois could with his. “Without research assistants, DuBois conducted a door-to-door survey to get at the facts about the economic , social, religious, and familial life of the inhabitants of the Seventh Ward, in the hope of dispelling the myths and fantasies that circulated in the white community.”18 Historians cannot walk among the people they study as Geertz and his wife had, “On the established anthropological principle, When in Rome, my wife and I decided, only slightly less instantaneously than everyone else, that the thing to do was run too.”19 Historians are instead forced to piece together an account of the past with the remnants that are left behind.

There remains one difference in methodology that becomes clear when comparing the methods of social scientists and historians. “It is, most fundamentally, the distinction between a reductionist and an ecological view of reality.”20 Social scientists, for the purpose of forecasting, attempt to reduce a complex event to simplicity, as dealing with an uncountable number of interdependent variables makes such forecasting impossible. “In sociology such a theory would be applied to a number of cases, but a sociologist would be less likely to start with the case study and then apply a mixture of theoretical devices to it, which is precisely what many historians do... They are more likely to look for the rigorous application of a theory, and to find eclecticism sloppy and intellectually unacceptable.”21 The fact that historians avoid forecasting what might happen in the future frees them from the burden of reductionism. They can instead take an ecological approach and apply as many theories with as many interdependent variables to a single event as is necessary to explain it.

Because history is such an eclectic discipline, historians are able to borrow the theories of any other discipline that fit with the event being studied. From the social scientist a historian might borrow, “A Marxian approach to society (which) contained a number of ideas, theories and concepts that could be applied to a wide range of historical cases, as indeed Marx himself applied them. In particular, the analysis of modes of production and their implications, class oppression, revolution, ideology and imperialism were taken up by historians.”22 From political science historians may borrow the case study by Bejarno and Segura, which makes clear the continuing problem of race in the United States through the example of the 2003 race for Louisiana governor.23 One of the most useful fields from which historians have borrowed recently is Anthropology. “Anthropologists developed a number of ideas and concepts that can be used by historians. Ritual, fetish, kinship, magic, possession, symbol, shaman and the gift relationship would all be obvious examples where, even if the concept were not exclusive to anthropology, that field endowed them with a rich significance upon which historians could draw.”24 Our diversity of methods to draw upon is an infinitely useful tool that makes the gathering of historical data that was previously unobtainable possible.

History is a versatile discipline that is at once both unique and applicable to all other fields. Through the study of the past historians reach for many of the same goals as other disciplines while also borrowing many of their tools for its own ends. History combines with the other disciplines in the endless pursuit to explain where the future might take us by providing the answer of where we came from. As different as they all may think of themselves, the practitioners of each discipline all share one basic desire regardless of their field of study. “This is what paleontologists, tailors, and cartographers as well as historians hope for – the product may move those who encounter it to revise their own views so that a new basis for critical judgment emerges, perhaps even a new view of reality itself.”25

A Truer State of Nature

Throughout human history the most advanced minds have occupied themselves with questions about the human condition. Despite the fact that we all continuously live and experience this condition through our waking time on earth, answers to these questions have remained evasive even for the greatest thinkers amongst us. One of the most debated questions along this line of thinking is the question of how to go about creating the best possible human society. Many great human societies have existed throughout our history, however every one of them has been wrought with internal and external problems that have caused a great deal of pain and conflict. The German philosopher, Hegel, described the history of these societies as, “The slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed.” (Hegel, 27) In this discussion many different ways of addressing the question have been attempted however none has accomplished its goal of creating a perfect human society. The largest reason for this failure is a lack of understanding of the state of nature and it's application to our own human nature. The creation of a comprehensive theoretical view of human nature is an important part of building a functioning society however this theory must be based upon the state of nature that has existed in the real world and not a theoretical state of nature as seen by Thomas Hobbes or John Locke. Perhaps once this task has been accomplished the great thinkers of the world can go about creating a more perfect society.

In order to create a more perfect society it is imperative that we understand the concept of human nature, the rules that govern the behaviors of men. Without an understanding of this concept any application of government or attempt at structure is merely arbitrary and without purpose. To implement a structured society one must understand how a subject will be likely to react under such a situation and adjust it to become acceptable to those who will be part of the society. Furthermore, to understand human nature it is equally important to understand how human beings exist in a state of nature. There are differing views on exactly what a state of nature is, however for now we will use the understanding of men such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The latter of these two men described the state of nature as, “A state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.” (Locke, 8) To describe a state of nature that both men would agree upon one would have to remove from Locke's description the notion of possessions due to Hobbes' insistence on the idea that such could not exist in such a state, yet their basic concept of what a state of nature is remains very similar.

Both men went to great lengths to understand the state of nature from a theoretical viewpoint, as it was not especially possible at the time of their writings for them to observe such a situation firsthand. Though their approach was similar, their outcomes in concept were vastly different. In describing the state of nature, Thomas Hobbes said, “In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Hobbes, 186) In contrast to this view, Locke saw the state of nature in a more positive light with, “Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.” (Locke, 15)

Both Hobbes and Locke worked under the supposition that human nature was not a pliable concept, our nature was fixed in one range of possible behaviors and that range could not be changed through any means. Thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Hegel differ from Hobbes and Locke in that they viewed human nature as a changing characteristic of man that was evolving over time. Because human nature changed with time and situation, neither of these men spent a great deal of time discussing the state of nature because it simply did not apply to the current state of human nature. Rousseau said of this that, “The passing from the state of nature to the civil society produces a remarkable change in man; it puts justice as a rule of conduct in the place of instinct, and gives his actions the moral quality they previously lacked. It is only then, when the voice of duty has taken the place of physical impulse, and right that of desire, that man, who has hitherto thought only of himself, finds himself compelled to act on other principles, and to consult his reason rather than study his inclinations.” (Rousseau, 64) On Hegel's part, he felt that human beings were merely agents of a greater force, the Idea, and thus our nature is no more than a manifestation of that. “One may indeed question whether those manifestations of vitality on the part of individuals and peoples in which they seek and satisfy their own purposes are, at the same time, the means and tools of a higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing, which they realize unconsciously.” (Hegel, 31) For these men the state of nature was an inconsequential thing of the past that was no longer important, human beings are no longer affected by it.

Though sharing a view with Hegel that the state of nature was a matter of history, Karl Marx felt that it was necessary to describe that state as a starting point of history. He felt that the state of nature could be looked at as a real event in time and one could learn about the forces that have caused human beings to act in the way we have and bring us to our current situation. As one can imagine his conception of the state of nature was remarkably different from that of Hobbes and Locke, as it was not a theoretical state of being, but instead a historical event. Marx described his contempt of these theoretical concepts saying, “When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing-up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of men. Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever.” (Marx, 48) Marx's view of the state of nature, if thought about appropriately, has a greater value than perhaps even Marx himself considered.

Much in the vein of Marx's thinking, the concept of the state of nature must be redefined, not as a theoretical view of how man would exist without government, but instead how man has lived in the real world with the most minimal amount of government and society possible. Hobbes said of the state of nature, “It may peradventure be thought, there was never such a time, nor condition of warre as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places, where they live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small Families, the concord whereof dependeth on naturall lust, have no government at all; and live at this day in that brutish manner, as I said before.” (Hobbes, 187) Since the time of Hobbes the knowledge of such “savage people” has grown to the point where we understand what their daily lives were composed of and we now know that the simple view that Hobbes had of these groups of people was false. Native Americans, and other groups of supposedly “savage people” often have very complicated social structures that can and have involved many people over large geographical areas. Even ignoring Hobbes' lack of understanding of Native American culture, Hobbes and Locke failed in one very important way in their assumptions about a state of nature.

Through many facets of science, most notably the field of anthropology, it has become possible to obtain a very accurate view of the way that people of the past have lived. One of the things that can be gained from this study is the behavior and lifestyles of our own distant ancestors and that of species close to our own. A characteristic of our primate family of apes is that every species, humans and their ancestors included, live in social groups and that these social groups are composed of individuals who are not directly genetically related to one another. As human beings our social nature is a defining characteristic of our species, without which we could not be called human. Government comes as a natural part of our social nature as well, as Hobbes correctly put it, “Again, men have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deale of griefe) in keeping company, where there is no power able to over-awe them all. For every man looketh that his companion should value him, at the same rate he sets upon himselfe.” (Hobbes, 185) Within groups of people there always arises either a leader whom they will follow or an agreement upon which decisions can be made communally. Whether that takes the form of a tribal chieftain, monarch, council, senate, assembly, etc., government is part of what makes us human.

Because of these facts, it is impossible to separate the human condition from our social nature. Whenever such is done a person's mental state suffers greatly in that it is associated with certain psychological disorders. To attempt to view human beings in a state of nature in which society and government do not exist is to view human beings in a state in which they are not human beings at all. Therefore we must accept that both society and government exist in a state of nature and perhaps that the most appropriate way to view said state of nature is in historical terms as Marx had done.

In addition to the scientific work that must alter the way that we think about the state of nature, the in-depth study of history that has occurred has given us a view of human history in which we are able to get a fairly accurate depiction of the behavior of humans of nearly every culture across the globe. In looking at this accumulation of historical accounts it becomes clear that there is a certain pattern of behavior throughout our history, a certain range of human motivations, desires, and behaviors that have remained the same across all cultures in all parts of the world. Everywhere in all times people are largely motivated by the same things, such as fear, duty, lust, and love. With acquired knowledge of science the range of human capability has changed greatly, however our nature has largely remained the same. It would be wrong to suggest that human nature is static, as it is largely dependent on the society and culture that a person lives in, however the variances in human nature are more geographically and culturally driven rather than a progression to some endpoint. Because of this abundant evidence of our non-linear nature, the works of Rousseau and Hegel, depending on a progressive human nature, must garner a certain amount of skepticism. It would be foolhardy to discount their ideas completely, however their work lacks a level of empirical evidence that should be required for something as important as determining how people should live their lives and exist with one another.

With this new understanding of what should be accounted for in a state of nature many of the conclusions arrived upon by thinkers such as Hobbes and Locke may have been very different, though the value of such focus on the state of nature must be looked at in an appropriate context. The state of nature is merely a simplification whereupon generalizations about our nature can be formulated, however the world we live in is much more complicated than any of these generalizations can account for and when making these generalizations we face the danger of ethnocentric thinking. As important as it is to create a more comprehensive theoretical view of human nature such simplifications can sometimes be misleading and should only be viewed in a larger context. Used in such a context, however, a new exhaustive study into human nature, as Hobbes had done, using the information that we now know about the true state of nature may be the way to creating a more perfect society.

The American Experiment

Most people living inside the United States feel that they are living in a special country unlike any other on earth but most don't have much of an understanding as to why their country is special.
Some would cite our economic success as a nation as our claim to uniqueness, but we're just the current example of this success in a long line of nations who have also achieved unprecedented economic success.
The most common reason that people feel that the United States has a special status is our "freedom". Not many people can really explain what this means and to a large degree in the modern world this isn't really unique either. What are we free to do here in the United States that can't be done in a multitude of other countries around the world? Anyone who can give me one example of a unique freedom we have that can't be found elsewhere gets a free cookie.

Here's the thing. The United States of America most definitely IS special and unique in several ways that we often forget.

First, the United States is unique in that it was not established because of common culture or geographic convenience as has every other country on the planet before it. We have never had a singular common background that has held us together. The foundation of this country was not an accident and it wasn't formed over time. We didn't form a nation in order to fend off the Turks, the British, the French, the Spanish or anyone else. This nation was established on an ideal. (I'll come back to this in a bit)
For this reason it has been possible over the last two and a quarter centuries for people to flock here from around the world and establish a life that they could call their own. They were a part of American culture because American culture was whatever they made it. Though Americans haven't always liked it, an immigrant is able to come to the United States without being an outsider. As soon as they gain citizenship they are as American as anyone else here, regardless of race, culture, or language.

Our second trait that establishes the United States as a truly unique place on earth is that it was established as an experiment of a new kind of political thought. In the 17th and 18th century a flurry of new political ideas appeared in response to a new view of the world that resulted from the scientific revolution. This period of history gave men a new found confidence that they could change the world around them and use science and knowledge to make the world a better place for humankind. I am of course speaking of the Enlightenment, when the great minds of the time felt that they had emerged from the darkness of ignorance and stepped into the light, and through a scientific lens were able to see the world as it really was for the first time.
As exciting as this time was, in which concepts like free will, individual liberty, a social contract for government and very nearly everything else we take for granted in the modern world were first formed, there was very little room for this new liberal ideology to be tested. It remained mostly theory.
The founding fathers of the United States changed that. As educated men, many of them had spent countless hours studying the works of John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Hobbes among others, and with the rebellion against the British government complete they were finally provided with an opportunity to put the ideas of these great minds to test. Constitutional limits on government, checks and balances, equality, and basic inalienable human rights were all ideals that had never been tested before.

The third, and possibly most important, part of the United States that establishes our uniqueness is the source of our rights. According to the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Our rights are the natural, some would say God-given, rights that belong to all men of the world, though throughout human history have been restricted unjustly by governments. By definition our rights are beyond the scope of the government, they come from a higher source and no government could ever have the right to take them from us.
No government before had been established as such; a secular government created for the secular matters of men yet, through its own founding documents, bound by the natural rights given to human beings by a higher power. For the first time the people did not derive permission for their freedoms from the government that ruled them, their rights came from a higher source and the government derived permission to act from those that it governed.

Our uniqueness comes from this experiment. As much as we as Americans have fallen short of our own ideals, those ideals have always been there to guide us along the way, something that no other country before us ever had. The very founding documents of the United States, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as the document that established our separation from European rule, the Declaration of Independence, have served as a means to constantly examine ourselves and our society so that we may continue to better ourselves and perhaps one day live up to the ideals that we had so boldly set out for.
The American experiment had never been tried before and continues to this very day. We live it every day, and that is what makes us special.