Wednesday, May 11, 2011

My Opinion Doesnt Always Matter

I was hanging out with one of my buddies at his workplace. He was practicing on his brain surgery techniques at the time and he asked me what my opinion was on whether or not he should cut out this particular chunk or not. He pointed at an area of the patients brain that was somewhat discolored compared to the rest of the jelly grey matter.

I had been drifting off, trying to think about, or at least picture, something other than what was going on in front of me. The smell was awful and the sound from the saw was nearly as bad. I was thinking about what kind of cereal I was going to have for breakfast the next day; Frosted Wheat? Fruity Pebbles? Honeycomb? Grape Nuts? When he suddenly turned around and spoke to me, asking my opinion about his procedure it broke me out of my breakfast cereal reverie and brought me back to the stark reality of the drab laboratory.

"My opinion doesn't matter." It was all I could come up with on such short notice.

"Yes it does! Everyone's opinion matters! Your opinion is just as good as anyone else's."

"I disagree bud. I have some strong opinions about a lot of different things but I know nothing about brain jobs."

"Well, I think everyone's opinion matters. We are all human beings with feelings and so we all matter."

The opinions of the ignorant and uninformed aren't only worthless
, they can be damaging. If you are walking around thinking that everyone's opinion matters just as much as another's then why not allow a barber to do diagnose your condition or allow a grocery store bagger to take care of your investments? You see? We must discriminate and we must recognize that not everyone's opinion is equally valid! Man, that just more of that "politically correct" junk!

"Well, I don't know anything about politics and what not but this brain is looking a bit ripe to me."
"What not?" I laughed. That brain was looking a bit ripe to me too and I was ready to get out of there. Not to mention the horrid smell of the lab and the bugs. There were only 2 or 3 of them crawling around but they were nearly 4 inches long!

I patted him on the hump and said, "Come on Igor, let's go hit the tavern before the Doctor gets back in. Hey, wasn't that hump on the other side awhile ago?"

"What hump?"

Opinions are sort of like humps. Sometimes they are right, other times they are left but all mad doctor's assistants have them I reckon.

"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." - Thomas Jefferson

"By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community." - Oscar Wilde

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." - Plato

"Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil." -  Plato

"The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about." - Wayne Dyer


6 comments:

  1. Well said! (and with a very interesting story to boot!) I'd like to add a quote from my favorite funnyman George Carlin..I think it fits. "By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth." And that is what it has become. We are so concerned with being politically correct and making sure things are "said" right, that in the process, we are losing the truth.

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  2. Anonymous - What? I think you may have misunderstood something here. " live my whole life in fear of being ignorant about somethin"? In case you missed it this is "All Wrapped Up In Satire with a Twist of Sarcasm" There is no fear of being ignorant here at all. I am proudly ignorant of many different things.

    Scarygirl67 - and the quote from Carlin fits right in with this. Thanks

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  3. Funny, I remember that frankenstein move... Mel Brooks wasn't it?

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  4. scarygirl 67 - Well said! (and with a very interesting story to boot!) I'd like to add a quote from my favorite funnyman George Carlin..I think it fits. "By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth." And that is what it has become. We are so concerned with being politically correct and making sure things are "said" right, that in the process, we are losing the truth.

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  5. well i wouldnt want to live my whole life in fear of being ignorant about something .dont sweat the small stuff,let it all go...

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  6. Anonymous - Did you really read this post? We are ALL ignorant about much more than we are not. My point is that the opinions of the ignorant and uninformed is worth absolutely ZERO. Many people 'run round' thinking and believing that their opinion is just as important or valid as anyone else's - which is WRONG ;0)

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