The full title of this piece is actually “Intellectual agnosticism: the freedom from opinions and the lost art of saying ‘I don’t know’.” But it’s too long for the interwebs. Go grab a beer, and join me in today’s Sunday sermon.
Have you heard what [person in the news] has done? It’s so [insert opinion here]! I remember during the George Floyd mess, everyone was posting black squares. KJ Apa, the guy who played Archie in the brilliant Riverdale (until it jumped the shark, that is), did not post a black square on his Instagram, and boy, did he hear about it! He was not mister popular at first because he Did Not Comply. This was bad enough in the eyes of the mob, but his reason for not complying was even worse.
“I don’t need to post about my opinions and beliefs in order for them to be real to me.”
– KJ Apa
Wow. That did not go down well, but it did elevate Apa to a contender for Gerry’s Favourite People (I need to do another blog on that one…). But I see Apa’s “don’t need to post” and raise him a “don’t need to have an opinion”.
Okay, look, we’re human. We’re pattern recognisers and we try to find meaning in everything, and we all have preferences. Pepsi or Coke. Fender or Gibson. Nikon or Canon. Choose one! And we do, and we defend that choice as if our very identity rests on it.
See what I did there? No, you probably did not. Read the list again. They are binary choices. I purposefully led you into the logical fallacy of the false binary. The bullshit phrase of “if you are not for us, you’re against us”. Pepsi or Coke? Neither. I prefer Fanta. Or ginger tea. Or beer. Or only the freshest mountain stream infused with the latest nootropic electrolytes pumped by some anonymous YouTube. Fender or Gibson – dude, I’m as musical as cauliflower and won’t know the difference if you smashed me in the shins! Nikon or Canon? Well, Nikon, obviously. Duh.
But here’s the thing. We are under immense social pressure to have an opinion. You must have an opinion. And preferably, the correct one. Your opinions are given to you. There is enormous social pressure to have an opinion, and even the counter-opinion needs to be groupthink-approved. But this is the easy part. Anyone can read between the lines here and see what Gerry is going to say next: screw the masses and their need for the right opinion and counter-opinion; there are third ways, as in the Pepsi vs Coke example. And this would be correct, but only halfway. And as said, this is the easy part.
The hard part? Telling the ego to shut the hell up and not have an opinion. The truth is we are, as a whole, too ignorant on any given topic to have a valid/informed opinion on anything. Throw a dart at the internet, and whatever it lands on, I’m 99.98% convinced neither you nor I would know enough about that topic to have a truly informed opinion. We may know the talking points, the soundbites, the things the talking heads tell us about it, but do we know? Do we really KNOW?
I’ve decoupled from the need to have an opinion. I call this cultivated intellectual agnosticism. I freely acknowledge that I do not have the necessary qualifications to be an economist (the housing bubble), an epidemiologist (Covid), an energy expert (green energy), a foreign policy expert (literally anything happening in the diplomatic world) or just about anything! I’m just Joe Schmoe trying his best to tell his stories, take his photos, and write his books.
Am I perfect in this? Nope. I’m not. I backslide. I took a deep dive in the Russia/Ukraine thing the last few weeks, and… and… and… well, congratulations. I’ve spent several hours trying to unravel that knot, expended vast amounts of energy, and at the end of the day, where did it get me? Yes, I can now have semi-informed and mostly nuanced discussions on the topic, give myself a pat on the back for just how well-informed I am, but at the end of the day, does it make me a better person? A better cook? A better lover? A better friend? A better human? Nope, but my ego just loves the fact that I know more than you, you ignoramus!
Had I spent the same amount of energy on learning something — I dunno; apparently my grammar sucks, let’s do an advanced grammar course. Upgrade my kinbaku skills. Go to the gym and walk a treadmill while — my life would have improved, and my impact on the world would have still been exactly zero. My deep dive into Eastern Bloc realpolitik does not make an iota of difference on the planet, but boy, did I burn a few days finding out! May as well have an opinion on the weather. It makes no difference.
“I don’t know” is liberating. I don’t know sets you free from the opinion mongers, the outrage machine, the need to spend so much fricking time defending positions we actually know so little of. Name your hot topic: self-defence, homelessness, space travel, healthcare, Fender vs Gibson… I don’t know! And you know what, that’s awesome! I like not knowing. I like freeing up space in my mind for things that may actually matter.
Release the need to know, the need to have an opinion. Go take a walk in the garden/city/park. Leave your phone in your pocket, there’s no need to take pictures of anything and post on social media. Take some ayahuasca and discover the secrets of consciousness. Play with the dogs. Go learn something that will materially improve your life. Twenty years from now, I might remember that in 2025, I spent several days going down a rabbit hole to get a nuanced opinion on countries I’ve never been to, and so what? But if I spent the same amount of time and energy drafting a novel, I might have another book on the shelf. And who knows, maybe that would make a difference.
But yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, my opinion, man.
Cover image: Photo by Leeloo The First
