[MD] Transhumanism

[Matt Kundert]

> I used to disparage it inwardly, every time I saw it.  Of course it's your
> opinion!  Duh!  Everything we write is "our opinion".
> 
> But then I caught myself using it.  And then again.  And then more and
> more.  Is it just a sloppy redundancy or does it have a rhetorical
> justification?  A bit of thinking about "my opinion" as opposed to other
> thought-formulation shows us that our opinions are thoughts that we don't
> assume are shared by others.

> So "in my opinion" is an important rhetorical marker for something where the
> intersubjective agreement is not yet established, but hoped for or sought.

Yes, absolutely.  In what you read, I was isolating the 
remark away from that rhetorical usage (which you'll notice 
I do a lot when I don't have time or proper ability to 
provide justification for claims, another though different 
usage then the one you isolate).  Similar to "I think," which 
we teach kids to avoid in composition, partly for its 
redundancy but mainly because it is a argumentative 
weakener.  Until one learns how to argue forcefully, one 
should avoid it.  After you've learned how to have strong, 
considered opinions, however, it is useful for "I have 
doubts I'm not articulating at this moment."

What I was after in what you read, however, was not 
reducible entirely to the transcendental ego counter of 
"of course it's your opinion, whose else would they be?"  
I remarked ironically that way, but I was after the use 
of that phrase as a weakener, which creates a flattened, 
relativistic world of "nobody's thoughts are any better 
than anyone else's--they are all _just_ opinions."  It's one 
thing to use it rhetorically as you see fit to send signals, 
but it's another when people find it an open and cogent 
response to _anything_ (creating the atmospheric effect 
I tried describing) of saying, "well, that's your opinion."  
When used that way, it's like a school-marm smacking 
knuckles, "uh, you forgot to say, 'in my opinion'...hell-ooooo."  
At some point, you just want to go, "Well, of course it's 
my opinion, whose did you expect?" and the implicit reply 
in such an atmosphere is "because we say that around here 
to flatten everyone's thoughts out to on a par with each 
other," which is more like an Oprah book discussion then 
inquiry-debate.

I'm not saying that's how everyone uses "in my opinion" and 
its derivations.  I'm remarking on a pattern we should be 
aware of and an atmosphere we should avoid.

Matt
 		 	   		  
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