BC: Hasn't the line between "having a right to an opinion" and "having a valid opinion" become completely blurred in recent years?
Theodore Dalrymple: Many young people now end a discussion with the supposedly definitive and unanswerable statement that such is their opinion, and their opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. The fact is that our opinion on an infinitely large number of questions is not worth having, because everyone is infinitely ignorant. My opinion of the parasitic diseases of polar bears is not worth having for the simple reason that I know nothing about them, though I have a right to an opinion in the sense that I should not receive a knock on the door from the secret police if I express such a worthless opinion.
The right to an opinion is often confused (no doubt for reasons of misplaced democratic sentiment) for the validity of an opinion, just as the validity of an argument is often mistaken for the truth of a conclusion.
His new book. (A video of him speaking.) A review of it in the New English Review.
(Hmm, there's a revised edition of Mexifornia out. And Philip F. Lawler has this book out, The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture.)
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