Opinions are like social media accounts: approximately 2.7 billion people have one. I’ve no problem with people having an opinion of course. Quite the reverse: a nation without opinions is one without thoughts, ideas or morals. But over the last decade something has changed. We’ve always had opinions but now we feel compelled to share them with the world. And that is a problem.
A few years ago, I had opinions about everything. I had strong views on Peter Mandelson and BSE and Sierra Leone and 7/7 and the price of bus fares and Uri Geller’s friendship with Michael Jackson. But none of these opinions were good enough to share in public, much less put down in writing and publish to potentially everyone on the planet. I was perfectly happy with that, too.
Now however, almost every story provokes in me a visceral urge to share my views about it.
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