Withholding unpopular opinions
People are wrong. A lot. They are wrong all the time. They aren’t wrong for malicious reasons — they just believe a thing that is wrong.
Naturally, people don’t like to be wrong. They especially don’t like being told they are wrong. As much as I want to immediately correct misinformation, it rarely does any good. People are defensive about their beliefs and opinions. They rationalize their wrongness. They clam up and harden their opinions when presented with contrary facts and evidence.
Sometimes people who are wrong constantly express their wrong opinion and keep stirring up trouble. It feels awkward to listen to someone try to convince another person to also be wrong. Especially if you know they are wrong. Especially if you are concerned about the misinformation spreading.
I don’t have a good handle on when to interrupt with a correction and when to keep my mouth shut. I’m also not particularly charismatic about it. Someone I used to work with even recently blocked me on Twitter and Facebook after I responded with a bit too much snark. I’ve gotten the stink-eye at many, many parties.
Unfortunately, I’m still figuring out the balance for this. It feels important to stand against misinformation. But sometimes those corrections are not popular. Withholding an unpopular opinion is generally advisable. But what if the truth is unpopular?
It seems more valuable to maintain relationships with people even if they are wrong. But lately I’ve wondered how much it matters to tacitly approve of misinformation. When is it okay to push back against certain types of wrongness?
My approach going forward is to acknowledge that this isn’t a strength of mine. It is a strength of others — so for now I will encourage and support them. And maybe I can learn a thing or two about tact.