I remember the Spokesman Review, my local newspaper, would regularly print bonkers Letters to the Editor, usually from extreme conspiracy theory types. Those letters were quite amusing and held no power or sway in the world. But those letter writers now have a collective power that is incredibly destructive. Some of those letter-writing types have become famous and influential media figures.
Nicolas Kristof has been an effective spokesperson for various charitable causes. Many years ago, he wrote a column that inspired my wife and me to participate in a program to build schools in Cambodia. He connected it to providing education for young girls as a way of combatting trafficking. The cost, so incredibly small relative to anything you could do in the US, hooked us. We visited the school we had helped to build twice and still support it and get reports.
I like this breakdown and am also especially drawn to the third ‘thinking out loud’ kind of opinion writing. Reminds me of this: “…the best writing—the best theorising—resists the injunction to come to point, to render the world transparent, to clarify the thesis, to achieve relevance, to simplify. 93 These are the standard vices of the sentimentality of excess and simplicity, of operatic international law. This lecture has been a plea for something else: a different register combined with a wariness of that different register, a poetic international law of the ‘tingle’, 94 an irony of the mind. This might involve an attentiveness to the unseen and unheard or, seemingly, insubstantial or a commitment to an international law of style and love and smallness, and an attentiveness to the everyday and to the informalities of power. A willingness to do what poets do: namely to notice the micro-political humiliations that might entirely undercut the grand humanitarian scheme.” This is the full article: https://academic.oup.com/lril/article/3/1/3/2413090 More of an extended essay (its actually based on a lecture) than an opinion piece but the spirit felt very much in keeping The trick for me is how to take a lack of resolution as something to constructively build reflection from. Thanks for the piece.
Great piece. I actually struggle to have an opinion a lot of the time as I feel (unfashionably!) that I need more information before I can express a view. But the third variety of opinion you describe is certainly what I find and value here on Substack and it chimes very well with what I try to do. So, a proliferation of voices can be a good thing rather than a noisy, pointless media argument, and there's room for lots of beggars with information about all sorts of treasures! (Hold on, that was an opinion, wasn't it!)
Sometimes I remember that I don’t need to have an opinion about something and it’s such a relief.
I remember the Spokesman Review, my local newspaper, would regularly print bonkers Letters to the Editor, usually from extreme conspiracy theory types. Those letters were quite amusing and held no power or sway in the world. But those letter writers now have a collective power that is incredibly destructive. Some of those letter-writing types have become famous and influential media figures.
Nicolas Kristof has been an effective spokesperson for various charitable causes. Many years ago, he wrote a column that inspired my wife and me to participate in a program to build schools in Cambodia. He connected it to providing education for young girls as a way of combatting trafficking. The cost, so incredibly small relative to anything you could do in the US, hooked us. We visited the school we had helped to build twice and still support it and get reports.
I like this breakdown and am also especially drawn to the third ‘thinking out loud’ kind of opinion writing. Reminds me of this: “…the best writing—the best theorising—resists the injunction to come to point, to render the world transparent, to clarify the thesis, to achieve relevance, to simplify. 93 These are the standard vices of the sentimentality of excess and simplicity, of operatic international law. This lecture has been a plea for something else: a different register combined with a wariness of that different register, a poetic international law of the ‘tingle’, 94 an irony of the mind. This might involve an attentiveness to the unseen and unheard or, seemingly, insubstantial or a commitment to an international law of style and love and smallness, and an attentiveness to the everyday and to the informalities of power. A willingness to do what poets do: namely to notice the micro-political humiliations that might entirely undercut the grand humanitarian scheme.” This is the full article: https://academic.oup.com/lril/article/3/1/3/2413090 More of an extended essay (its actually based on a lecture) than an opinion piece but the spirit felt very much in keeping The trick for me is how to take a lack of resolution as something to constructively build reflection from. Thanks for the piece.
Great piece. I actually struggle to have an opinion a lot of the time as I feel (unfashionably!) that I need more information before I can express a view. But the third variety of opinion you describe is certainly what I find and value here on Substack and it chimes very well with what I try to do. So, a proliferation of voices can be a good thing rather than a noisy, pointless media argument, and there's room for lots of beggars with information about all sorts of treasures! (Hold on, that was an opinion, wasn't it!)