“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.” Betrand Russell
Russel’s quote frames a lot of the complexity I’ve been attempting to explore more. It also illustrates an attitude I think all people feel is inherent to their own personal outlooks, namely, that they themselves don’t believe it silliness or nonsense. And what we hold as truths, we hold against and despite popular opinion, should popular opinion be against it.
With so much nonsense in the world, so much silliness, should we be concerned with other people’s truths at all? I think we should, for two reasons. One, we are a social species and we participate in communities, and those communities interact with one another. It almost impossible to fully avoid relationships within and between them, and from my physiological and philosophical bent, those relations should be as pleasant as possible. Two, there is always a chance, coming form our imperfect perspective, where our Truth is one of many possible models, that we are wrong. In exposing and testing our Truth within a community, we can hopefully find and possibly correct our errors.
