“I Did Your Own Research”

Over the course of teaching some hundreds of students how to write a persuasive essay, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions that I’d like to share. First, I want to clarify that I have spent many hours telling students that their opinion is important and I’d like to apologise for that. It was just something that teachers were expected to do and, let’s face it, if you’re trying to get someone to write something, starting off by telling them just how little their opinion matters is hardly likely to inspire them to put pen to paper.

Conclusion 1: Your opinion is only important to you, and the people you can persuade that you’re worth listening to.

Conclusion 2: You have a right to express your opinion, but some opinions are worth more than others. If you don’t believe me, then I presume you’re one of the people who’s just as happy listening to Elle Macpherson or Mel Gibson and don’t see any need to pay a medical specialist large amounts of money to treat whatever it is that ails you.

Yes, these are hardly earth-shattering conclusions and I’m only pointing them out because we seem to have forgotten them. Why else do we pay so much attention to people whose opinion is clearly ignorant… I use the word “ignorant” carefully. I don’t mean that their opinion is stupid or lacking in thought. I simply mean that they haven’t actually done their own research. By research, I don’t mean reading an article on the Internet and nodding sagely because you agree with it, without feeling the need to check that it was written by an organisation with either a clear vested interest in telling you that fifty cigarettes a day is good for your health, or one that has been found to be without any formal qualifications or expertise in the area. (Yes, yes, I know formal qualifications are just the Establishment’s way of stopping us from learning the truth from someone who found the secret to curing cancer, massive wealth or that one that the banks don’t want you to know.)

I remember serial posts from someone who urged me to “think for myself” before posting a link to why we should all buy gold from a gold trader or a YouTube clip where someone told me exactly how to think for myself. Yes, it’s great when you start to do your own research only to discover that someone has done it for you.

All of which brings me to the upcoming federal election where Peter Dutton has urged us to ignore any findings of biased organisations such as the CSIRO when it comes to his nuclear thought bubble, and to only listen to the unbiased findings of the modelling that they commissioned. To be fair, the modelling was done for free and how could you question the motives of anyone who offers to do anything for free? I mean, if when people offer to put money in your bank account, you’d have no problem giving them your banking details, or if some stranger at the airport told you not to take a taxi they’d give you a free ride, you’d be thinking that there’s still some people in the world who are kind and decent…

Now some of you will be thinking that nuclear is a good idea and will be eternally grateful for the fact that, after an immediate rise in energy costs to pay for nuclear plants, that your bills will be coming down sometime about ten or so years from now. Others will see the Dutton plan as a cynical attempt to keep coal-fired plants running and to hamper renewables. As for who turns out to be right in the long run is a matter of opinion… And, as I said before, some opinions are better than others!

As for Labor, I’d suggest that they remember that their opinion is only important to them UNTIL they start to convince people that they’re right.

In the case of Labor, it’s a fine line between reminding people of some of the good things that they’ve done – tax cuts, cheaper medicines, workplace changes – and sounding like they’re not aware of any of the problems that still exist. It’s hard to list achievements without sounding arrogant as though you’re patting yourself on the back, which can be off-putting to voters… Although as I write this, I can’t help but remember that this seems to be the modus operandi for the Liberals. “We’re the better economic managers,” they say, completely ignoring the fact that they also tell us that private industry is much better placed to run things than they are.

When discussing the upcoming Australian election, I suspect that the media will talk a lot about overseas and how Trump’s victory has led to a lot of companies abandoning their commitments to climate action and diversity, as though these things were just a nice idea when the sitting President was ok with such things, but now we all need to do a Mark Zuckerberg and show some “masculine energy” by genuflecting in front of Trump and doing whatever he says.

It would be nice to think that people will demonstrate that they have their own energy – whether that be masculine, feminine, transgender, Australian, humanitarian, whatever – and to actually ignore the sideshow that elected Trump so that we can have an intelligent exchange of opinions…

Whatever they’re worth.

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