I think what people don’t think of is what Oliver Wendell Holmes demonstrated when he would announce each morning when he got to work. He would tell his clerk to take a side of an issue and he would take the other side and win every time. It’s not just having an opinion that’s wrong. It is not doing anything constructive with that opinion, fleshing it out, examining it closely, experimenting and testing it. That’s science. And so I disagree with you about the weakness of having an opinion. Life sometimes also comes in shades of gray and not black and white, like business vs. employees. I tend to believe that people are more important than money. And there are those who would hold that you have to take as much as you can. I simply cannot operate that way and it is a problem because I will become a burden on society as my body gives way. I believe in opinions. They demonstrate fundamental beliefs, attitudes, and values. And why people believe in certain things may surprise you. I believe in people. I respect their positions. If you just get to know them you may find their beliefs valid.

University of California at Berkeley Professor George Lakoff said that even science is a metaphor, where men and women have a perspective that is inherent in the species’ sensual limitations. In other words, a grasshopper has a view of reality that is different than our own, but his view is not less valid. I think we take ourselves too seriously if we start to believe that opinions are bad or that even “always having one” is bad.

Further, think of the educated guess or the Socratic Method, or even that speaking your mind is not wrong, if we all remember that no one is an expert on everything. It would be wrong to think that having an opinion on everything is bad. Because an opinion takes a side. And sides may illustrate truths. Truths are never wrong in and of themselves and may flesh out the greater truth, like abortion, for example. There are two points of view and both are valid.