RE: Arbitration25 Apr 2026 14:48
Majority opinion is not a guarantee of wise or knowledgeable judgement, the Earth used to be commonly believed to be flat and Galileo was regarded as a heretic and put under house arrest after proclaiming it to be round, offending the then Pope and being forced to officially disavow his scientific belief.
Many poeple these days regard the Covid-19 lockdowns in some countries and regions to have been overdone in contrast to the led opinions at the time.
Smoking of cigarettes is these days discouraged and less positive even than a neutral attitude by GPs who are no longer allowed to smoke in surgeries nor are medical doctors now allowed to do a British t.v. advert whilst smoking tar and nicotine.
One of the most glaring errors of popular opinion, even if less than the majority of the voting population, was voting a fascist in to a coalition government in 1933 Germany, risking his subsequent national leadership following the death of old von Hindenberg and then a majority recorded outcome favouring the fascist in a referendum two weeks later - though that subsequent result may have been corrupted.
All of the above said, I prefer democracy and freedom of speech over authoritarian instruction and prescriptive acceptable opinion, in my opinion people old enough to vote, should have opinions based on their own reasoning not just because of perceived respectability of majority, popular or noisy trends.
While I accept no-one here is questioning tbe validity of political democracy, I will remind that not all popular trends or noisy trends perceived to be popular are the combined results of well-reasoned opinions and the only way someone old enough to vote in political elections can have a sufficient understanding of their opinions, to be able to have independent agency - is from arriving at such opinions as a result of their own reasoning.
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