The Opinion I No Longer Need to Defend
By Ayman Fouad Abdelgawad
An old belief can survive because abandoning it seems to surrender the person who once held it.
There is a particular fatigue in defending an opinion one has already begun to doubt. The familiar reasons still arrive on cue. One knows where to place the emphasis, which example usually works, what the other person is likely to say. The argument remains fluent after conviction has become hesitant.
I am interested in that interval because it reveals how a belief can acquire obligations unrelated to its truth. We have recommended it, written it down or used it to distinguish ourselves from someone else. Revising it now seems to require reopening every occasion on which we sounded certain. The opinion becomes a small reputation that needs maintaining.
There may also be loyalty involved. A view can connect us to a family, a profession or a group whose company matters. Changing our mind then feels less like altering a conclusion than moving our chair. Even when nobody explicitly forbids disagreement, we can anticipate the silence after announcing it. Belonging supplies an argument that rarely appears among the stated reasons.
Of course, doubt does not always mean the belief is wrong. A difficult argument may deserve renewed attention, and social pressure can push people away from sound conclusions as readily as towards them. The point is to notice what work the defence is doing. Am I answering the objection, or protecting a previous version of myself from embarrassment?
One useful freedom is to revise a view without replacing it immediately with its opposite. Public discussion often prefers a conversion: the former supporter becomes the fiercest critic. But an honest movement may be smaller. I no longer know enough to speak so firmly. This part still persuades me; that part does not. Uncertainty can be a destination for a while.
Such admissions should not become performances of sophistication. There are occasions when a clear judgement is necessary, and endless qualification can protect us from the cost of taking one. Still, the need to decide does not require pretending that every old reason remains convincing. A decision can be provisional without being evasive.
What I want to preserve is the ability to release an argument when its strongest support has become my investment in having made it. The time already spent does not need to be recovered through further defence. An earlier conviction belongs to the history of one's thinking. It need not receive a permanent appointment as its supervisor. Sometimes intellectual progress sounds remarkably undramatic: I used to think that; I am less sure now.