Today anyone can publish an opinion or information and have it reach a huge audience. Something that, before the existence of social networks, was unthinkable. This development is marvellous. It democratises the press and opinions, and could help reclaim a grand global agora. Or at least that was the naïve belief of those who foretold the future of communication.
Unfortunately we have already seen that mass media, television, radio and newspapers, have lost part of their power. But their substitutes also have owners. Elon Musk from the former Twitter or Mark Zuckerberg, from Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) decide what is shared and what is not.
I am a social media specialist and for six years I have been a direct witness to how we have been steered by these great puppeteers. If I want my content to reach more people I must follow their strict rules. And I’ll tell you in advance that these are not based on objective truth, but on a set of commercial and political interests not always transparent.
That is why it is important to have thinkers like the philosopher and educator José Antonio Marina, inviting us to reflect on where this new form of communication is taking us, which, as has already been seen in democracies around the world, encourages extremist thinking or ideas lacking scientific evidence.
A lie should not be valued as highly as the truth
Approaching eighty-seven, we cannot say that Marina is a specialist in the intricacies of the famous algorithms that guide us. But he does not need to be. His ideas about critical thinking are as valid today as they might have been half a century ago, before the internet revolution was even anticipated.
Precisely, speaking about the value of critical thinking and freedom of expression, he offered this reflection which we have chosen to highlight: “People are all respectable, but opinions are not.”
We lie more than ever. Or, more precisely, lies have more resonance than ever because there are efficient means for them to spread and their proprietors do not always seem to care. The philosopher illustrated this with a minor yet striking case: people returning to believe the Earth is flat. What is known as the Dunnig-Kruger effect.
It is very easy to refute this idea. You only need primary school maths to perform the experiment the Greeks once did to analyse the curvature of the planet. Yet here we are with people lacking technical knowledge and clinging to their certainties.
For Marina, those people have a right to express themselves, but we cannot give them the same regard as the scientifically informed expert who provides grounded knowledge.
Why should we respect them?
Marina argues that the respectability of an opinion cannot be detached from its content. “To my Philosophy students at the university I ask: is it true that all opinions are respectable?” he recalled in a talk.
To those who replied “yes, that’s the majority,” he corrected them. “What is respectable is the right to express your opinion. The respectability of opinions depends on their content,” the master insisted.
An opinion can be legitimately expressed, yes, but that does not automatically make it worthy of intellectual respect, especially if it lacks reasoned foundation or endorses harmful prejudices. As the philosopher explains, “there can be opinions that are unjust, racist, or blasphemous…”
Therefore, when in a debate the other person indignantly says “respect my opinion”, that should not be used as a pretext to silence us. We should not respect it, nor accept it if we believe it could harm society.
What we must strive for is that our reaction is appropriate. Because if we respond to an opinion with violence we are losing the argument. Hence Marina makes clear that people do deserve respect. But we must answer with sound arguments. He recommends treating the matter as a problem, not a conflict. Problems can be solved, whereas in conflicts someone loses.
How to act on these ideas
Thus, absolute respect for the person, rigorous examination of the idea. The debate is complex, because freedom of expression matters in a democracy and the temptation to silence dissenting voices is strong. Especially when we think that the loudspeakers (the platforms and traditional media) are against us.
We cannot fall into simplification. What Marina asks is that we care for the foundation, the most important thing: education. We cannot deny a flat-Earther the chance to speak. What we cannot do is teach Geography inaccurately.
Each field of knowledge has its own validation criteria and these are what we must teach and convey. Mathematics rests on proofs, history on corroborated documentation and science on experimentation and peer review. That is how we advance. We must teach people to think, to listen and to compare. It is not enough to know how to opine.
Marina emphasises that this confusion has consequences. If everything can be taught under the banner of freedom of opinion, then the basic criteria of learning disappear. And with them, a fair and wise society.
