How to have good takes
Being level headed doesn’t mean fence riding, and nuance doesn’t require you to water down
your opinion. A common trend I see in classrooms and public discourse is the flaying of strongly held
beliefs. Tell me how many times you’ve heard this in school:
Teacher: “Okay class, do you think X is correct or Y is correct?”
Student: “Well really it’s a mix of the two” Or “it’s a spectrum” or “it depends” or “it’s subjective.”
The cause of this is 2 things. Firstly, having a strong opinion is hard to defend. You need to be
knowledgeable about the topic to argue for it. In contrast, defending something abstract like the
subjectivity of morals is much easier. By arguing abstractly we’re moving above the question rather
than diving into it, and attempting to find it’s gooey core. Second, we are always expected to have
opinions on everything. We are simply not allowed to be quiet. Adding fluff nuance to hide the lack of
opinion seems like the path of least resistance. I’m sure you’ve seen this on the hyper-sensationalized
state of politics as it exists on social media. The problem is that it’s boring, and not productive.
Look, it’s bullshitting, I get it. I’m really fucking good at bullshitting my way through
something I don’t know. It’s because I can see exactly how it’s done that it irritates me so much. I feel
like a Gen X dad watching my son hiding weed smell with cologne. Like dude, you’re insulting my
intelligence.
In metaphysics it’s a common belief that things are more defined by what they aren’t than what
they are. When everyone is fence riding, there’s no opposition to base your belief off of. The context of
opinion is bland. As a rough example, very conservative parents somehow raise a liberal child. This is
because the child knows exactly what they don’t want to be.
To anyone listening, these takes sound fucking stupid. Someone who knows what they’re
talking about will always be able to tell when someone else does not. If you understand what you’re
talking about you’re going to have a good opinion, simple as. So here’s my advice to have good takes.
1) Think before you speak.
This is obvious, but seriously. Take is as an exercise to form a coherent sentence before trying to
make it up on the spot. This will make you sound smart, and not dumb. I think that teachers should give
a required 30 second to a minute of quiet thought after asking a question that requires it. The kids that
are putting in the effort to come up with something fully formed are always going to be beaten out by
the kids who say the first thing on their mind. Then that same student has to write essays to express
their thoughts that they were forced to have!
2) Understand the purpose of your opinion
What are you really trying to say? What information do you want to be understood? What is
your contribution doing to the state of the discourse? These are questions worth having answered
before contributing.
3) Read the news from a paper or RSS reader.
You are ultimately going to form your opinions based off of the current environment. Your
information about the environment is crucial to having a fully formed take. As I mentioned before,
news as seen on social media is practically garbage. I would recommend setting up an RSS reader that
concatenates many news sites into one app. This will allow you to consciously choose when you want
to get up to date rather than having it spit at you. Also getting your news from many sources will allow
you to have a more holistic and unbiased view of current events.