Amending Moynihan

August 8, 2014 10:54 AM

No, you are not entitled to your opinion. “I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion.’ Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself, maybe to head off an argument or bring one to a close. Well, as soon as you walk into this room, it’s no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for.” Or, as Harlan Ellison has been often quoted,"'You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."

The most interesting part is that the saying is riffing on a famous quote by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, four-term U.S. Senator, ambassador, administration official, and academic. Moynihan's original saying was "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," which became a colloquial statement of just the first part, "you are entitled to your opinion."

posted by daq (5 comments total)

That "most interesting part" isn't right, on two counts. First of all, Moynihan was reworking something Bernard Baruch said in 1946: "Every man has the right to an opinion but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts." And secondly, the "every man has a right to an opinion" part was already in common parlance at the time Baruch said that. In other words, the only original part of that is the "no man has a right to be wrong in his facts."
posted by yoink at 11:01 AM on August 8, 2014

This is by Patrick Stokes, same as this FPP.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:02 AM on August 8, 2014

Well, my opinion Harlan Ellison is backed up by facts.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 11:05 AM on August 8, 2014

Aw, nuts. Guess my search skills are all kinds of fail this week.
posted by daq at 11:07 AM on August 8, 2014

That's, like, your opinion.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:08 AM on August 8, 2014