You may have struggled lately to understand how folks can see the exact same evidence and come up with completely divergent opinions or you may wonder how friends with similar backgrounds can loathe or love the current president. It seems that Americans are screaming this blog title Beatles’ lyric at each other and then becoming frustrated when the “other side” refuses to acknowledge their arguments.  Gridlock doesn’t just exist in Washington but within society as well and while I can do nothing to make someone hear you out I may be able to explain why they can’t see it your way.  You may still hold their beliefs against them but most highly effective people will tell you to seek first to understand and then to be understood.

Fact, Opinion, and Belief

For clarity’s sake I’m going to share my definition of each of these three for the purposes of this blog and explain how they are interconnected and finally demonstrate how you have probably already seen them deployed.  I use these definitions in my AP Government class and I borrowed much of it from the writing center at Colorado State who were inspired by The Little, Brown Handbook.  Let’s begin with the term “fact”.  

A fact is a piece of evidence that is verifiable and can be proven as long as we trust the measuring device or delivery of the information.  It may contain measurements, dates, or even a testimony which of course doesn’t mean that what is recorded in the testimony is factually correct but that it is at least legitimate.  Facts, by themselves, are not debatable so the existence of alternative facts cannot be a real case.  What you make of facts can be debated and that is my basis for describing what an opinion is.  

An opinion is a judgment that is formed by an interpretation of facts and if done in good faith draws a reasonable conclusion.  Opinions, by their nature, are not permanent because the addition of contradictory facts may alter initial thoughts and conversely adding more supporting evidence may strengthen the opinion.  You will often hear an opinion stated as an “I believe” statement but beliefs are different from opinions but influence them greatly.

A belief is a deeply held conviction based on religion, culture, or a personal morality and as such expresses a viewpoint that in effect cannot be challenged.  They aren’t based on facts and therefore can’t really be disproven or even contested, at least not rationally.  And although these beliefs aren’t based on facts they do influence how we consume facts and turn them into opinions.  An explanatory statement or “equation” that I use in class is that our beliefs provide the lens through which we take in facts to form opinions.  And these opinions are what we want others to see our way but convictions aren’t apt to change.

What happened in Minneapolis?

Over the last three weeks federal agents have killed two American citizens during a surge in ICE/Border Patrol activities and an already polarized country has somehow become more so.  The first incident, which led to the death of Renee Good, had enough gray area that “both sides” claimed the same facts told two very different stories and here is where beliefs come in to shape opinion.  If you are of the belief that America is for Americans and that it is being destroyed and overrun by illegal immigrants then she was unlawfully obstructing official federal work and endangered an officer who defended himself and others by using justified lethal force.  If, however, your beliefs are built around ideas of human equality and that America is a melting pot made stronger through diversity then she was killed by an agent of an authoritarian state bent on Christian nationalist ideology. Same facts, different opinions. But the death of Alex Pretti seems to be on a whole other level.

In the immediate aftermath, Pretti was described as an “assassin” who was “brandishing” a pistol and that it appeared he “arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement.”  The facts in this instance, the video evidence, doesn’t seem to back those claims but I’ve already seen prevarications on social media claiming obstruction of justice and assertions that being armed somehow vacates other civil liberties.  Beliefs are so strong in forming opinions that folks who have warned for years that the second amendment was the most important protection against government overreach now feel that sometimes being armed is a bad thing. Strange days indeed.

One of my strongest beliefs is that the United States of America is a great nation and that almost all of its citizens love it dearly even if they have wildly different opinions about what America is and what makes it great.  If we can find the common ground and understanding that, although some of our beliefs and opinions differ, most of our convictions about family, patriotism, and justice mirror each other and that with a little grace we can make it through these difficult times.  “Try to see it my way” is the first line of the song and depending on your interpretation the Beatles may have been singing about romantic love or it could also be applied to society as a whole.  Either way my focus will continue to be on the last lines of the song which were considered so vital that they repeat.  “We can work it out, we can work it out.”