The American Spectator

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Of course, this is sometimes, though rarely, the case, and there are gradations; still, the law's assumption that most people are responsible most of the time is correct.

BC: Would you agree that the veneer of being non-judgmental is rather thin because those supposedly tolerant have no problem spewing all kinds of prejudicial invective about conservatives?

Theodore Dalrymple: The veneer of non-judgmentalism must always be thin, because non-judgmentalism is virtually an impossibility. The desirability of non-judgmentalism is itself a judgment; indeed, it is hardly too much to say that life is judgment. In effect, non-judgmentalism is a rhetorical stick with which to beat aspects of the status quo which the non-judgmentalist does not like.

BC: Hasn't the line between "having a right to an opinion" and "having a valid opinion" become completely blurred in recent years?

Theodore Dalrymple: Many young people now end a discussion with the supposedly definitive and unanswerable statement that such is their opinion, and their opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. The fact is that our opinion on an infinitely large number of questions is not worth having, because everyone is infinitely ignorant. My opinion of the parasitic diseases of polar bears is not worth having for the simple reason that I know nothing about them, though I have a right to an opinion in the sense that I should not receive a knock on the door from the secret police if I express such a worthless opinion.

The right to an opinion is often confused (no doubt for reasons of misplaced democratic sentiment) for the validity of an opinion, just as the validity of an argument is often mistaken for the truth of a conclusion.

BC: I loved the sentence, "Whatever I say will not avail me, for other people will claim to know my meaning better than I know it myself?" Why is it that so many leftists claim to know precisely what their opponents are thinking let alone the essence of their unconscious psychological drives?

Theodore Dalrymple: I am not sure that this deformation applies only to the left. We all resort to the ad hominem from time to time: in human affairs, it is difficult to avoid it, and probably not desirable. After all, our opponents are human. The proper use of an ad hominem argument, however, still requires evidence to back it up.

For example, if you say that Marx was motivated by a thirst for power or at least domination, you could support yourself with examples of his actual behavior. If someone were to say that my opinions were motivated by a thirst for personal wealth...well, the actual evidence refutes him, unfortunately.

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