But it feels right

One of the major topics these days is polarisation, the way people take up sharply opposed views and simply won't contemplate changing them.

The one big thing that drives polarisation is surely the big increase in self-righteousness, the conviction that a person's beliefs and attitudes are the only correct ones and other people's beliefs and attitudes are obviously wrong.

I see this all the time in relation to immigration, transgender, vaccinations, welfare benefits and all sorts of political and social issues.

People are shedding the customary idea that differences of opinion should be resolved through intelligent debate and fact-finding, and are taking up opinions because they "feel right" or it's what their friends think or it's what someone said on the telly.

But what can be done to restore rational debate and open-mindedness? I'm not sure anything can be done, self-righteousness is now so prevalent and common sense so often absent. Once a bandwagon starts rolling and a dubious opinion gets wide approval it's hard to stop it.

What can you do when someone is adamant that you can change sex, or immigrants are all criminals and sex-offenders, or vaccinations are killing thousands of people, or workshy layabouts are sponging off welfare benefits?

It's an uphill task to convince them otherwise.

A work in progress

It's become a cliché that people are getting angrier and less patient, blowing their top at the smallest thing that annoys them.

What I also notice is that people are getting more self-righteous, convinced that their opinions are utterly valid and that other people's opinions are not worth even listening to.

Like all those Americans who still believe the last presidential election was fraudulent and that Trump did in fact win. No matter how many times their belief is discredited, they repeat the claim of fraud.

Like the belief that vaccinations are highly dangerous and should be avoided. The overall health benefits of vaccines are steadfastly denied.

Like the belief that you can change sex and a man can become a woman, even though this is a biological and medical impossibility.

Not to mention all the trolls firing off their trumped-up accusations and condemnations of public figures, many of them libellous.

Of course we all have a streak of self-righteousness (myself included) and we all have firmly held beliefs that defy any amount of contrary evidence. But I do regard all my opinions as a work in progress, as temporary opinions until such time as they're proved to be mistaken.

The longer I live though, the more I realise that everyday reality is so complicated that any opinion I hold is quite likely to be incorrect and based on a very partial understanding of the facts.

I'm not so insecure that I find any refuting of my opinions so threatening and alarming that I have to maintain and uphold them at any cost. In fact I like to be challenged about my fondly held but maybe totally irrational opinions. A good thing too, as Jenny takes my opinions to pieces on a regular basis!

Mean and self-righteous

My father was a mean and self-righteous man. He always thought he knew better than me and knew what was good for me. If I tried to put him right he got very annoyed.

When I'd been seeing Jenny for a while, I gathered he didn't approve of the relationship and thought I was "exploiting" Jenny.

He never explained what he meant by that. If he meant financially, that was nonsense because Jenny had a hefty credit card debt and I had some savings. If he meant I was leaning on her in some way, that was also nonsense because we were leaning on each other.

In any case he never met her and knew nothing about her so he just had a load of preconceptions about her and about our relationship. Jenny never had a chance to straighten him out.

If I was really exploiting Jenny, as a strong feminist she would have got shot of me at top speed. But we've been together now for 42 years so I must be doing something right.

Jenny would love to have had the chance to confront my father and tell him exactly what she thought of his disparaging attitude, but it wasn't to be. He died seven years after Jenny and I met, still refusing to talk to me because of the numerous grudges he held against me.

To accuse his own son of exploiting someone and not giving me the opportunity to defend myself is pretty low. But it wasn't the first time he had just jumped to conclusions and run with them.

Pic: Not my father, I have no online photos of him.

War mongering

Journalists are always trying to stoke up a supposed generation war - young people hate the old and vice versa - whereas in reality young and old may get on very well and sympathise with each other's problems.

An article in the Independent claims that "the generation wars seem worse than ever" and "the debate is becoming more toxic". Really? Where's the evidence, apart from a load of dubious anecdotes and stereotypes?

Most families include people of different ages and different generations. Are they all at loggerheads, constantly fuming and accusing each other of heinous offences? No, of course they aren't.

Some people get on well, some don't. That's all there is to it. I wasn't at war with my mother or my grandparents or my aunts and uncles. We may not have had the same opinions or attitudes but we rubbed along okay. I was estranged from my father for 20 years but that was exceptional.

Yes, some young people accuse us oldies of making their lives worse while we enjoy the fruits of much better lives. Yes, some oldies accuse young people of knowing it all despite their limited experience of the world.

Most of us take people as we find them however and don't trot out such one-sided stereotypes.

There's a natural tendency though for each generation to think they know better than any other generation - the young because they see us oldies as hopelessly out of touch with the modern world, oldies because we have so much more experience of the problems that life throws up, and the middle-aged because they're in the midst of so many situations the young haven't yet encountered and the oldies have forgotten about - like parenting or running a business.

Bu it takes more than self-righteousness to make a war.

Sadly misinformed

My father was a horribly self-righteous man. He always had to be correct, and he had to have the last word. Only he knew what he was talking about, the rest of us were sadly misinformed.

Luckily I don't take after him. When I voice my opinions, I expect other people to have different ones. I welcome argument and debate. If I hear a good enough counter-argument, I'll back down and change my opinion in a second.

My father hated it when I argued with him, when I challenged his sacred views. He hated me having opinions contrary to his own. I can't recall a single occasion when he agreed with something I said. He dismissed all my opinions as stupid, half-baked, ignorant or deliberately provocative.

I guess it was his extreme rigidity that drove me furiously in the opposite direction. From an early age I welcomed a plethora of views on every possible topic. The more varied the views the better. Only by exploring every possible line of thought could I be sure of arriving at a sensible, considered conclusion. To suppress opinions, however far-fetched or absurd, was to cripple my mind.

What annoys me isn't different opinions but people's reluctance to voice them. When people don't engage with my views at all but stay conspicuously silent, I wonder what they're thinking. Do they find my views so misconceived, so confused, there's no point in even acknowledging them? Do they simply dislike arguments? Do they dislike having to think? Whatever the reason, I feel frustrated by the lack of a good head-to-head.

But how kind I am to my critics, how lavishly easy-going. My father must be turning in his grave.

Self righteous, moi?

I'm accused sometimes of being self-righteous, but I don't quite get that. Okay, I have strong opinions but I'd never say my opinions are more valid than someone else's. If I'm presented with an argument that's more convincing, more sensible, better thought-out, or better researched, I'm happy to adopt it and dump my own opinion in a second.

For example, I used to think prostitution was acceptable until I read that most prostitutes show signs of post traumatic stress disorder, which changed my mind instantly. I used to think it was healthier to be thin, but dropped that idea when I heard that slightly plump people are actually less prone to serious illnesses.

I'm also accused of being opinionated, which might or might not be true. True if opinionated simply means having strong opinions on most subjects. Not true if it also means I foist my opinions on others and expect them to agree.

I express strong opinions in my blog but I don't expect others to swallow them. On the contrary I welcome totally opposite opinions that make me think through my own views more carefully.

In my non-blog existence I usually keep my opinions to myself unless someone specifically asks me what I think about something. Of course that might just mean I don't want my dubious and half-baked opinions to be challenged by anyone else.

If I'm really self-righteous and opinionated, I've obviously missed my vocation. I should have been a politician.