Things Mama Taught Me: Don't Force Your Opinion on Others

My siblings and I are not shy about having our own opinions; we have them on almost everything! Thankfully, we don't find it necessary to persuade everyone around us to follow our lead, a mostly useless endeavor anyway. Our mother said clearly and often, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." This old proverb has been used in different forms by a number of modern authors, Dale Carnegie for one, but I doubt that she had ever read "How to Win Friends and Influence People." It's been around for a very long time, perhaps two or three hundred years. Mary Wollstonecraft, a famous British writer and feminist, used a variation of the quote in her 1792 treatise, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Its placement in quotation marks there indicates that it was not original with her; she either did not know origin of the saying or assumed that it was so popularly known that citing the source was unnecessary. She may have been misquoting lines from Samuel Butler's 17th century poem, "Hudibras":

He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still
Which he may adhere to, yet disown,
For reasons to himself best known.

Whether that thought was Butler's own or borrowed from an even older saying, we'll probably never know, but regardless of the source, Mama was right. It's pretty hard to force someone to think as you do. They may seem to acquiesce, but like the little boy who was sent to sit in the corner, they are "still standing up on the inside."

It is proper and right to have an opinion on things, but I don't have to weigh in with my opinion on everything! I even have to examine regularly my need to write: "Will I do so even when I do not know who out there in the cyber world is reading?" (Yes.) It is indeed important to stand up for what is right—but one could spend all their waking hours trying to correct the multitude of errors and wrongs to be found around us. And speaking frankly, most of those attempts would be only verbal—a blast of hot, but empty, opinion about this person or that situation—with there being very little that we could actually do about it.

Still, even if some people are argumentative, having opinions is a good thing and being free to express them is . . . priceless! "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I thank God for freedom of speech.

And for Mama who taught us some lessons about how to use it.

MaryMartha

You may want to read related entries in this blog:
Don't Confuse Me with the Facts
Of Peanut Butter, Critical Reviews, and Tuning In
In All Things Charity

Info on the quotes:
(1) http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-305408,articleId-41563.html.
(2) Attributed to Voltaire, French philosopher and author, 1694-1778. The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996.