On Opinion
Sometimes I just don’t like something. We’ve all been there, right. Whether The Walking Dead series or the recent plot arcs to Doctor Who, there is just that quality that leaves me lukewarm or downright cold. That’s understandable. We’ve all been there.
However, when I voice my opinion as to why I don’t particularly care for the ending to Mass Effect 3 or the like, the responding trend is to tell me that I’m too stupid to understand it. One can understand something and not like it. It is a strange human trait that views opinion as objective fact. When we like a TV show or a movie we tend to attach our egos to that product. It’s my movie. The cast of that TV show are somehow a mirror of my life or how I would like it to be. This is an absolute.
When someone finds fault with said film or television program we assume they find fault in us. They do not like the cast. The story is unsatisfying. The pacing is too slow. Whatever the flaw seems directed not at the program but at us. We are unlikeable, we are unsatisfying, we are dull. This is clearly not the case.
True what experiences we have had we bring to our enjoyment of entertainment. Whether you like realism or fantasy, drama or comedy, action or romance can be determined from your upbringing but only in part. Other rewards we garner from our entertainment is through interpretation. It’s how we perceive and assimilate what we view. While some of us seek a deeper meaning in what we view others dismiss what they see as superficial. While some of us haven’t the patience to wait for a show to improve others invest in its future in the hope of something great.
Whether you fall into one camp or another is irrelevant. We all bring from our own background and personal tastes what we expect from entertainment. There is what we accept, what we admire, what we tolerate, and what we condemn. These qualifiers are unique to each individual and in no way suggests one person’s tastes are superior to another’s. There are those who find enjoyment in reality programming. They have their reasons. You can quibble whether or not those reasons are valid but they are reasons nonetheless. Nietzsche, a moral subjectivist, wrote that there are no objective facts only the subjective opinion of those facts. There is no definitive good or bad, only arguments as to whether something is good or bad.
Neither those who like or dislike a product have scientific fact to support them. True there are ratings and critics to support your opinion, yet one must consider the least common denominator. That which appeals to many may appeal to the basest of us. Meanwhile we have a majority of one, he who embraces what others condemn and does so without fault. In short there is no accounting for taste. We generally don’t pester someone for not liking the food we eat. In that instance acquired taste seems obvious. We, too, are less likely to get after someone for not liking the music we like. Country and Western music is wildly popular. Metal has its fans, too. Some even like both. Yet none expects one to necessarily like the other.
So not liking something is not due to ignorance, liking something equally so. Our appreciation stems simply from our own will. That there are those who do not share our will should come as no surprise and definitely at no offense.