Opinionation, Opinionation, Opinionation

The refreshingly un-American Amanda highlights some comments made about the blogging generation. Being a born-again blogger myself, it seems apt to regurgitate it here. Daneen Skube claims that the blogosphere is a "potpouri of opinion and little more". I readily agree. However, I do ask where this paradoxical opinion, which she so perfectly demonstrates, originated from. Two days ago, after convincingly failing a "Math" [sic] test, I was asked to write an essay as part of my university readiness induction at 7.30 in the moring. This essay was supposed to analyse and comment appropriately on a statement made by US congressman, Michael Rose. This statement issued warnings about the US government's programme of education; citing the assumed more pressing matters of maintaining a firm economy and political system. I've always been a strong believer in education beyond school (as Mark Twain said: "I never let schooling spoil my education"), and, being English, I preached the New Labour mantra of "Education, Education, Education". I've always been taught to be argumentative and opinionated in my essays, so that's what I did. I tore apart the contradictory tosh that Rose believed in so strongly - I was promptly warned by the examiner to be less forward in future. Why are people so afraid of opinion? In Erewhon, Samuel Butler claimed that people reside behind their opinions "like a fortress where no one else may enter". So, people are defensive when it comes to their opinion? Only if someone attacks it; which, in today's world, happens more often than not. The exception being religion. Or is it?