Graphology -- Brilliant Or Bunkum?

[Italicist]

I can't help but wish that that there were some sound theory in graphology, simply because I like letters and writing, but there's obviously no logical reasoning present in the various cases cited above. Graphology strikes me as belonging to the same family as inspecting animals' entrails in order to divine the future -- may the former "science" join the latter by slipping into the past and becoming an interesting historical curiosity. It's horrifying to think that graphologists may have been responsible for people not obtaining employment or even contributing to unfounded legal action.

[Johnny Appleseed]

Unfortunately, this discussion is rather fraught with anecdotal accounts of particularly bad examples of graphology, which, as I mentioned in a digression on another topic, is interesting but also leads to a straw man argument. That there are frauds, quacks and narrow minds at play in a particular field is not necessarily proof that the field itself is "bunkum", only that it needs to be better regulated (and more professional). There are all sorts of bad psychiatrists out there, but that does not invalidate the field. In addition, the fact that some make exaggerated claims as to the ability to divine knowledge of ones personality from handwriting does not invalidate the core notion that analyzing handwriting may offer some diagnostic opportunity.

 

At the same time, the "science" of debunking of graphology has also historically been fraught with issues, both in terms of methodology and ideology. It is worth reviewing Tamara Plakins Thornton's excellent book, Handwriting in America, which covers the history of graphology, as well as the changing views of handwriting in the varying historical cultural contexts in America. One of the earliest attempts to scientifically test Graphology was the Hull and Montgomery study, of which "The discussion of the experiment seems like a parody of good laboratory method." As Thornton points out, much of the early scientific opposition to graphology (in the US, at least - it was taken much more seriously and scientifically in Europe) had as much to do with the underlying ideology at play - graphology viewed human beings as each having a unique personality which could be open to examination and study, whereas a prevailing scientific view in the 1920s and 30s had a very deterministic view of human personality that emphasized uniformity and genetic determinism, much at odds with the humanistic viewpoint behind graphology. (It is also interesting the point she makes that many early Graphologists were women, in some cases women who tried to enter the fields of medicine and psychology but were excluded, and ended up doing graphology because it was the one field where a woman could study human personality).

 

More recent scientific examination of graphology has been better, and it is no surprise that the more outlandish claims of graphology have not withstood blind scrutiny. However, most of what I have seen has been fairly blunt attempts to "debunk" graphology in its more questionable forms, rather than more careful analysis of how effective the analysis of handwriting may be and which methods offer valid diagnostic tools. QM3, a trained psychologist, has offered her own opinion, elsewhere on this board, as to the effectiveness of forensic handwriting analysis when used to develop a personality profile in a criminal setting - to which she attributes about a 20% accuracy rate, considerably more than chance. While forensic handwriting analysis is different from graphology, both are based on the same principle that you can deduce some aspects of a writer’s personality from analysis of their handwriting.

 

So I would like to see the question reframed - does a persons handwriting offer some clues to the personality of the writer? Can handwriting be used in a meaningful diagnostic way? What does research offer on this front, and what limitations are there to the research? In other words, is there some brilliance hiding behind the bunkum?

 

The Unabomber example, incidentally, has already been addressed in an old thread. One of the typical characteristics of sociopaths is that they often present a very different outward persona than the full range of behavior might suggest - which is why many serial killers seem relatively normal to their neighbors and coworkers. Sociopaths are often able to subvert personality tests, so the inability of graphologists to identify a sociopath is not necessarily a flaw in the method.

 

  On 8/4/2010 at 9:46 PM, KateGladstone said:

  On 8/4/2010 at 9:36 PM, ethernautrix said:

Did anyone explain to them that their deductions were supposed to come from the handwriting, not from information they already know or think they know about the writer?

 

Oh, they claim (to every client) that they know this already, that their deductions are purely from the handwriting, In fact, their codes of ethics say so (for those handwriting-analysis groups that have codes of ethics), and it's standard material in their training courses and on their exams. (After all, they didn't refuse to analyze a sample without knowing who wrote it -- until they knew who wrote it, after they analyzed it ... )

 

 

Actually, I think there may be validity in using a combination of deductions from handwriting and other sources. It is not unusual in a mental health setting for multiple diagnostic tools to be used in developing an overall diagnosis, nor in using ongoing diagnostic tools to further refine the diagnosis and treatment methods. In fact, I think it would be atypical to use a single test to generate a full diagnosis. The fact that a graphologist will try to gather as much background knowledge about the individual as possible does not invalidate the use of graphology as a means of learning something about the individuals personality. In a mental health assessment that would be called a good intake interview and case history.

 

Now if the purpose of doing a handwriting analysis is to wow the individual with how "accurate" the assessment is, (and thus attempt to separate them from hard-earned money), than the gathering of additional information is tantamount to fraud. But if it is approached with a more nuanced approach to examining what handwriting may tell an individual about themselves, then additional background information may be appropriate.

 

John

[Johnny Appleseed]

And might I add that this is one of the most interesting results I have seen on the subject (Emphasis mine):

  Quote

Summary

To evaluate the ability of two graphologists and two practising internists not trained in graphology to differentiate letters written by subjects who have attempted to commit suicide by self-poisoning and healthy volunteers, we performed a maximal blind controlled study vs. healthy volunteers. Forty fully recovered patients who had attempted to commit suicide and 40 healthy volunteers wrote and signed a short letter or story not related to the parasuicide or their mental health status. The evaluators classified the 80 letters as ‘suicide’ or ‘no suicide’ in an intention-to-treat analysis. Letters expressing sadness were subsequently excluded for a per-protocol analysis. Correct diagnosis of suicide and of healthy controls was made in, respectively, 32 of 40 and 33 of 40 letters by the graphologists and in 27 of 40 and 34 of 40 letters by the internists. After the exclusion of 12 letters expressing sadness, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were, respectively, 73, 88, 81 and 82% for the graphologists and 53, 89, 80 and 71% for the internists. Both classified the letters with significantly more effectiveness than chance (p < 0.001) with no statistically significant difference between the two groups of evaluators. We concluded that graphological analysis is able to differentiate letters written by patients who attempt suicide from those written by healthy controls. This technique shows an acceptable degree of accuracy and could therefore become an additional discharge or decision-making tool in Psychiatry or Internal Medicine.

 

"Graphology for the diagnosis of suicide attempts: a blind proof of principle controlled study", S. Mouly1, I. Mahé1, K. Champion1, C. Bertin1, P. Popper2, D. De Noblet2, J. F. Bergmann1, International Journal of Clinical Practice Volume 61, Issue 3, pages 411–415, March 2007

 

In other words, handwriting did provide meaningful diagnostic evidence, but the graphologists were no more able than non-graphologists to interpret that.

 

John

[rogerb]

I'm sorry, I haven't had time to read all these posts, some of which are, to me indigestibly prolix!

Following what Johnny Appleseed has written, my own experience as one who has had some training as a graphologist leads me to believe that, like all forms of 'psychometric testing', such as Myers Briggs, the Luscher Colour Test, 16PF, and the rest, it should be treated with healthy scepticism, but that, used in conjunction with other methods, it has some, albeit limited, validity, especially when used in conjunction with other methods.

 

Most of the examples I read, purporting to 'debunk' it, quote ludicrous examples which I was certainly never taught, such as "One of the fundamental tenets of graphology is that the size of your handwriting is a key indicator of your intelligence" There are, I was taught, several indications of intelligence in handwriting, but the size of the writing is not one of them. No single characteristic would normally be used on its own, anyway, to draw a conclusion about some aspect of the writer's personality.

 

In the UK, I spoke to a highly reputable Questioned Document Examiner(for the police and courts), Joan Cambridge, who was also a graphologist. She used graphology forensically, and remedially, and showed me some very interesting and credible examples of her work in these fields.

 

I still have an open mind on the subject, but I have personally carried out some simple 'blind' analyses, just for fun ....including for my local Mensa group, which most agreed were more accurate than 'chance' and in one case proved startlingly 'close to the mark' in a couple of respects.

 

I have seen it claimed that FDR's illness might have been diagnosed sooner, if someone had noted the 'disintegration' of his handwriting, which occurred quite a while before other symptoms became apparent. However, I have no way of confirming this.

Edited August 18, 2010 by rogerb

[Columba Livia]

Imagine you decided to divine information about a person by watching the flight of a bird. You see it flying straight forward for a distance, but then it twists and turns and goes in a different direction. Obviously this person can keep to a course of action if they wish, but sometimes they get distracted and don't end up where they want to be.

 

That's the fundamental basis of graphology: sympathetic magic. The idea that resemblance (no matter how tenuous) has a magical quality to it which can be used for divination.

 

A graphologist can use leading questions when examining writing with the author present, throwing out things like "You seem to have strong feelings about something" and when the person responds positively (and volunteers more information) they can start narrowing things down and giving the impression that they've managed to perform divination from writing.

 

Where a graphologist has gathered information about the person from other sources, it makes the task of performing divination on the persons writing much easier since they don't need to make any reading, they just have to look for anything which can be used to establish some form of resemblance.

 

In defence of graphology, it might be claimed that it is the more easily falsifiable claims such as "tiny writing means you are an introvert" which are inaccurate but that there surely is some usefulness to this divination. This line of defence relies on the graphologist keeping their divination sufficiently vague enough that they give themselves good wriggle room and can keep shifting their position, refusing to be pinned down and hiding behind hand-waving vagueness.

 

It is quite possible for a graphologist to produce readings of other people which are general enough to refer to almost anyone and thus make blind analysis appear better than shooting in the dark.

 

I see no need to give graphology any further consideration in a clinical setting (or anywhere else) than one would voodoo dolls, examining the entrails of chickens or the flight of an arrow.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Columba Livia

[rogerb]

Well, of course, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but that's really all they are ...opinions.

I just wonder why some feel the need to be so vitriolic ... I don't see it as significantly less useful/valid than the majority of the 'respectable' forms of psychometric testing.

No respectable graphologist(if you believe there is such a creature!) would dream of playing the 'palm/Tarot reader's, or spiritualists, game' ....making generalised suggestions and building on the responses.

All those I have met would normally analyse samples completely anonymously and just need to know the approx age and the sex of the writer, plus, preferably, some info on what handwriting style they had been taught. Samples are best written spontaneously,(i,e. not knowingly for analysis) and on unlined paper.

 

But one can never convince those whose minds are firmly made-up and closed, and I won't try. It's not important enough to me.

Edited August 18, 2010 by rogerb

[KateGladstone]

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:23 PM, rogerb said:

Well, of course, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion,

 

My opinion is that we are *not* so entitled.

Here's a good explanation of why:

You Are Not Entitled To Your Opinion

 

RogerB, if you hold the opinion that any such a thing exists as a "right" to an opinion,

what correlative duty/ies -- in your opinion -- does that claimed "right" impose

on the person not sharing the opinion held?

 

Re:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:23 PM, rogerb said:

but that's really all they are ...opinions.

 

Some opinions have more than opinion to back them.

And that is *not* a matter of opinion.

 

Re:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:23 PM, rogerb said:

I don't see it as significantly less useful/valid than the majority of the 'respectable' forms of psychometric testing.

 

I see that graphology consistently does less well than other forms of psychometric testing.

You can see that too -- here and here and here and here, for instance.

[Bartul]

Actually my father is a graphologist, but not in the sense you're talking. He's a county judge who got interested in handwriting and had several courses on how to differentiate originals from forgeries.

Every time graphology was mentioned and every time it was discussed in my house, it was in that sense.

I have never heard of this hocus-pocus stuff!? :blink:

[KateGladstone]

  On 8/18/2010 at 2:07 PM, Bartul said:

Actually my father is a graphologist, but not in the sense you're talking. He's a county judge who got interested in handwriting and had several courses on how to differentiate originals from forgeries.

Every time graphology was mentioned and every time it was discussed in my house, it was in that sense.

I have never heard of this hocus-pocus stuff!? :blink:

 

Bartul, what you're calling "graphologist" (that your father did) is properly called -- in the USA, anyway -- "questioned document examination" or "QDE" for short.

In the USA, at least, the word "graphology" normally means only the attempt to discern personality in handwriting.

[KateGladstone]

RogerB notes:

 

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:23 PM, rogerb said:

All those [graphologists] I have met would ... need to know the approx age and the sex of the writer, plus, preferably, some info on what handwriting style they had been taught. ...

 

Having that information -- which the graphologists apparently need -- leaves graphology and graphologists open to serious legal problems when (for instance) the graphologists' findings become any part of a decision on who does (or doesn't) get to hold or keep a job. See the info here -- also Part II of my two-part PENNANT article "Grapho-Logical?" (let me know if you need the issue date for that).

 

 

 

[rogerb]

This seems a lot like arguing just for the sake of it.

 

I found the article you referred to about having a right to our opinions completely unconvincing, but will defend(not necessarily to the death!) you right to believe in it

 

I am bored with this now ...as I said at the start, I am not entirely convinced that graphology has any scientific basis, but my own experiences lead me to believe that it is not complete 'bunkum'.

 

If we are not even permitted to agree to disagree, I have nothing further to say on this subject....it is very tedious to me to have my every word 'picked over' as it seems to have been.

[Johnny Appleseed]

Two additional thoughts:

 

First, the claim that graphology is nothing more than sympathetic magic ignores the substantial scientific work done with graphology in Europe in the first part of this century. To a lesser extent it also ignores the work of a number of women in he US in the 1900-1920s who, excluded from traditional scientific avenues due to the bigotry of the scientific community, undertook serious study of handwriting as a tool to the examination of human personality. At one time, outside of the US scientific community, graphology was taken seriously and examined by mainstream science. It may have turned out to be a false approach, as have many scientific approaches over time, but to claim it was not part of the history of scientific inquiry is incorrect. From the viewpoint of today, historical hypothosis may seem ludicrous, but in their time they may have seemed like a worthwhile avenue of inquiry. We may look at some work being done today and wonder if future scientists will feel the same way - e.g. will they look at the current work being done with fMRI as a quaint and misguided, as if we could really understand complex neural functioning through looking at blood flow (and the nuerologists doing that research are the first to admit that it is a very infant approach).

 

However, the fact that a method of inquiry was once part of scientific inquiry does not make it legitimate. Scientific inquiry also requires that we reject methods that have been proven false - which may well be the case with the bulk of graphology.

 

Secondly, while skeptic blog posts may be interesting, they really tell us little more than the opinions of the writers. If we are going to have a reasonable discussion on this subject, we should stick to citations that actually address research (which some of the above links do).

 

Third, much of the research around graphology has to do with the use of graphology in a blind manner in a job-applicant screening environment, and that research is almost unanimous in showing that graphology is no better than chance. I think we can be fairly certain that using graphology in this manner is inneffective.

 

 

 

My suspicion, based on the research I cite above, and a few other similar results (sorry, citations not at hand - my bad) is that handwriting can be used to provide some diagnostic clues as to the personality or emotional state of the writer. However, in most of the results that do find positive results greater than chance, there is no significant difference between the results of trained graphologists and those not trained in graphology. In other words, the alleged methods that graphology uses to interpret handwriting do not appear to be valid, but there does seem to be an intuitive means by which people can read something of the writer through their handwriting.

 

It seems that the mistake of graphology may be to falsly attempt to codify and systematise the interpretation of handwriting based on a-priori logical assumptions. This is very much in keeping with the intellectual climate of its origin, in which categorization and systemisation were much in vogue and universal solutions priviledged (eg. Freud analysed a number of people in Victorian Vienna and concluded he had unlocked the universal secrets of the psyche, rather than recognise that he had merely described some conditions common to the middle-class of Victorian Vienna).

 

 

Another interesting bit of research (again, citation not at hand - my bad) - some fMRI work was done on how people read printed matterial vs handwritten material. The results found that reading handwriting activiated areas of the brain more in common with facial identification, while mechanically printed writing did not activate those areas. I find that very interesting, particularly in relation with the suicide study et. al. I mention above.

 

Now it may be merely that the visual interpretations of the complexity of handwriting relies on some of the same areas of the brain as recognizing the complexity of human features. But we also know that the interpretation of facial features is deeply connected to the identification and recognition of mental states in others. Recognition of the mental states of others is something that humans are almost constantly doing - it is a necessary part of our functioning as a social organism (at least in neuro-typical individuals). It is also an incredibly complex process - as seen with the difficulty in creating computers that can interpret facial expression. If we are using similar neural pathways to read handwriting, it implies that when we read handwriting, we are also trying to interpret the mental state of the writer. In which case, what underlies graphology is actually a neurological phenomena, and the error of graphology is in over-simplifing a highly complex expressive process.

 

I will try to dig out those citations.

 

John

[KateGladstone]

Usually, a person who asks others to "agree to disagree"

means something indistinguishable from

"Either agree with me, or keep silent about your disagreement."

 

 

If you don't mean that, RogerB, what do you mean instead?

 

 

Re: " my own experiences lead me to believe that it is not complete 'bunkum'."

 

My own experiences (including one with a graphologist who looked at some writing samples -- while they were being written -- then publicly proclaimed that the samples didn't exist) lead me to apply the word "bunkum." (Let me know if you want details on that experience. Hmmmm ... if you think I've a right to my opinion, then that would mean I'd have a right to form & act on an opinion that you want something -- such as those details -- no matter how often or how loudly or how plainly you say you don't ... )

 

 

[KateGladstone]

  On 8/18/2010 at 5:07 PM, Johnny Appleseed said:

Two additional thoughts:

 

First, the claim that graphology is nothing more than sympathetic magic ignores the substantial scientific work done with graphology in Europe in the first part of this century. ....

 

 

-- work that was later found deficient in many ways. (See some of the sources quoted in the first part of my PENNANT article "Grapho-Logical?") The area where the old graphologists were best (and they were not that good at it, anyway) was in detecting the sex of a writer: which modern graphologists claim that no graphologist can do, or ever could do.

 

Re:

 

  On 8/18/2010 at 5:07 PM, Johnny Appleseed said:

To a lesser extent it also ignores the work of a number of women in he US in the 1900-1920s who, excluded from traditional scientific avenues due to the bigotry of the scientific community, undertook serious study of handwriting as a tool to the examination of human personality. ...

 

The fact that someone unfairly keeps you out of a science program at college does not guarantee the subsequent accuracy of whatever you do instead.

I once knew an astrologer who argued, very much along your lines, that astrology had to be valid because a lot of early 20th-century astrologers were women who had not been allowed into college programs in astronomy, mathematics, or other sciences, so astrology is what they decided to do instead.

 

Re:

  On 8/18/2010 at 5:07 PM, Johnny Appleseed said:

It may have turned out to be a false approach, as have many scientific approaches over time, but to claim it was not part of the history of scientific inquiry is incorrect.

 

Someone else may have claimed that, but I never did.

So the history of scientific inquiry includes graphology, astrology, alchemy, and the reading of entrails. So what?

 

Re:

  On 8/18/2010 at 5:07 PM, Johnny Appleseed said:

From the viewpoint of today, historical hypothosis may seem ludicrous, but in their time they may have seemed like a worthwhile avenue of inquiry. We may look at some work being done today and wonder if future scientists will feel the same way - e.g. will they look at the current work being done with fMRI as a quaint and misguided, as if we could really understand complex neural functioning through looking at blood flow (and the nuerologists doing that research are the first to admit that it is a very infant approach).

 

The likelihood that we know less than our descendants will learn

doesn't prove anything one way or the other about whether graphology works. As you say:

"the fact that a method of inquiry was once part of scientific inquiry does not make it legitimate."

 

Where I've seen graphology used by professionals who said that they used it as an intuitive way for people to "read something" of the handwriter's personality, the success-level has usually been either at chance-level, or visibly below chance-level. Worse, the graphologists taking that "intuitive" approach had one thing in common with other graphologists: they didn't want to hear when they were wrong about the person whose handwriting they'd been reading.

 

I look forward to the citation on that fMRI study.

 

 

[FlexiCat]

I beleive there is reference to graphology in THE HISTORY OF HANDWRITING IN AMERICA. I cannot at this time cite the information, but I recall reading in that source that graphology was developed in the late 18th century by the same person who developed phrenology. I think the same book was the source of the following. Graphology, especially autographs, were of great interest to the Victorians, who believed that a person's character was revealed in handwriting and especially in the autograph and as a result, autograph collecting was a popular 19th century hobby. Keep in mind that Spencer taught both a gentleman's hand and a lady's hand and wrote his personal correspondence in the lady's hand because it was considered that something written by a woman was from the heart rather than the brain. The publication of books by printing disturbed Victorians because it could not be determined from the printed page whether a piece of writing was by a man or a woman. Also, we should note that a person was taught a particular handwriting depending on the career path for which that person was destined. Hence, for example, those entering a commercial field learned a form of roundhand. Those destined for the law professions learned a special script which was difficult to read, requiring the services on a person trained to read and write that hand. Gentlemen were not taught penmanship because, as we all know, a gentleman did not have to work and could afford a secretary to do his writing for him. By the way, doctors were considered gentlemen, which is probably why doctors are notorious for bad penmanship. I did hear in a radio interview that the use of antiseptic was not immediately adopted because, as stated by a man living at the time antiseptic was introduced, stated that doctors don't need to use it because doctors are gentlemen and gentlemen don't get their hands dirty. Finally, Palmer promoted his penmanship style by stating it is a more masculine hand, being derived from muscle movement and gained prominence at the end of the 19th century, a time when design in general was moving away from the more feminine styles of the 19th century, think of Mission Style and Stickly, and the literature of the period moved from the spiritual/thoughtful to an action orientation. Spencer, on the other hand, said his penmanship was reminiscent of fields of grain waving in the breeze and waves lapping the shore, so, more spiritually oriented.

[Johnny Appleseed]

  On 8/18/2010 at 6:53 PM, KateGladstone said:

Usually, a person who asks others to "agree to disagree"

means something indistinguishable from

"Either agree with me, or keep silent about your disagreement."

 

 

If you don't mean that, RogerB, what do you mean instead?

 

 

I won't speak for Roger. Generally when I see the phrase "agree to disagree" it means "I have heard your point of view. I don't agree and I do not wish to continue for you to try to convince me". It is often used in a defensive situation when one is faced with another individual who presents aggressive or overbearing arguments, or where the purpose of the other party is to prove their point rather than come to a mutual understanding. I have also seen it used in a setting where one does not wish to have an argument with a friend or relative over a subject where they disagree, as well as in settings where one does not wish to invest the energy called for in the argument.

 

I find it interesting that you interpret it the way you do. Generally a call to "agree to disagree" is a conflict avoidance method. To view it as a means of silencing is an interesting way of approaching interpersonal interactions.

 

 

  On 8/18/2010 at 7:07 PM, KateGladstone said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 5:07 PM, Johnny Appleseed said:

Two additional thoughts:

 

First, the claim that graphology is nothing more than sympathetic magic ignores the substantial scientific work done with graphology in Europe in the first part of this century. ....

 

[...]

 

Someone else may have claimed that, but I never did.

So the history of scientific inquiry includes graphology, astrology, alchemy, and the reading of entrails. So what?

 

The comments were in response to other posters, not to any claim you made. The goal is to keep some scientific humility in the discussion - Graphology was once part of legitimate science. It's rejection is part of the process of science (with reservations I mention above). Continueing to follow a disproven methodology is generally not scientific, and agree that graphology is not consistant with current scientific inquiry. To treat it as if it was never part of scientific inquiry is incorrect however.

 

John

Edited August 18, 2010 by Johnny Appleseed

[rogerb]

'Agree to Disagree' means to me that, as we are clearly not going to agree, I'll keep my opinions on this to myself, and would think it sensible if, in any future conversations on this subject, you did the same.

I don't think that is denying you any rights, or making an unreasonable request ... YMMV

 

Actually, I believe there is very little to disagree with in what I wrote ...it was a factual account of my own experiences, and the conclusions I have drawn.

One may disagree with the conclusions, but it would be rather cheeky to say that I neither had those experiences nor drew those conclusions.

 

I have no idea whatsoever what the last sentence of that post means.

"Hmmmm ... if you think I've a right to my opinion, then that would mean I'd have a right to form & act on an opinion that you want something -- such as those details -- no matter how often or how loudly or how plainly you say you don't ... )"

Edited August 18, 2010 by rogerb

[KateGladstone]

Keep your opinions to yourself if you always choose to.

I do not always choose to; I'm willing an eager to risk being proven wrong.

 

One is no more "entitled" to the absence of criticism

than one is "entitled" to produce legible writing with a pen that has never been filled or dipped.

 

I don't imagine that you never had the experiences you claim, or that you never drew the conclusions you drew.

 

Re:

 

  Quote

I have no idea whatsoever what the last sentence of that post means.

"Hmmmm ... if you think I've a right to my opinion, then that would mean I'd have a right to form & act on an opinion that you want something -- such as those details -- no matter how often or how loudly or how plainly you say you don't ... )"

 

Did I accidentally write it in some language other than English? I'll try again:

 

RogerB --

 

/1/

when you say that "everyone has a right to his opinions," does this presumed "right" mean that nobody must examine or question anyone else's opinions: for fear of preventing the continued maintenance of those opinions? Or what exactly does it mean?

 

/2/

if you really think that everyone has a right to maintain all his/her opinions, no matter what --

do you think that I, too, have this right to maintain all my opinions?

Then what if one of my opinions (which you claim I've a right to maintain)

is the opinion that such an alleged "right" does not exist, cannot exist, and must not be claimed to exist?

Do I still have (in your view) a right to that opinion --

or does my own presumed "right to an opinion" extend only to those opinions that do not clash with opinions held by RogerB?

[fifthblackbird]

Everyone has the right to hold their own opinion, because noone has the right to impose their own opinions upon anyone else. In the US, we all have the right to express our opinions, but that is not the same as imposing.

[KateGladstone]

To hold an opinion, and to complain when facts given by others make the opinion difficult to hold,

is just another way of imposing an opinion:

because it is imposing the opinion that other people should silence their own opinions (and the facts behind them) for the complainer's comfort.