Your opinions should not be predictable based on your other opinions

Defining yourself based on your opinions can make for a tough life, because then changing your opinions (which you should probably do from time to time) becomes much more difficult to do. In his book “ Excellent Advice for Living “, Kevin Kelly says:

Don’t define yourself by your opinions because then you can’t change your mind. Define yourself by your values.

It’s good advice, and it blends into something else that he said in the book:

If your opinions on one subject can be predicted from your opinions on another you may be in the grip of an ideology. When you truly think for yourself your conclusions will not be predictable.

We see this a lot in politics. If someone is against gun regulation, they likely are in favor of stronger border control and they hate electric cars. If someone is pro-choice, they’re likely supportive of gay marriage and concerned about climate change. In most cases like this, the items that fall into a particular group are unrelated to one another but are entirely predictable based on political leanings.

If you fall into one of those groups, your thought is likely “ yes, but they’re only predicable in my case because they’re all the right choices”. Of course, someone on the other side has the exact same…