INDIVIDUALITY IN OPINION AND BELIEF. Men frequently display with regard to their opinions and beliefs the same passionate attachment that they exhibit with regard to their physical possessions. Like the latter, these come to be regarded as an extension of the individual's personality, and the same tenacious defense may be made of them as of a house, land, or money.
Individual opinions and beliefs are not themselves possessions, from a social point of view, so much as is the right to express them. A man's private opinion may influence his own conduct; his conduct itself may be an expression of opinion. But unless an opinion is communicated, it cannot influence any one else's conduct, and society has never been much concerned about opinions that an individual harbored strictly in his own bosom. Silence, socially, is as good as assent. The insistence on the right to one's own opinions becomes, therefore, an insistence on the right or the freedom to express them.[2] This right is cherished in varying degrees by different individuals in different ages. It becomes pronounced in persons in whom there is marked development of individuality, and, in general, where, as in Anglo-Saxon countries, a social and political tradition of liberty and individuality has become very powerful.
[Footnote 2: Beliefs and opinions may come to be regarded as important personal possessions in themselves, as in the case of rival claimants to some theory or idea, as in the case of Leibnitz's and Newton's dispute over the calculus.]
Individuality in opinion and belief becomes critical chiefly when the opinions and beliefs expressed are at variance with those generally current among the group. For reasons already discussed in connection with man's instinctive gregariousness and the emotional sway which habits of thought have over men, dissent is regarded with suspicion. Especially is this the case where the dissenting opinions have to do with new social organization and custom. The psychological causes of this opposition are various, but include among other things a positive feeling of fear.
It is only recently that men have been abandoning the belief that the welfare of a state depends on rigid stability and on the preservation of its traditions and institutions unchanged. Wherever that belief prevails, novel opinions are felt to be dangerous as well as annoying, and any one who asks inconvenient questions about the why and the wherefore of accepted principles is considered a pestilent person.[1]