Note to readers: Last week, I sent you an email with a link to this blog post. The link was broken. Moving forward, I will send my blog posts inside the newsletter. You can still find them on my website, but I wanted to include the entire body of the message of the email so you don't have to click and go anywhere. It is the way I like reading my newsletters, too. Below you will find last week's post.
This is not a dissertation on being cynical, nor an essay on not believing in anything; it's just a suggestion I heard when I competed in Speech and Debate.
My debate coach would listen to our rounds and judge us on everything from content, logic, and technique to seemingly minor things like vocal statics like "um," "I mean," and "like." The last one is one I'm fond of using.
"I believe" fell in the category of vocal static, but, at a meta-level, also on the former as it was an issue of logic and rhetoric.
In conversation, stories, or debates, we as speakers should always assume that the listener is using their judgment and thinking that what we are saying is an opinion. Qualifying our statements makes us look like we are equivocating and seeking approval over our statement, making us look like less confident as speakers.
It is almost impossible to find someone with whom you will agree 100% of the time on 100% of the topics.
As such, it is every listener's responsibility to sort through the noise on statements made by others, especially when it pertains to subjects that have yet to be determined.
So if the statement is, "If you jump from a bridge without a parachute, you will hurt yourself very badly." The laws of gravity have been determined, so there is no point in assuming a position from the speaker versus still-debated governance policies, such as "Taxing the rich/trickle-down economics is the only way to redistribute wealth and help the poor in our country."
In the former, the phrase "I believe" is irrelevant as it is a truism where in the second one, "I believe" is unnecessary because the listener is smart enough to know that this is a position that comes from a framework and as a writer, teller or commentator you will follow up that thesis with evidence and conclusions.
At least, that's what I believe. ;)
