Opinions only exist embodied in a form and a social context

Evidence

But in everyday life, opinions always come in a form: flippant, ironic, anxious, determined, abstractly distant, earnest, engaged, effortful. And they always come in a context — a bar, a charity group, a family, a picket — that implicitly invites or discourages debate. The survey 1s itself a context, that helps create the kind of person who will cooperatively answer a stranger’s questions and not demand dialogue. When I had a job in college as a door-to-door survey interviewer, I encountered some interviewees who valiantly tried to convince me of their opinions, hoping to convert me; others who offered beer and outrageous opinions, hoping to date me; others who offered amusing debate, hoping to embroil me in an evening’s entertainment. Others were like the Russian émigrée who refused to state her opinions unless she knew what mine were. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 164

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Russia-émigrée anecdote and to swidler’s cultural ‘tools’; also resonates with polling literature (e.g. Philip Converse’s nonattitudes) about survey respondents having no prior opinion. — connects to: Opinions take shape only within contexts that invite or discourage debate — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 164; The subject’s unity is an effect of social configuration, not a premise — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 333; The truth of ideas is independent of their social origins — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 210 (+1 more)
• ADDENDUM: Pairs with ‘On Sacrifice’ theme of public performance only loosely; more directly it argues that political meaning is made in interpersonal context, complementing the etiquette argument in the Immodesty piece about context-dependent display.
• corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 164

Broader Connections

• Opinions take shape only within contexts that invite or discourage debate #expands (0.85) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 164
• The truth of ideas is independent of their social origins #contradicts (0.78) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 210
• The subject’s unity is an effect of social configuration, not a premise #expands (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 333
• We-subject feeling is a solipsistic illusion with no real social being #contradicts (0.75)