Perspectives and Opinions
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Wikipedia-Article "Perspectives"
Perspectives is British Columbia's first English-Chinese student newspaper. Published bi-monthly in the University of British Columbia's winter session with the exception of December and April. A few thousand copies of each issue is distributed throughout post-secondary campuses, public libraries, S.U.C.C.E.S.S. branches, Chinese Cultural Centre, and public locations for each issue.
Mission Statement
To bridge the gap between Chinese and other cultures and to promote racial understanding. To express concern and arouse student awareness about the society.
History
Perspectives sprung out of humble – and arguably noble – beginnings, in the spring of 1993. Inspired and bothered by the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre of June 4th, founder and premiere editor-in-chief, Dennis Chung, felt the need to create a medium by which Chinese students in one of the largest Asian-populated universities outside Asia could express their views, opinions, and concerns about the world around them. With a lot of nerve and heart, he gathered a group of friends who shared his vision to create a student publication for this purpose, and Perspectives was born. The founding mandates were “to bridge the gap between Chinese and other cultures; to promote racial understanding; and to express concern and arouse student awareness about the society.” The name Perspectives was chosen to embody these objectives.
Wikipedia-Article "Opinions"
An opinion is a person's ideas and thoughts towards something. It is an assessment, judgement or evaluation of something. An opinion is not a fact, because it is not possible to prove (or disprove) an opinion.
For example, one may claim that strawberry is a better tasting flavor of ice cream than vanilla. Another might claim that vanilla is a better tasting flavor. (If you disagree with either of these opinions, substitute chocolate, butter pecan, or whichever flavor of ice cream you think tastes better than vanilla, for my use of strawberry.) The original claim is an opinion; it is neither true nor false, it is simply a claim which can neither be proved nor disproved. Now, if one claims that strawberry is a more popular flavor than vanilla, that is no longer an opinion, it is a fact, which can be proved, (or in this case disproved) by showing another fact, that more vanilla ice cream is sold than strawberry. (The presumption being that people buy ice cream in order to consume it, thus, more purchases of vanilla would indicate vanilla is more popular than strawberry since people would not purchase ice cream simply to throw it away.)
The issue of whether strawberry ice cream tastes better than vanilla ice cream is still, however, arbitrary and nonprovable, and thus remains an opinion (as would the opposite opinion that vanilla ice cream tastes better than strawberry. Note that simply because a particular opinion is more popular still does not make the opposite opinion incorrect or wrong). It would not be permissible for someone else to claim that either opinion on which tastes better is wrong because opinions are still arbitrary and can neither be proved nor disproved. It is permissible to state that one disagrees with the opinion. It is, however permissible to claim that the statement that strawberry is more popular than vanilla is wrong, because it is a claim of a fact, the claim having been contradicted by one or more other facts.
Opinions can either be made up by a person or taken over from another person. Sometimes some people try to force their opinions on others. In general, all people are free to form opinions as they see fit. However, in certain political regimes, it may not be advisable to express certain opinions openly. In economics, philosophy, or other social sciences, analysis based on opinions is referred to as normative analysis (what ought to be), as opposed to positive analysis, which is based on observation (what is). Not all schools of thought find this distinction useful.
In judicial practice
In the US judiciary, opinion is the word used for a higher court's published decision which establishes new legal precedent, or supersedes or reverses existing precedent. Cases decided by the US Supreme Court, for example, sometimes become well-known because they express the court's "opinion" on how federal law (or the Constitution) is to be interpreted, which can have very wide implications (e.g. Roe v. Wade). This usage of the word opinion is different from the common usage (outside the legal field), because the court's opinion is not the opinion of any person, but the court's decision after careful deliberation of the case, and is binding on relevant future cases in lower courts. Other appeals courts, such as state appeals courts, also file opinions which serve the same function at the state level. An opinion can also be published at the insistence of a dissenting judge on the case.
Not every case decided by a higher court results in the publication of an opinion; in fact most do not, since an opinion is usually only published when the law is being interpreted in a novel way, or the case is a high-profile matter of general public interest and the court wishes to make the details of its ruling public. In the majority of cases, the judges issue what is called a memorandum opinion instead, which simply points out how state or federal law applies to the case and affirms or reverses the decision of the lower court. A memorandum opinion does not establish legal precedent or re-interpret the law, and cannot be invoked in subsequent cases to justify a ruling. Opinions, on the other hand, always establish a particular legal interpretation. It is important to remember that, in the United States, a state appeals court does not re-evaluate the facts of the case, but is called on (according to the appellant's specific reason for appeal) to decide whether the law was applied correctly, or if there were errors in the trial process that invalidate the verdict or entitle the plaintiff or defendant to a new trial.