Pens, Publishing, and Opinions

I have roughly thirty plastic, Bic pens in a small box in the top drawer of my desk. I can only use one at a time, of course, and the one I’ve been using recently is about half empty (or half full, if you’re one of those people). It has a clear but not quite transparent plastic body, with a black-and-white spiraled grip that I twist when I’m bored in class. It has black ink and rolls it onto paper with a smooth ball-point tip. I’ve left some tooth-marks on the cap, not too many, but some. The function of a pen is simple and well-known: it writes, doodles, marks, and blackens. The pen is entirely ordinary; I could find another one, exactly similar save the teeth marks, in any desk or office on campus. I am glad that I use this pen, though, and not a pencil for my work.

Unlike the graphite of pencils, ink is permanent. Ink is dark and visible, and always seems somehow louder on paper. It is the opinionated, stubborn cousin of pencil lead. Instead of the “here one moment, gone the next,” graphite, I strike my words into the paper in black ink. Regardless of what I write, there is an evident severity there. As strange as it may sound, this severity is somewhat analogous to me. Similar to how ink marks are clear and “loud,” I am not one to keep my opinions quiet, and I tend to defend my opinions when they are criticized.

Though this trait is not inherently a bad thing, there is a fine line between speaking about one’s opinions and speaking rashly. I became aware of this difference in my junior year of high school, after I had transferred to a new school. The new school held its classes using a discussion-based teaching style called the Harkness Method. In Harkness, students sit at a large, circular table and learn from each other through conversation and debate about the material, with as little involvement on the part of the professor as possible,. Even math, which is considered a “black and white” topic with little room for disagreement, is taught this way. It is in English and history classes, though, where this method’s best qualities are most apparent. Students face each other across the table, books in hand, and participate in a conversation that they have built for themselves. During the conversation, students direct the dialog toward the areas which they are most interested in or confused by. Overcoming trepidation and doubt, students make the decision to vocalize the thoughts they have formed. A thought then becomes a publication; a claim which is tested by the other students, to be applauded or exposed.

Having stepped foot into the Harkness arena as a junior, I lacked the two years of experience which my veteran classmates had earned. Needless to say, the early months of my time at the Harkness table were made up of countless defeats. The arguments I brought to the table were based on my unpolished opinions, and the holes in my claims made rebuttal imminent. As that first year went on, facing countless defeats and rebuttals at the table, I learned that key to a good argument is the preemptive fortification of the argument. Before class I would review what I wanted to say, inspecting it for hasty assumptions I had made or openings which could be exploited by my classmates. Like writing with my Bic pen, I could not erase anything I might have said. I had to be confident enough in my statement before vocalizing it.

I devoted time to my opinions through this practice of reviewing them, which was something I had never done before. Before sharing my thoughts, which were no less clear, no less permanent, and no less “loud,” I learned that I am obliged to take them seriously. There is a level of expectation which any given audience places on a speaker—even amongst friends. To say something unpopular (without it being a joke), and not have anything to back the statement, is disagreeable to readers, friends, and classmates alike.

My Bic pen does one job: it writes, clearly and permanently. It makes my thoughts concrete, just as sharing them verbally gives them life through sound. I think there is something to be said about “publishing” opinions–actually sharing them, in one way or another. Whether I write an opinion or speak it, obviously I have previously thought it. Yet once I share it, I know that I have really meant it. Both written and spoken opinions are subject to critique from others, some of whom will, undoubtedly, disagree. To share a thought, therefore, requires the belief that it has some degree of merit to it. “Publishing” an opinion, to one person or to millions, shows a commitment on the part of the publisher to that opinion–a sort of seriousness toward those public thoughts which those kept in private lack. I know who I am and where I stand, and so whether I say something in an argument, or scratch it into paper with my Bic pen, I know that I have meant what I said.