When we came up with this name (with the help of friend and fellow SLU student Paulina Menichiello), it was meant to be a play on the common phrase, "I'm entitled to my own opinion." We all summon our own opinions, no matter how ill-formed, as if we're pleading the Fifth, a false surrender to fact without acknowledgment of our own error. How ironic, it is, then, that five days before we launched o
ur podcast and this website, Americans were offered "alternative facts," which seemed to validate the common strategy to plead our opinion, no matter how contrary to fact it really is. We're desperate to know: Why do our opinions blind us from fact? And, just as vitally, how do we separate opinion from fact, or tell what is factual in the first place? And not just friends we agree with, but also the ones who staunchly oppose all we stand for. What is the root of our misunderstanding? We hope to practice intellectual humility and bridge intellectual gaps, to ask experts to enlighten us and peers to engage us. We are hyperaware of our generation's incestuous instinct to perpetuate partisan ideologies while closing itself to new opinions. In many ways, our name is an ironic anthem to this misguiding nature of our generation, hoping to propel ourselves and others into the exposure of new ideas. We long ago established our own opinions, and frankly, we're sick of brandishing them. So, now we turn to you all. Forgive us if we're infringing, but we do believe that we're Entitled to Our Friend's Opinion, and that you are entitled to ours, as well. All in the search for truth.
