Seven Tiers of Opinion

The Seven Tiers of Opinion.  We are pelted by opinions on all networks, particularly cable networks. But your opinion and mine have little impact.  To make it to a network appearance, you must have a credential, or several. It seems that any credential will do, provided you have the right opinion, matching the right network. I currently see all sorts.  Let’s make a list of just seven tiers of opinion. 

1.   Of course, the opinions of those at the top of the hierarchy gain the preferred coverage. These include former secretaries, chiefs of staff, former ambassadors, and generals at the top of the command chain.  Also, there is a plethora of CEO's, former and current.  All have some level of achievement.  Such players have opinions worthy of a listen, if only a quick one.   
2.    Then comes the second tier.  These include talk show hosts.  Always articulate, they have a near poetic ability to express opinions.  They are often pejorative for some side of the issue at hand.  Yet, they have thought through the issues within their sphere of long rehearsed impressions.
3. The third tier includes lower-ranking retired military officers with "military and defense" opinions, non-commissioned officers that appeal to a select audience, usually based on strength moves, and senior advisors to this or that federal agency but always available.  This group always has strong opinions, spoken with strong views, yet with only little wisdom, unless it resonates with listener personal opinions.
4.   A fourth tier includes current and former police officials, expostulating on their views of crime and usually the lack of or inappropriateness of law enforcement.
5. The fifth tier, and very limited, consists of the clergy or otherwise religious leader advising us on their views of spiritual issues.  Remarkably, some or our notables or celebrities, not regular people, have Tweeted and otherwise how they have found the importance of spiritual or religious needs.  Also in this tier are the climate-change and otherwise “green” advocates offering facts and other views on how the planet is being destroyed by anthropogenic causes. 
6. The sixth tier includes a large group of academics often speaking with loud and lordly authority, which in their views must be accepted because, well, they are the intellegentsia and therefore they must be correct. So, you must believe. Academic authority has been deprecated now for decades, it being understood to be highly dependent on various intellectual yet impractical and unproven models. (Consider the French intellectuals prior to WWII.)
7. Finally, there is a large group of experts, of all stripes, telling us of how our country is slowly being destroyed by its lack of observance and rectitude of racist, gender, and religious prejudice.

With seven tiers of opinion, we are pelted 24/7.  Forget actual news.  Forget the facts. Demagogue the past. Demagogue the now. Demagogue the future. On the networks, your future seems linked with a massive infusion of opinion.  The message, not the truth, now reign. But…

To my view, many if not most people, have developed an intuition about opinion and a semi-cynical view of it all.  They seem to have an internal compass of what to accept, but more importantly what to reject.

I have long said that for any intelligence level, there is a Ph.D. program for you.  The only requirement is that you can write a complete sentence.  In many cases, one can contract online services for a thesis and escape this small requirement.  Some of these folks wind up as legitimate commentators on TV.