On Open-Mindedness

In contemporary culture, open-mindedness seems to represent the pinnacle of personal development and as such it is often seen to be on par with and akin to a kind of “enlightenment.” Yet all too often (and perhaps as a result), a person's sincere belief that they are open-minded can solely be used to justify beliefs they hold which conflict with the beliefs of others. For example, if I am open-minded and I believe this world is an illusion, and you happen to believe that this world is real, then you must not be open-minded. (I personally refer to this process as “playing the open-minded card.” Hence, my “open-minded card” is played to trump whatever it is you have to say, because if you were open-minded, you would agree with me.) Thus, I am able to provide myself with a perfectly “rational” justification for my beliefs whenever a person disagrees with me. I may even make statements such as “if so-and-so was only more open-minded they would understand” or “if you don't accept my viewpoint then you're being closed-minded.” But this is extremely shallow intellectually, and can only be ignorant at best. The fact that someone may disagree with me does not provide me with grounds to accuse them of being closed-minded. What if they are right and I am wrong? Too often people say things or hold beliefs which cannot hold up to scrutiny, simply because they are far too general, contradictory, or both, and when one in fact does hold such a position, to retort that those who disagree are closed-minded is clearly to deceive oneself.

Now I realize that people do exist who are closed-minded and perhaps to the extent that we couldn't "open their mind" with a crowbar. But before we assume that such is the case, why not sincerely examine the reasons which support their position? It seems, however, that many people are unwilling to do as much. After all, is it not more satisfying to simply write someone off as being closed-minded than to painstakingly look in the mirror and reevaluate one's personal premises and presuppositions?

The concept of open-mindedness has been indirectly touched upon in the closing paragraph of Lesson VIII: Self-Deception and Learning. The general idea is simple: always be open to learn. Such a concept presupposes the reality that “we don't know what we don't know,” which in itself provides a strong case for continuous learning and growth. Though the word “open-minded” never appears in the lesson, its essence has nonetheless been presented. But how then are we to define the concept of open-mindedness?

First, everything that we know (or think we know) can simply be reduced to information. And nearly everyone will admit to the reality that they don't know everything. We can therefore conclude that information does exist which we personally have not yet discovered. The said premises support the truism that “we don't know what we don't know” or in other words, that “there is always more to learn.” It seems therefore, that open-mindedness is the ability to approach new information as that of a student: it is the willingness to consider new information. The key words in this definition are “willingness,” “consider,” and “new information.” Willingness implies that we are open to hear more about a given subject. We thus can never believe that “everything has been said” about something, and as such we must always be, as it were, open. In conjunction with the word willingness, the word consider suggests that we are open to “think over” something. In other words we are open to honestly study, ponder or evaluate something. New information is just that, it is information which is new to us. It is information which we are encountering for the first time, and as such we must be open to hear as well as consider it seriously. Notice this definition says nothing about “accepting everything you hear” or believing that “all viewpoints are equally valid.” One can wholly reject an idea and still be open-minded about the idea itself. Open-mindedness is not synonymous with acceptance. Rather, it is simply the willingness to consider new information. Without such willingness, we are unable to learn, yet without any consideration we are liable to accept anything.