Re: Small minds vs Open minds
The Pentacle Queen wrote:I think that the large majority of the time theres a certain pressure to be open minded, especially with the whole liberal/labour pc trend.
I'm open minded, or so I like to think. And I think the key to open mindedness is realising the walls of your mind, your own subjectivity and how much you don't know.
Plus always remembering that the satanist who lives round the corner from you's beliefs are as real to him as yours are to you.
What annoys me is when people pressurize other people into being open minded. Am I right in diagnosing this as another form of small mindedness? Surely if you were truly open minded you would respect others small mindedness?
Sometimes I feel open mindedness can be used in such a way as to create 'groups' which destroy it's purpose.
'Oh! Look how open minded we are! Surely, you aren't as open minded as us!we're like soooo out there.'
These types of attitudes 'close off' being open.
Am I right or is this a pile of wank?
At our local library is an abstract sculpture with an engraved caption: "In order to function, a mind must be open." (or at least a reasonable facsimile of that.)
In my never-to-be-considered-humble opinion, however, open-mindedness is not defined as 'accepting' or 'conforming to' anything. Those who require you to think as they think in order for you to be deemed open minded and therefore acceptable are probably themselves the smallest minded or most close minded of all.
For me, open minded means being willing to HEAR another point of view, to consider its merits, to receive new information as much as possible without prejudice, and include all available information when making a value judgment or decision about such information. A mind that is made up is not necessarily closed; but once any new or different information is actively refused, the mind has closed, solidified, and noticably shrinks.