It dubs one with the honorable title "Open-minded" when you are empty-headed and receptive to their ideas and close-minded to anyone else's ideas.
Example:
I am open-minded if I think that we need to financially back new technologies to save our endangered planet (no matter how tenuous and unsupported and ineffective those technologies and the global warming hypothesis may be.)
I am close-minded if I think that our public school system is a proven failure in comparison to our own standards and international standards of excellence and should be replaced with completely different models of teaching and curriculum based on a core group of texts and subjects, traditional ethics, stronger discipline, and critical thinking development.
Close-mindedness has come to be the label branded on any independent and/or traditional thinker. Our government (and the educators who enjoy their symbiotic relationship with Big Brother) has increasingly taken the line that "we'll handle all of those governmental complexities; just trust us; we'll take care of you." Has anyone else read 1984 or Brave New World? If you have, those phrases are hauntingly familiar and ominous.
Creativity is only encouraged along party lines. New ways to intrude on personal privacy, to normalize perverted forms of fornication, and to bring more aspects of daily life under government control are all welcome here! Research on the effects of contraceptive hormones on the environment, the true magnitude of post-abortion syndrome and abortion malpractice, and the effects of divorce and infidelity on children's character formation . . . honestly, that's all rather negative and unimportant. Or so I'm told.
A truly open-minded person is not susceptible to propaganda and band wagon appeals. As Chesterton illustrates vividly, "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." Dr. Suess would agree:
My uncle ordered popovers
from the restaurant's bill of fare.
And, when they were served,
he regarded them with a penetrating stare.
Then he spoke great words of wisdom
as he sat there on that chair:
"To eat these things," said my uncle,
"You must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what's solid,
but you must spit out the air!"
And as you partake of the world's bill of fare,
that's darned good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air.
And be careful what you swallow.
~Theodore Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), from a commencement address
One who deserves the title "open-minded" in the sense of a virtue is one who has the humility to admit they may be wrong, the strength of character to change when they find a deeper truth to adhere to, and the confidence to close their mind against temptations to dishonesty, sophistry, fallacious thinking, and the influence of weaker characters.
I've always liked to think that I'm the type of person who has been unafraid to fight the current. However, I too have moments when I compare my body to the girl on the magazine in the grocery store aisle; I want to just smile and nod instead of redirecting a conversation that has taken a wrong turn into the realm of gossip or illogical argumentation; I want to think that "I know better" than the generations that go before me just because some of my skills or fluidity with technology is better; I want to just be told what to think and to do, rather than to research, to seek for truth, and to change myself when I find my virtue is weak and my logic unsound.
Some thoughts to consider:
> If you don't control your mind, someone else will. ~John Allston
> Be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out. ~Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
> Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity; and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom. ~George Bernard Shaw
> Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. ~Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection
> “...when faith resolves to believe it runs the risk of committing itself to an error, but it nevertheless believes. There is no other road to faith; if one wishes to escape risk, it is as if one wanted to know with certainty that he can swim before going into the water.” ~Kierkegaard
Image: http://www.fernandobaril.com.br/imagens/open_mind.jpg
Was it sufficiently creepy to get you to read my overly-long post?
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