Being "open minded"

[LC EFA]

"Open Minded" .. on the DU means willing to agree with everything said like a good little serf.

Silent3  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-19-09 02:47 PM
Original message
Being "open minded"
   
How often have you been accused of not being "open minded" on DU? How often have you made that accusation?

I think I am an open minded person. Then again, most people think that about themselves.

For me being open minded means being willing to listen when someone else is stating their case. It means being willing to consider that I might be wrong in my own opinions, that some of my own so-called facts might be in error. This willingness is not entirely unbounded, however, nor do I think it can or should be.

We all have investments in our own current viewpoint, and those investments color how we process differing views. I'm aware of that, and I think I do a decent job of trying to take that into account. I'm fortunate to be in a position where I could freely change my views on many things without fear of being disowned or shunned by family and friends, without having to abandon a career or other major focus of my life -- no major "coming out" traumas would be likely.

A lot of what I'd like to explain about what being "open minded" means to me is best expressed by talking about what being open minded isn't.

For me being open minded does not require, as I get the impression many people expect, that I extend an extremely generous benefit of the doubt to any idea or practice that meets the very weak standard of "well, you can't PROVE it's NOT true!". That a given idea or practice bears the label "religious" or "spiritual" does not, in my opinion, make that idea more deserving of special consideration.

Being open-minded doesn't mean I have to "try it myself and see" before I have a right to voice an opinion on the effectively infinite number of things I could be asked to try before forming an opinion. If someone thinks I should try something before I form any opinion whatsoever, that person should be able to make a good before-hand case about why it's a good investment of my time (or money or effort), why I should consider spending six months consuming nothing but rain water and figs, or three weeks at a "retreat" with their favorite guru.

After all, I don't need to study piano for years to understand and appreciate that people who study piano and practice at it are generally far better piano players (a few rare savants aside) than those who have never studied piano at all. I can see (and hear) clear benefits from such study, without having to engage in that study first myself, and I can make up my mind whether I want that benefit (along with maybe a few other benefits that I can't perceive so well right now, like an improved appreciation of music) enough to make the investment required.

If the supposed benefits from extensive study of some religious or spiritual book, and/or immersion into some religious or spiritual culture or practice, can only be perceived from within, or if the only perceivable benefits are vague, generic, and obtainable in many other very different ways (benefits like a sense of belonging, feeling more at peace, etc.) it is very sensible in my opinion, not close-minded at all, to view such results in terms of well-known human psychology rather than as results of genuine paths to Special Truth.

Speaking of truth (with or without the capital T), being open minded does not mean having to adopt a wishy-washy notion of "personal truth" where any notion of an objective truth is taken off the table. Without going into a long epistemological discussion, that view of truth is more a diplomatic ploy, a technique for ignoring or skirting around conflicts, than it is a workable way of making sense of the world. In the popular analogy of the blind men and the elephant those various men don't each know "an aspect of the truth", they're all simply wrong about what the elephant is. At best each possesses a single piece of misinterpreted data. If yet another blind man comes along and thinks the elephant is a cell phone, he won't even have that much. Why should I be so generous when evaluating the myriad religious and spiritual beliefs of the world (many of which are very dogmatic and make no allowances for only having "a piece of the truth") to think they're all at least as close as the blind men in the fable to some sort of important Truth, and not like my completely off-base guy who thinks he's touching a cell phone?

This brings me to "experience". I would have little reason to argue, to continue the elephant analogy, that any of the men touching the elephant didn't truly experienced what he says he experienced. (Well, I would have to wonder if the cell phone guy wasn't just pulling my leg.) Being "open minded", however, doesn't mean I have to grant someone their own interpretation of their experience, I don't have to accept that each man actually touched a rope or a pillar or a fan. I only need to accept that each man had an experience like touching each of those things.

If you claim Jesus spoke to you, I'm not being closed-minded and "denying your experience" simply because I don't automatically accept that you really, actually were spoken to by Jesus. An open mind does not require me to believe that your experience of an alien abduction was a real abduction by real aliens.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5090912

CreekDog  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-19-09 02:52 PM
Response to Original message
3. Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out
   
as someone used to tell me. :D


Silent3 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-19-09 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #3
11. Unfortunately...
   
...most of the people you need to say that to have already splatted their cerebrum on the floor, making communication of this important idea very difficult.

If it weren't for the fact that DUmmies didn't have brains to begin with, the floor over there would by 30 foot deep in brain paste.

cobalt1999  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-19-09 02:55 PM
Response to Original message
6. People that ask others to be "open minded" are usually selling shit
   
Just one of the things I've noticed in life. Like when someone says "I'll be totally honest with you", 9 out of 10 times that's when they are lying.

If someone says just be opened minded for a minute, what they are saying is turn off your B.S. filter and let me stuff this in your head.

Can you say "irony" 

sufrommich  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Feb-19-09 02:59 PM
Response to Original message
9. Accusing someone of not being "open minded" is
   
a very lazy attempt at suppressing opinion.It never works.

That is what alert buttons are for ...

jody  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Feb-19-09 08:30 PM
Response to Original message
15. A person is open-minded if she/he agrees with me, otherwise they are closed-minded.
   
with grains of truth.

Problem is with issues that are divisive and polarizing, e.g. abortion.

IMO there is no compromise possible between people who sincerely believe life starts at conception and oppose all abortions versus people who believe life starts at birth and would allow the woman to make the choice.

I don't think you are talking about the choice to abstain or use one of the other (albeit less reliable) methods of contraception out there....Or is that not "open minded" enough for you.

salguine  (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-19-09 09:06 PM
Response to Original message
20. I've always said it was one thing to have an open mind; it's quite another to
   
have a mind that's so open that the wind whistles through it. Being open-minded doesn't necessarily mean the complete abandonment of common sense.

Do you actually read the discussions between your fellow DU'ers ?

[franksolich]

The silent primitive's rather noisy.

[Mike220]

Like when someone says "I'll be totally honest with you", 9 out of 10 times that's when they are lying.

Like, when someone says "So..., " 10 out of 10 times that's when they are lying.

[BEG]

Holy crap the OP is long winded.  I couldn't even be bothered to read it.

[LC EFA]

Holy crap the OP is long winded.  I couldn't even be bothered to read it.

In all honesty I only got through the first few lines before my eyes glazed over and I skipped ahead to the comments.

[AllosaursRus]

In all honesty I only got through the first few lines before my eyes glazed over and I skipped ahead to the comments.

H5! Know wathcha mean "Vern"! That's the ONLY way I can read their BS!

[dutch508]

The problem is, and hear me out, the problem is that we tend to view the DUMpmonkies as humans. We think that rationalize things similar to how we do, feel how we do, see good and bad along similar lines.

The truth is, they do not. They will never, and they'd as like to see us dead than admit us into their world.

Only when we are able to de-humanize them in our eyes will we be able to destroy them.


Before they destroy us.

[Rebel]

Yeah, they're so "open-minded". I guess that's why they ban anyone they perceive to be conservative.....like the guy that just posted the link about DU comparing Bush to a chimp.

Open-Minded. DU-type? DO NOT WANT.

[Mike220]

CreekDog  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-19-09 02:52 PM
Response to Original message
3. Don't be so open-minded that your brains fall out as someone used to tell me. :D

As a typical DUmbass, I don't think having your brain fall out should be too high on your list of worries. 

[BlueStateSaint]

The problem is, and hear me out, the problem is that we tend to view the DUMpmonkies as humans. We think that rationalize things similar to how we do, feel how we do, see good and bad along similar lines.

The truth is, they do not. They will never, and they'd as like to see us dead than admit us into their world.

Only when we are able to de-humanize them in our eyes will we be able to destroy them.


Before they destroy us.

Dutch, you nailed it.  H5.

[franksolich]

The problem is, and hear me out, the problem is that we tend to view the DUMpmonkies as humans. We think that rationalize things similar to how we do, feel how we do, see good and bad along similar lines.

The truth is, they do not. They will never, and they'd as like to see us dead than admit us into their world.

Only when we are able to de-humanize them in our eyes will we be able to destroy them.

Before they destroy us.

That was the mistake we made during the first half of Scamdy; that the primitives thought reasonably and logically, the way decent and civilized people do.

That was a big mistake.

After we figured it out, the rest was a piece of cake.

I'm not worried about the primitives destroying decent and civilized people; I'm amused at watching them tread to their own inevitable self-destruction.

[BlueStateSaint]

I'm not worried about the primitives destroying decent and civilized people; I'm amused at watching them tread to their own inevitable self-destruction.

Coach, I beg to differ.  The blind squirrel theory.  They could get lucky and really **** things up.

[Wineslob]

jody  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Feb-19-09 08:30 PM
Response to Original message
15. A person is open-minded if she/he agrees with me, otherwise they are closed-minded.
   
 with grains of truth.

Problem is with issues that are divisive and polarizing, e.g. abortion.

IMO there is no compromise possible between people who sincerely believe life starts at conception and oppose all abortions versus people who believe life starts at birth and would allow the woman to make the choice.[

So, by your "logic", the baby is dead, until born?  Umm......ya. DUmbass.

[USA4ME]

Oh please,  To a lib, if you disagree with them on any number of topics, it's never "They view it differently," but it's always "You're closed minded.  You just haven't really studied it.  You're a bigot, racist, etc...."  It never occurs to them..... NEVER...... that when they claim another is closed-minded because they disagree with the lib POV, that it might be them being closed-minded by not agreeing with the other person.  WHOOOSH!!!!  That doesn't even stand a chance of registering with them.

.

[Wineslob]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


I've run into these jackasses at the local College, usually sitting at a table wanting you to sign a petition for some Libtard something-or-other. If you don't sign, the first thing out of their mouth is "You need to be educated on this issue!!!!!!!"
I usually turn around and very calmly say "**** you, and have a nice day".

[jukin]

DUmmys believe that 1+1=3. From then on all their other math, no matter how correct, is flawed.

[Airwolf]

When the loons at DU actually allow someone to post over there thats not part of the Barry Big Ears love fest and not part pf their comminist party group think then maybe they can say they are open minded.