Open-minded takes on new meaning

I was driving back to Tech Sunday from a trip home. Due to Spring Break traffic, the drive had taken unusually long and after five and a half hours (normally a four hour trip), I was more than a little tired and irritated.

I was almost back to my apartment when I saw this bumper sticker on the car in front of me: “Minds are like parachutes—they work best when open.”

Now this isn’t particularly objectionable in the world of bumper stickers. I’ve seen everything from “Keep honking, I’m reloading” to “F the President” on the back of people’s cars. In light of those intellectual gems, a slogan encouraging the opening of minds might actually seem like a welcome departure. However, the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. What does it mean to have an “open mind?”

In my opinion, there are two very different definitions of this phrase floating around.

The first definition goes something like this: someone presents you with an idea then you evaluate this idea based on the facts presented to you and your own logic and reason. You might even do some research on your own. After you have evaluated the idea with all of the resources available to you, you either accept the idea as valid or reject it as invalid.

Now, the key here is that it is completely irrelevant if you accept the idea or not. The point is that you have considered the person’s idea, fully evaluated it based on your own logic and reason and you have made a decision about it.

The other definition, and sadly the one that is most often used, goes like this: “open-minded” means that you “open” up your mind and let whomever pour into it whatever they feel like.

“Open minded” means that your mind is an open gate, accepting anything that will come its way and rejecting nothing. For if you reject anything—especially something considered progressive by modern thinkers—you are instantly branded as “close-minded.”

Now for reasons that should be obvious, that is a completely bogus way of looking at things.

I realize that the contemporary philosophy where everything, everyone and every idea is accepted holds some appeal—and frankly, I think the world would be a much better place now if we were all a little more tolerant of each other’s differences. But the world is not going to be the utopia some would like it to be if we forget how to say “no.”

Some people are just evil, some actions are just wrong and some ideas are just plain bad. This has been the reality of things since humans began roaming the Earth and I don’t expect it to change anytime soon.

Another flaw in the contemporary use of the phrase “open-mindedness” is the tendency to lump people of the same opinion together as either open or closed-minded.

One’s opinion is almost completely irrelevant in determining whether or not they are open minded. The sole determinant of that is how they arrived at that opinion.

If someone worked through a logical series of steps and analysis in deciding whether or not an idea was valid, then they are open minded in that regard. If that person did not (which often results from group think or popular opinion), then they are closed-minded in that regard.

Two people could very well have the exact same opinion on a certain matter, but one be open minded and the other be closed-minded.

On the other hand, two people could have vastly different opinions on the same matter, but still be open minded (or vice versa).

Present-day usage of open and closed-mindedness has become less about defining a virtuous way of thinking and more about being a bludgeoning tool to hammer your opponents into accepting your idea.

Here in the year 2006, being closed-minded is about as cool as going to the senior prom with your Aunt Ethyl.

Faced with that proposition, you would think it would be in one’s best interest to come across as open-minded as possible. In actuality, what usually results from accusations of closed-mindedness is barriers being built between the two parties. Standoff lines are drawn and productive discourse suffers or stops all together.

Instead of such silliness as that, how about we actually try to understand the other person before we start calling them names. In the days of idiotic one-liner bumper stickers, it’s definitely a step in the right direction.