An open mind and heart

I believe we should treasure an open mind. Unless we do, we will cease to learn and to grow. I also believe we should value convictions. People without passionate commitments do not lead change, and both individuals and societies continuously need reforming somehow, some way. (I will let that statement stand as a conviction based on observation, knowing that you may disagree.)

It seems to me that a crucial test of a genuinely open mind is an open heart. Is it enough to say to someone with a conviction other than our own, “I am willing to consider the possibility that you are correct?” Or even, “Your argument is so compelling that I must change my mind?” I think something more is necessary for so robust a claim as “I am open minded”? A deeper move is better evidence, and that move is a change of heart.

I think we are far more likely to entertain other possibilities and step into new intellectual places if we open our heart toward other persons. In other words, those who are truly open-minded are open-hearted. An example may express my point best.

Let us says that you strongly oppose marriage equality for LGBT persons. You have a friend who you come to find holds strongly the conviction that LGBT persons have the right to marry. You have so far in your relationship held this person in high esteem. Would you say, upon discovering your difference of conviction, “I am disappointed. To think! I respected him (or her)”? Or, would you say, “Now that I know this person is approving of LGBT marriage, I must reconsider the question”?

Of course, the example might be stated in the other direction. This is why I say that strong convictions, while crucial to the process of individual and social improvement, must be held lightly and humbly. Unless they rest, rather than take root, in us, we will quit listening to each other. Intellectual deafness is a perilous condition because intellectual pride is the end of sound thinking, and the attachment of spiritual unction to intellectual pride is spiritual pride, and when spiritual pride becomes the attitude of a community, bad things will follow. Alas! I must confess that all I have just written has taken deep root in me.