Folks usually extol the advantage of open-mindedness, however can there be an excessive amount of of a great factor?
As a college dean, I usually observe campus controversies concerning the Israel-Hamas conflict, race relations, and different hot-button points. Many of those concern free speech—what college students, school, and invited audio system ought to and shouldn’t be allowed to say.
However free speech disputes aren’t merely about permission to talk. They’re about who belongs on the desk—and whether or not there are limits to the viewpoints we must always take heed to, argue with, or permit to alter our minds. As a philosopher who works on “culture war” issues, I’m significantly fascinated with what free-speech disputes educate concerning the worth of open-mindedness.
Speaking collectively within the “huge tent”
X
Free-speech advocates usually discover inspiration within the Nineteenth-century thinker John Stuart Mill, who argued for what we’d name a “huge tent” strategy: partaking with a wide range of viewpoints, together with people who strike you as mistaken. In spite of everything, Mill wrote, you might be flawed. And even if you happen to’re proper, the conflict of opinions can sharpen your causes.
Some critics imagine that Mill’s arguments haven’t worn effectively, particularly in an age of demagoguery and “pretend information.” Do I really want to take heed to people who believe the Earth is flat? Holocaust deniers? My kin’ crackpot conspiracy theories on the vacation dinner desk? Whose profit would such openness serve?
The first argument for the massive tent strategy is rooted in intellectual humility: correctly recognizing the restrictions to what every of us is aware of. In a single sense, it’s a recognition of human fallibility—which, when mixed with hubris, can have disastrous outcomes.
Extra positively, mental humility is aspirational: There’s lots but to study. Importantly, mental humility doesn’t imply that one lacks ethical convictions, not to mention the will to steer others of these convictions.
Having spent a number of many years advocating for same-sex marriage—together with taking part in dozens of campus debates and two point-counterpoint books—I’m satisfied of the worth of engagement with “the opposite facet.” On the identical time, I’m aware of its prices. All issues thought of, I imagine that {the marketplace} of concepts ought to err on the facet of a giant tent.
The boundaries of listening
The up to date philosopher Jeremy Fantl is amongst these involved concerning the huge tent’s prices. In his e-book The Limitations of the Open Mind, Fantl notes that some arguments are cleverly misleading, and interesting with them open-mindedly can truly undermine information. Think about a hard-to-follow mathematical proof, its flaw tough to identify, that signifies 2 + 2 = 5.
Apparently, Fantl sees his stance as in step with mental humility: Nobody is an knowledgeable on all the pieces, and we’re all unlikely to identify fallacies in complicated misleading arguments exterior our experience.
There’s one other worrisome price to partaking with misleading counterarguments: A few of them hurt folks. To have interaction open-mindedly with Holocaust denial, for instance—to deal with it as an choice on the desk—is to fail to precise applicable solidarity with Jews and different victims of the Nazi regime. Greater than giving offense, partaking these views may make somebody complicit in ongoing oppression, probably by undermining schooling about genocide and ethnic cleaning.
What about closed-minded engagement—that’s, partaking with opposing viewpoints merely with a purpose to refute them publicly?
Fantl grants that such engagement can have worth however worries that it’s usually ineffective or dishonest. Ineffective, if you happen to inform your opponents from the outset, “You’re not going to alter my thoughts”—a conversation-stopper if something is. Dishonest, if you happen to faux to interact open-mindedly once you’re actually not.
Studying whereas convincing
For my part, Fantl misunderstands the objectives of engagement and thus units up a false distinction between open- and closed-mindedness. There’s an area between these two extremes—and which may be the place probably the most constructive conversations occur.
Take into account once more my same-sex marriage advocacy. Once I debated opponents similar to Glenn Stanton of Deal with the Household and Maggie Gallagher of the Nationwide Group for Marriage—a outstanding nonprofit group opposing same-sex marriage—did I strongly imagine that I used to be proper they usually had been flawed? In fact I did. And naturally they believed the reverse. Did I count on that they’d persuade me that my place on same-sex marriage was flawed? No, by no means—and neither did they.
In that sense, you possibly can say I wasn’t open-minded.
Alternatively, I used to be open to studying from them, and I usually did. I used to be open to studying their considerations, views, and insights, recognizing that we had totally different experiences and areas of experience. I used to be additionally open to constructing relationships to foster mutual understanding. In that sense, I used to be fairly open-minded.
Viewers members who approached the debates with comparable openness would generally say afterward, “I all the time thought the opposite facet believed [X], however I notice I must rethink that.” For instance, my facet tended to imagine that Maggie’s and Glenn’s arguments can be primarily theological—they weren’t—or that they hated homosexual folks—they don’t. Their facet tended to imagine I didn’t care about youngsters’s welfare—fairly the opposite—or that I imagine that morality is a “personal matter,” which I emphatically don’t.
Purpose and respect
On the identical time, there have been outstanding figures whose place on the wedding query did change.
David Blankenhorn, founding father of the assume tank the Institute for American Values, had been a same-sex marriage opponent for a few years, albeit one who all the time acknowledged some good on each side of the talk. Eventually he came to believe that as an alternative of serving to youngsters, as he had hoped, opposition to same-sex marriage primarily served to stigmatize homosexual residents.
So generally the conflict of opinions can shock you—simply as Mill suspected.
Does this imply that I like to recommend in search of out Holocaust deniers for dialogue? No. Some views actually are past the pale, and common engagement has diminishing returns. There are solely so many hours within the day. However that stance ought to be adopted sparingly, particularly when consultants within the related group are conflicted.
As a substitute, I like to recommend following Blankenhorn as a mannequin, in a minimum of 3 ways.
First, concede opposite proof even when that proof is inconvenient. Doing so could be tough in an atmosphere the place folks fear that if they offer the opposite facet an inch, they’ll take a mile. Blankenhorn’s opponents would usually gleefully seize on his concessions, for example, as if a single optimistic level settled the talk.
However protecting beliefs proportionate to proof is vital to transferring previous polarized gridlock—to not point out discovering fact. Certainly, Blankenhorn has since founded an organization with the express objective of bridging partisan divides.
Second, try to see what good there’s on the opposite facet, and once you do, publicly acknowledge it.
And third, do not forget that bridge-building is essentially about relationship-building, which creates an area for belief—and, in the end, deeper dialogue.
Such dialogue might not all the time uncover fact, as Mill hoped it could, however a minimum of it acknowledges that all of us have lots to study.
This text is republished from The Conversation below a Artistic Commons license. Learn the original article.
