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I'm looking for thoughts on this article: "Open your mind to Close-Mindedness"


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By Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D.

~ Less than a minute read

"I don’t think we should be down on people whose minds are closed. Learning is painful, I suspect. At least, uncomfortable. Which is a level of distress. Learning – neurologically speaking – is an event of neural plasticity. To learn, a brain has to change. Any change is a disruption of homeostasis, an uncomfortableness, a level of distress. Closed minds – I posit – hurt too much when it comes to rethinking reality.

 

Why? Because they have been programmed too tightly by other closed minds (parents, micro-culture). Not their fault, as I see it. (When you are growing up with a closed (change-fearing) mind, you are operating under the conditions of conditional love. That’s an emotionally scary environment: you learn fast, you learn well – you mimic your parents, you try to be like them, because you need to survive.) So, what we are dealing with here is just a legacy of historical pain avoidance of having to ever upgrade an evolving view of reality.

 

If you can relate to avoidance of pain, you can relate to a closed mind. So, I call on you, Open Mind, to learn to feel non-patronizing compassion for a Closed Mind. Open your mind to close-mindnedness. After all, a closed mind is just defensiveness, i.e. self-care. No sin in that."

 

I'm curious to hear some opinions of what everyone here thinks about this. Is it right on point? Complete non-sense? Not without merit but still highyl flawed?

Posted

Why? Because they have been programmed too tightly by other closed minds (parents, micro-culture). Not their fault, as I see it. (When you are growing up with a closed (change-fearing) mind, you are operating under the conditions of conditional love. That’s an emotionally scary environment: you learn fast, you learn well – you mimic your parents, you try to be like them, because you need to survive.) So, what we are dealing with here is just a legacy of historical pain avoidance of having to ever upgrade an evolving view of reality.

It actually sounds a lot like what I was describing here: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44014-is-the-movement-towards-global-peaceful-parenting-the-toughest-battle-to-win/ But I guess I was describing more so the challenge with helping the close minded learn, due to us being a social species. I was describing that to challenge one's current reality can, and a lot of the times will, break up relationships one has, which is detrimental to one's survival as a social being.

 

As for empathizing with the close minded and having the patience to work with them, I have no choice, because I shared their close minded beliefs not too long ago.

Posted

It actually sounds a lot like what I was describing here: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44014-is-the-movement-towards-global-peaceful-parenting-the-toughest-battle-to-win/ But I guess I was describing more so the challenge with helping the close minded learn, due to us being a social species. I was describing that to challenge one's current reality can, and a lot of the times will, break up relationships one has, which is detrimental to one's survival as a social being.

 

As for empathizing with the close minded and having the patience to work with them, I have no choice, because I shared their close minded beliefs not too long ago.

You have to? Because you see your former self in others? Most people don't change unless they have to. Most people are not open minded. So did you change from being a closed minded person to an open minded one? Or were you always open minded and just didn't have enough info to make better decisions until recently?

Posted

It actually sounds a lot like what I was describing here: https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44014-is-the-movement-towards-global-peaceful-parenting-the-toughest-battle-to-win/ But I guess I was describing more so the challenge with helping the close minded learn, due to us being a social species. I was describing that to challenge one's current reality can, and a lot of the times will, break up relationships one has, which is detrimental to one's survival as a social being.

 

As for empathizing with the close minded and having the patience to work with them, I have no choice, because I shared their close minded beliefs not too long ago.

 

I agree that we should have some patience with and empathy for the closed-minded as a lot if not all of their closed-mindedness comes from how they were raised. However, I think this can only go up to a certain point. Similar to defooing, you can only spend so much time and effort trying to break through to people before you just have to let them fall by the wayside.

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Posted

I think the article is just a very fancy of way of saying, "When you take other people's rejection of your ideas personally - (even though it can't possibly be personal) - you create a vengeful spirit that cannot change their minds and cannot wound their hearts any worse than they've already been wounded; this is like punching a brick wall: it only hurts your hand." 

Posted

You have to? Because you see your former self in others? Most people don't change unless they have to. Most people are not open minded. So did you change from being a closed minded person to an open minded one? Or were you always open minded and just didn't have enough info to make better decisions until recently?

I think the latter. My parents didn't reinforce their spiritual beliefs in me at all. But then again, they weren't really parents to me in general, so most of the decisions I made or beliefs I created were usually based on my older siblings' influence, my friends' influence, or my own research. Though, I didn't start depending on my own research until recently, which is why I said it wasn't too long ago that I shared their close minded beliefs.

Posted

I don't think you should be down on people who don't want to work out.
Exercise is painful, uncomfortable and certainly a level of distress. You are changing your body and disrupting its peaceful state of sedentary belly scratching.

 

Obese persons have been conditioned by food that tastes good. You cannot hold them responsible since the body craves sugar and fat. 

So what we are dealing with here is the biological history of evolution.

 

If you can relate to the avoidance of pain, you can relate to a 12 hour nap.

 

 

 

But in all seriousness, empathy and gentleness in conversation for the close-minded is really important. But it's equally important to recognize the costs and benefits of your brain adapting to a poor environment.

This is especially true when those costs start to accrue to the open-minded people. At that point, something has got to give.

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