Open Mindedness, Vice or Virtue?

Hi All.

Often in society, especially in Western societies, we pride ourselves for being very tolerant: tolerant of people of all different races and religions, all different sexualities, all different identities. But there is one type of tolerance that is... not as accepted as the list above.

And that is tolerance of different ideas.

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That's something that I've noticed over the last few years, a very worrying trend of people online as well as real life who actually consider other opinions as hate speech, people who literally believe that if you don't think like them, you're the devil.

There are people out there who literally think that the president of the United States is LITERALLY HITLER.

Yeah sure, let's just conveniently forget that Hitler killed millions of people.

It's this insane fear mongering that makes people actually believe that Trump is like Hitler. And sure, you don't have to like the guy, in fact you may completely disagree with him, but calling him Hitler shows how deranged some people can be in this world.

So then, it leads to my question. Is the act of open mindedness a vice? Or is it a virtue? And as stated above, I'm talking about open mindedness when it comes to ideas, not about identities. The West, while not perfect, has done acceptance of minorities better than most countries in this world.

The answer to that question is that open mindedness is in fact a virtue, and not a vice.

We should be listening to all different perspectives, even ones we vehemently disagree with. Hearing those opinions prevent us from living in echo chambers, small safe bubbles protecting us from any different points of view that disagree with our own. It can make us realise things we never knew about the world, or make us change our beliefs, or even change other people's beliefs.

I want to write about different people, I want to meet new people with wildly different perspectives. I want to talk with people who are bigoted. Not to agree with them, but to see why they have become the people that they currently are today.

So I guess that's something I want to put out there. Be willing to listen to other's perspectives. Be willing to debate others on their opinions. But most importantly, don't live in an echo chamber where only the same opinions are spoon-fed to you. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions about your beliefs.

That's all.