It’s true that facts don’t interpret themselves and that we have to engage in interpretation. One of my main concerns on a personal level is to keep clear in my mind what is a fact and what is an interpretation. To take an example, both Michelle Obama and John McCain have said words to the effect of “I’ve never before been proud of my country.” Those words are facts, and of course there are different ways to interpret them. I choose to interpret them as the rhetorical device of hyperbole, where one exaggerates for effect. Some may choose to take those words quite literally. Without fuller information about the people making those statements it would be hard to know which interpretation is more accurate. But I’ve heard people take Michelle Obama’s words and present them as “She’s said she always hated her country.” When someone does that they’ve interpreted “not previously proud” to mean “previously hated” (which is a stretch as an interpretation) and then confused their interpretation (“I think her words mean I previously hated America“) with the facts, so that in their mind Michelle Obama actually said “I previously hated America.” This is the kind of thing that results from attachment to a particular position. aversion to opposing positions, and a lack of regard for intellectual integrity.

In fact the term “intellectual integrity” is one that preoccupies me, while the phrase open-mindedness doesn’t really resonate with me very strongly. Obviously it’s possible to be too credible, and it’s important to have a critical faculty as well. For me the term intellectual integrity implies being willing to take opposing viewpoints seriously, without dismissing them out of hand, indulging in ad hominem attacks (if you don’t like the message shoot the messenger), or distorting the view to represent something it’s not. These things are all too common. I’m prone to them myself, as are we all. But I think they need to be guarded against. The Republican Party is now reaping the harvest they planted through contempt for what they disparagingly called “the reality-based community.” If you keep dismissing people who disagree with you as “nay-sayers” or “traitors” then you end up being out of touch. The McCain campaign ended up out of touch. (Kerry and Gore ended up being out of touch with many voters as well, but for rather different reasons, I think — more of a lack of ability to empathize.)

Anyway, I don’t think the fundamental issue is of having an “open mind” but of realizing that your own grasp of reality is necessarily limited and being prepared to scrutinize your own views on the basis of new information, including others’ opinions. At the same time, as you point out, we need to build on what we’re reasonably sure of. But even there it can sometimes be necessary to adjust those views, or at least to consider that they might be incomplete. Carrying a mistaken view for a long time does not make it any less mistaken, and confirmation bias may have been screening out contrary information.

I’m not sure that irrationality is always a choice. Sometimes it may be, but when people are in the throes of powerful emotions and views that are detached from reality they may not be able to access their free will (although that’s another term that doesn’t have much resonance with me and that I tend not to use). If it’s a choice, it’s generally an unconscious one, and having made that choice sometimes one just has to go along for the ride; I may choose to jump of the cliff of irrationality, but it doesn’t make much choice half-way down the cliff to say “I’m choosing to plummet.”

I suspect that there are some people who live in such a paranoid realm of being that it’s virtually impossible to have a genuine dialog with them, but there are some who can be reached and talked out of a state of self-delusion. I think McCain did a bit of that last night (although not enough, in my opinion), when he tied to pacify people who were booing the mention of Obama and Biden’s names, and when they booed the very notion of supporting the new administration. McCain is a relatively reasonable man, and the leader of many people. He has the ability to call the “marginally unreasonable” on some of their paranoia, and thus encourage the rippling-outwards of a more reasonable approach to politics than might otherwise prevail.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.

I think one thing that is of help here is epistemic virtues. Aristotle’s notion of a virtue is in terms of moderation. So is it possible to lack moderation in open mindedness? It sure is. You can be so open minded that your brain falls out the back end. It’s not good to second geuss yourself every time some seemingly contrary evidence arises. Open mindedness needs to be balanced with epistemic sobriety where one is steadfast to their beliefs that have been useful, seemingly evident in the past, rational, and so on, especially beliefs that have been important in their integration of the world. And of course, there may be intuitions that these beliefs are based upon, and these intuitions may be their for very good reasons. That’s why it is important to attempt to unearth them, become aware of them and attempt to examine the reasoning behind their existence. But though this may only be possible in degrees, and though one may not be able to completely get under her intuitions, it does not mean that those intuitions may very well be important and rooted in our very humanity.

Of course you ask in light of some choice comments on politics, if dialogue is possible but I think it’s important to note that while it is always possible with some people, we have free will and that to a significant degree includes how rational we are willing to be. But the problem of world views is not just about world views on a rational and intellectual level. We cannot seperate our very lives from our thought lives. Our emotions and needs come into play, and though you as a Buddhist might view this as something that you work to bring under control, you are asking about dialogue, interacting with others, and what ever disciplines you may put your body or mind through, it is limited in how it affects other people.