THE ART OF DETECTING

A CLOSED-MIND

 

If your mind is your central mechanism, your ultimate power, for dealing
with reality (which it is), then you will naturally want to have an open
mind.  And if you don't want that, then recognize that it is essential if
you are to "deal with reality."  Think about the very first thinking
skill-consideration-you cannot perform that skill if you don't have an open
mind.  Consider requires an open mind and, simultaneously, as you practice
it, it develops an open mind.  You can't consider something if you do not
open your mind and give an idea a chance.  You give it a chance by
representing it visually, reproducing it auditorily, and kinesthetically
trying on the words and the conceptual frames of the idea.

 

What stand in contrast to this openness?  Answer: All of the non-thinking
skills and states: reactivity, automatic thinking, borrowed thinking,
superficial thinking, agenda thinking, "knowing," and expecting (see
Executive Thinking, Brain Camp I).  All of these unhealthy thinking styles
close down consideration so that you do not even given an idea a chance.
And when consideration is shut down, then so also are all of the critical
and creative skills.  After all, if a person will not consider, then there
can be no questioning, doubting, detailing, and distinguishing.  That shuts
down all critical thinking.

 

Now certainly you have experienced people with closed minds, haven't you?
When was the last time you encountered a closed mind?  You try to sell to a
friend your idea about a certain movie, but he will not even consider going
to it.  You ask a banker for a loan, you know that your credit score and
assets are sufficient, but no.  The banker turns you down flat.  You say,
"You haven't even actually considered it."  But no, her mind is closed.

 

Theoretically, why would a person not even consider an idea?  What would
explain that refusal?  The answer is intolerance, dogmatism, and
know-it-all-ism.  The person refuses to open her mind to an idea; he refuses
to even tolerate an idea.  And why?  Because they have already decided on
some meaning, a meaning which simply precludes your idea.  Their previous
learning and knowledge functions as, what's described in the field of
learning, "proactive inhibition."  It stops any new considerations cold in
its tracks.

 

If an open mind is a mind open for business, then a closed mind is a mind
closed for business.  Where there is an open mind, there's a sign on that
person's heart, "Open!  Come on in."  When you enter, you are warmly
greeted, welcomed, and they ask you, "How can we help you?"  Conversely,
where there is a closed mind, you see a different sign, "Closed."  It could
be, "Closed for the night."  "Closed for he Season."  Or even, "Closed: Out
of Business."

 

A closed mind says, "Go away, we don't have any room or place for you."  It
says, "No solicitators" and it may add, "Violators will be prosecuted to the
further extent of the law."  A closed mind is also not a friendly mind; it
is not a mind that's interested or curious.  With a closed mind, you can
protect your beliefs from the danger of additional or new facts.  With a
closed mind, you don't have to learn anything new or different.  And without
new learning, you can remain the same, you maintain or are stuck in, the
status quo.  Now you will be untroubled by new ideas or challenges.  That's
the upside of a closed mind.

 

The downside of a closed mind, however, is one that's much more devastating.
With a closed mind, you don't grow or develop.  Instead, you arrest your
personal development and become stuck at a previous stage, and you probably
trap yourself in numerous cognitive distortions that of which you are
unconscious.

 

I was asked recently, "Why have you been putting so much emphasis on
critical thinking skills?"  Part of the answer lies in the prevalence of
closed-minds.  That's because critical thinking is partly defined as an open
mind to facts, truth, insights as well as the ability to think clearly,
accurately, and without bias.  In a world as divided as ours, we need more
and more open minds who can have civil conversations, realizing all along
that no thought is a fact, it is just a thought -a mental construct about
something.  And as fallible human beings, we are often wrong, something that
does not frighten an open mind.