Oh THOSE Close Minded People

Saw a meme today that said, 'The problem with closed-minded people is that their mouths are always open.'

That may have been true at one point though I think it is a bit different today. The current problem with closed minded people is that no one looks at the real reasons for why 'they' think what 'they' do. To put it another way: 'Their' mouths are always open and 'your' ears are quick to close. All 'you' do is throw insults at 'them:' close minded, racist, sexist, etc. All that does is close 'them' off even more and show that 'you' are just as close minded as 'you' think 'they' are.

The fact is that in the highly polarized climate in the US right now 'you' are 'them' to 'them' and 'they' are convinced 'they' are as right as 'you' are convinced 'you' are.

Yes, someone maybe factually right and others factually wrong, but that is not the whole story. You can't dismiss a person's worries, fears, hopes or beliefs just because facts are wrong. Most people are not (and have never been) that coldly logical. You need to deal with those fears, worries and beliefs, not believe and insist that citing facts will make them magically disappear. On the other hand, playing on worries, fears, hopes and beliefs is counter productive too.

Going past the facts (not ignoring them) and connecting with people-- understanding their worries, fears, hopes and beliefs-- is what is called being human and compassionate. Right now both sides are at most paying lip-service to compassion. One side is focusing on being factually correct, the other on being tough. Both think that is their path to being effective.

But in both cases being effective comes at the cost of bulldozing over those that don't agree with them. That is horribly damaging to unity and compromise. When it comes to having a functioning democracy, unity and compromise are often more important than being effective, especially when general trust is at such a low.