As I understand it, open-mindedness entails a willingness to consider different points of view and explanations for things. I don’t think anyone ought to be arguing that this is a bad thing. Where it goes wrong is when we fail to be responsible with it.
Think of open-mindedness like trying to build a house with a big toolbox full of all sorts of tools. That doesn’t mean that every tool in the box is as good quality as another, or using a spanner is going to get that nail hammered in. Unless you have a way of figuring out which tools are the best for which jobs, unless you actually care about building a good house, the chances are it’ll be shoddy work, even if it looks good to you.
If you’re closed-minded, you have a small toolbox, and the chances are you’ve got a sub-optimum set of tools. You don’t have as much trouble figuring out which ones to pick, but all the certainty in the world doesn’t mean it’ll turn out well for you. If you’d been willing to experiment with more tools, you may have found something much more fit for purpose, even if you didn’t expect it.
In this way, open-mindedness doesn’t entail that one idea is as valuable as the next, or that truth is relative or anything like that. All it means is that ideas have the chance to be tested and considered, even if the majority are ultimately rejected. We might go through several failures and revisions on the road to building our house, and it may never be absolutely perfect. But if we’ve taken the time and care to really, truly test those tools (those ideas!), we can approach the task with far more confidence of success than anyone who bases their choice of tools on aesthetics, wishful thinking, a friend of a friend saying it worked really well for them and, or faith. Yes, faith: when will we drop this notion that faith is not only a path to truth but a virtue?
Do you care whether your beliefs are true or not? If so, you ought to care deeply about having the most reliable methods possible for getting to the truth. If not, why not?
