# Is calling someone "close-minded" an insult? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [April 3, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265 "2014-04-03T16:21:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/21 "2014-04-03T22:02:51Z")
Aw, sure it is. Will you take half now, half later? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/22 "2014-04-03T22:08:44Z")
I’d say “keep the change” but God forbid we kick off another tipping thread. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/23 "2014-04-03T22:31:03Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Maybe it’d be simpler to just ban the words “you” and “your” in Great Debates. Or stick with the rule about attacking the post, not the poster. I agree that a warning is harsh, and a mod note would have been better, but the rule was broken. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/24 "2014-04-03T23:28:55Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > That’s quite a leap. Do you think it is? Can you define “leap”? Do you think many other people think so? How do you quantify “close minded” vs “liar” in terms of degree of insult? Do you have a cite for a study that would document that? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/25 "2014-04-04T00:02:55Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > [hijack] > I thought the term was “closed-minded,” not “close-minded” (you’re saying their mind is **closed** , not that it’s **close** ). But upon [further](http://grammarist.com/spelling/closed-minded/) [research](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/28866/what-would-you-call-a-person-who-doesnt-want-to-learn-anything-new/28868#28868), it appears to be an open (and somewhat controversial) question. Well, I’m with you. “Close-minded” makes me cringe. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/26 "2014-04-04T00:47:53Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > Do you think it is? Can you define “leap”? Do you think many other people think so? How do you quantify “close minded” vs “liar” in terms of degree of insult? Do you have a cite for a study that would document that? I’m sorry-did my opinion offend you in some manner? I certainly don’t see that saying someone’s mind is closed on the subject is anything like calling that same person a liar. edited to add: If you _would_ set the bar that low when it comes to determining what counts as an insult in Great Debates, where would you put accusing someone of making up statistics? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/27 "2014-04-04T01:01:53Z")
Just to weigh in here: I think the question (as with most things) depends on context. I can see that “If your mind is shut, there’s no point in further discussion” isn’t an insult. But seems to me that “The topic is open, your mind is shut” is a personal remark of an insulting nature. No, as insults go, it’s not major league, but it’s still one foot across a fairly clear line. I think the modding was correct. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/28 "2014-04-04T08:23:05Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > I’m fine with it. If calling someone a liar is verboten, “close minded” is certainly about the same level of insult Um, wow. There are biblical injunctions against false witness, laws against perjury and psychological diagnoses for those who repeatedly utter knowing falsehoods. If closed mindedness carries anywhere near the same social sanction, I am not aware of it. The asserted calibration is _interesting_ for lack of a better term. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/29 "2014-04-04T08:29:28Z")
Again setting the current issue aside, I’ll note that much appropriate board behavior is upheld by member approval. Mod intervention is only part of the picture. With that in mind, there arguably should be some scope for rough language that falls short of insult in GD. **Best Practices** One sentence responses run the risk of being counterproductive. That’s setting aside whether they merit mod intervention and (pre-empt!) I don’t intend to apply that to wisecracks. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/30 "2014-04-04T18:50:40Z")
You can argue the fine points of specific words, but IMO there is no doubt the intent was to insult the poster. Or insult the poster’s brain. BRAINS!! ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/31 "2014-04-04T19:49:57Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > No he didn’t. That doesn’t even approach “insult”. It’s not even in gray territory. Yes he did. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/32 "2014-04-06T04:07:15Z")
A shot that gets used a lot, and doesn’t bring down the mods, is “You obviously know nothing about the subject.” After seeing it used a number of times, I’ve used it myself… But… I don’t like it, and think it should be added to the list of no-longer-approved rebuttals. It’s too directly aggressive, too dismissive, frankly, too insulting. But…geez, it’s a damn fine line. We need to have some room for snarkage, for statements that are so far beyond merely being wrong as to be ridiculous. I once got a comment from **Tomndebb** for saying, “You’re making yourself look ridiculous.” This irked me, as I’d waited until other people had gotten away with using that phrase before I used it. But, again, the mods don’t have eidetic memories, and the context wouldn’t have been exactly the same. Tough job! ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/33 "2014-04-06T13:44:22Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Yes he did. If you want to call anything that isn’t a positive affirmation an insult, and apply a litmus test to every comment that might in any way be construed as negative, fine. I just see that as absurdly thin-skinned. For a board to have to deploy a team of third party individuals to intervene on anyone’s behalf lest they be construed as “close-minded” (god forbid they should be suggested to be passive or weak-willed…), and need to have a team of _in parentis interneti_ to protect posters from comments that might, in some way, cause them some personal reflection, is pathetic beyond measure. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/34 "2014-04-06T13:51:37Z")
I don’t hang out in GD, so I’m not familiar with the culture there. But as an outsider, I surprised at the warning. What if he had said “You aren’t listening?” That has the same basic meaning to me. To **Czarcasm** ’s point about precedent, I did a little searching. I found one GD [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=539589)in 2009 that said a posted had a closed mind. That wasn’t modded. There was a later comment in that thread by someone else that said “lie lie lie, all of it lies…” The posted of the second one received an official warning, so there was active moderation in the thread. Anything else I found in GD using that phrase, or anything similar, was much older than that thread. I admit it was a long time ago, but part of the moderator’s position seems to be is that \*\*Czarcasm \*\*has been here for a long time and knows the culture. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/35 "2014-04-06T16:32:02Z")
I think it’s ridiculous to call something that mild an insult. A mod note might have be justified, but a warning? Very silly. Mod overreach. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/36 "2014-04-06T16:35:19Z")
I’ll jump on the bandwagon - warning are being thrown around these days with far to little restraint. This should have been a mod note at best. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/37 "2014-04-07T09:49:27Z")
The post was [QUOTE=Czarcasm] The topic is open, your mind is shut, and you have no case. [/QUOTE] Dismissive, certainly. But that in itself isn’t a rule violation and is par for the course. That’s the purpose of the rolleyes smiley. And saying “you are closed-minded” is not the same as saying “you are a” anything. The first uses an adjective which describes a behavior, the second uses a noun which describes a state of being. Nevertheless, the post as shown does cross the line with regards to addressing the poster rather than the issue. It is the tiniest toenail past the line, but it does cross it. But it seems to me there needs to be room to directly address another person’s actions and behaviors in threads, or we never have a way to call someone on their antics. “You are not listening to me” is talking about the other person, but surely that is not in any way an insult. And as I read this again, it dawns on me **Czarcasm** appears to playing on the open/shut case terminology by a familiar method of juxtaposition. Surely we’ve all heard examples where someone has taken the common phrase and twisted it similarly? “It was an open and shut case.” “Yeah, his pants were open, her legs were shut, that’s the harassment case.” Okay, I suck at jokes. I know I’ve seen that structure before. So really I’m not in agreement with the moderation here. It seems heavy-handed and slamming down on what’s been acceptable practice. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/38 "2014-04-07T11:42:08Z")
Yeah, a warning seems heavy to me here. I read Czarcasm’s post as more of “your mind is made up (and wrong)” than “you are a close minded person in all matters.” I think brevity was working against him here. It was certainly a rude phrasing, but those aren’t exactly uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/39 "2014-04-07T12:21:07Z")
It was brief, but not that much briefer that the post I was answering and, as **Irishman** pointed out, it was obviously done that way to turn a phrase. If such a thing can be said to be “obviously” over the line in Great Debates, then it certainly wasn’t obvious to me and I can’t find its’ equivalent to use as an example. _Is_ it more over-the-line to say someone is closed minded then to say you doubt someone is sincere(the dubious smiley) or to directly say that a poster is making up statistics(an accusation of lying that took place just two posts after I received the warning). I commented on someone’s mindset-has this always been against the rules? ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2014, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265/40 "2014-04-08T07:06:37Z")
I’m beginning to think that moderators work on a quota system. Is there a better way of saying “you don’t seem to want to listen to what I have to say”? Would it have been better to say “The topic is open, your mind should be, too.”? > [@](#): > > I think the modding was correct. If insults become something that only moderators can see (or conversely, something that a sizable fraction of the membership _can’t_ see), it’s going to be come really hard to follow the rules: Mod: WARNING! Poster: How was that an insult? Mod: Trust me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-calling-someone-close-minded-an-insult/685265.md?page=3)