Open minded by definition should be a person that is willing to hear out the other side, accept criticisms of their world views (left or right) and even change them if they see they might not be correct about something, especially since the world isn’t black and white and there is an infinite amount of political, economical and other topics where you can be mostly on one side, but have a different personal opinion on some other topics.
It doesn’t have to be politics at all, it can be cars, games, lawnmowers, chess, literally any topic in the universe.
However this term has been completely ruined and emptied of its meaning and now it only means whether you are interested in a very select few social issues or not. Even worse, there are endless amounts of people who would unironically describe themselves as open minded simply because they vote for one political ideology over the other, yet try to argument or critique even one single thing they stand for (economy, transport,etc.) and they will not only not hear your argument out, but will go into complete rage and call you every name in the book.
So, no, if someone just votes for one side, that on it’s own doesn’t make them open minded at all if they aren’t also willing to reconsider their views when faced with counter arguments. A stereotypical conservative that doesn’t support certain countries or groups due to being raised that way, but who would be willing to hear out the other side and maybe start supporting it, is by far more open minded than someone who just adopts the default viewpoint of one or the other side and has zero interest in even considering a chance that they might not be completely right about something.
People sometimes use the expression to imply that they regard denigrating fanciful, flat-Earth-ish ideas as being “close-minded.” As somebody once put it, just because you have an open mind doesn’t mean you should let geese run around in there.
I’ve heard it as “you should be open-minded, but not so open that your brains fall out.”
Anyway, I also have not heard it used the way the OP puts it. However, I would say that conservatism is, by definition, more close-minded that liberalism or progressivism or whatever – traditionally, it’s a way of slowing things down, bringing in new policies and ideas more slowly, etc. (Nothing to do with today’s “conservatism”, which is nothing like the traditional definition)
Open minded doesn’t mean willing to debate, it means willing to entertain new things, new ideas.
Anyway, if the OP has specific examples, I’m willing to debate them, and open-minded about hearing about this new way of using open-minded.
Unfortunately, some people believe that, if you do not agree with them, you are not “open minded” even if their position on something is absurd. To me, telling people right off the bat that they full of crap is not being open minded, but listening carefully to what they have to say and THEN telling them they are full of crap, is. LOL
So, how many times would you want to listen to, say, flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers before cutting them off and saying they’re full of crap? How many times will you allow a 9/11 truther try and convince you or a moon landing denier? How about a “racial realist”? A homophobic or anti-trans bigot, who want to convince you that same-sex marriage should be banned?
Open minded means being willing to listen to and consider new ideas or ways of thinking.
Most bad ideas are not new, or novel ways of thinking, so rejecting ideas like creationist, flat earth, or that the 2020 election was stolen is not in conflict with being open minded.
Are you open-minded? Will you consider the possibility that your entire post is faulty?
If you’ll consider that, then I’ll raise a counterpoint to your post. Namely: cite?
At first blush, your post comes across to me as a bunch of ideas you have about the left that are ill-formed stereotypes, backed by no evidence whatsoever. Or maybe they’re backed by personal experience heaped through a shit-ton of confirmation bias.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you have clear evidence to support your position. If you offer that evidence, I’m happy to consider it. I hope that, if you don’t have such evidence, you’ll be just as happy to reconsider your position.
Yes, but you do so because you already know their “schtick”. Homophobes invariably invoke “sin” and “God’s will” and “natural” to support their position and invariably ignore any and all facts because they are very inconvenient. Flat Earthers, moon landing deniers, and their ilk are just plain nuts, so there isn’t any logical position to listen to when they spout off.
I think “open minded” means people are willing to honestly consider and evaluate things that they weren’t aware of, and keep the old in mind. I’d argue that a variant of closed-mindedness is automatically assuming that new = good and old = bad. Anyway, if people are open minded, then liberalism and conservatism come in with what you are inclined to do based on your evaluation. Liberals tend to want to change, while conservatives are inclined to keep the status quo. I feel like that combination of pulling from either direction is where we get good solutions overall.
I think there’s a difference between being conservative and being closed-minded. But… for many people, one leads to the other, and we have a lot of people who are dead-set against change for any reason, simply because it’s change and not what they’re used to.
I’d even argue that being an effective conservative would mean that you essentially have to be open minded enough to consider something, and then determine whether or not to put the brakes on, and if so, by how much. Otherwise it’s reflexive and reactive, and is basically distrust of new things because they are new, which isn’t often a productive or useful approach to things.
Similarly, the “so open minded your brains fall out” is basically the flip side of that- open minded people need to have a little bit of skepticism/suspicion such that they’re honestly and effectively evaluating the merit of new/novel things and not just blindly jumping to the conclusion that something’s new, therefore it must be better. This isn’t always so.
Open-minded ought to mean being - well, open-minded. Unfortunately, I’ve often seen people use it in an extremely bad-faith way - as some sort of cudgel to get someone to agree with them when they themselves would never do it the other way around.
I’ve known Christians to criticize atheists for not being “open-minded” and embracing Christian thinking when they (the Christians) themselves would never budge an inch.
I consider myself pretty open-minded. I think you have to be to some degree to be successful as a scientist as you need to open to many possibilities. However, I only have some my time in this life so there are limits. I don’t see the need to re-debate something that has been endless debated. Especially when one side of the so-called debate is devoid of reason and logic. E.g., climate change. There is no factual basis for denying climate change. Only ideological. So should I be open minded and hear and refute the same old tired garbage every time it comes up? I don’t think so. That’s just a waste of my precious time, and I don’t think that makes me close-minded.