"Open-Mindedness," Virtue...or Vice?

[Flower of Disease]

I attended an interesting small discussion group lecture yesterday with one Dr. Randy Reno, a post-liberal Christian theologian from Creighton. His lecture carried the somewhat provocative title "The Dangers of Open-Mindedness," and while I disagree rather violently with his personal religious convictions (he is, after all, a Christian), his central premise I found strangely compelling.

In short, he draws a distinction between the Liberal paradigm of "open-mindedness" with its emphasis on breadth of experience (and experiment) and resistance to passion and "dogma," and his own alternative of "serious mindedness," a contemplative approach designed to achieve depth of understanding within a given context of individual existence, even at the expense of allowing passion and even "dogma" a place in intellectual and spiritual life. He likened it to a process of "looking again" where Liberal open-mindedness encourages us to "look elsewhere."

His primary concern is that "open-mindedness" really in effect leads to intellectual consumerism, turning the intellectual world into a strip mall for ideas. "I'll go over here to the Christian boutique, then head over to the Buddhist store, and stop by the Po-Mo cafe for a light lunch of Foucalt."

It struck me as having particular relevance to the situation that metal is in, where the current trend is toward the incorporation of ideas from far outside the genre, "Folk jazz prog-death with trip hop beats" sort of stuff. Admirable in the sense of "trying something DIFFERENT," but ultimately terribly shallow, and lacking in any sort of greater meaning or deeper understanding that would be obtained by a closer study and refinement of METAL.

To head off a potential source of confusion, Reno doesn't advocate ignoring alternative explanations/possibilities. Central to the concept of "serious mindedness" is the critical examination and re-examination of beliefs, ideas etc., which, by definition leaves one open to other possibilities. Rather, what he attacks is that construction of "open mindedness" (a construction particularly prevalent in the academic community) which makes experiementation with different cultures, ideas etc. an end in and of itself, rather than actually searching for a deep UNDERSTANDING of any one culture or idea. It tends to lead to the unspoken assertion that "different = better."

 

[Belial]

This person strikes me as a person afraid of his intellectual shadow.

 

[Flower of Disease]

Care to elaborate? Or is it more of an emotional response to the suggestion that open-mindedness might not be the desirable state our society has taught us to believe it to be?

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

well i may be wrong with what i'm going to say ('cause i haven't payed much atention to the post i'm studying )

i don't like this kind of topics either but oh well:

what i think he meant is that open mindess is a danger to your beleifs and way of thinking (religion) let me put it this way if you are christian and you have strong beleifs then it doesn't make sense to go to another church (let say catholic or buddhism sp?)
also if you do it then you could fall on the wrong side of things and never be able to get on track again. All of this is talking on religious terms.

I think this doesn't apply to cultural or way of living terms, i would like to know what you really wanna know with this 'cause i'm a little confused.

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

btw i think being open minded is a virtue

 

[Belial]

Originally posted by Flower of Disease
Care to elaborate? Or is it more of an emotional response to the suggestion that open-mindedness might not be the desirable state our society has taught us to believe it to be?

Not at all. I'm just tired as hell right now. Heh. Since you're interested in my opinion on this, I'll go a little more in depth.

Originally posted by Flower of Disease
In short, he draws a distinction between the Liberal paradigm of "open-mindedness" with its emphasis on breadth of experience (and experiment) and resistance to passion and "dogma," and his own alternative of "serious mindedness," a contemplative approach designed to achieve depth of understanding within a given context of individual existence, even at the expense of allowing passion and even "dogma" a place in intellectual and spiritual life. He likened it to a process of "looking again" where Liberal open-mindedness encourages us to "look elsewhere."

From the very beginning Dr. Reno makes a misconception about open-mindedness. You see, he assumes that "open-mindedness" is the broad absorption of as wide a variety of information as possible, while neglecting to look at one's core thoughts, or any one thoughts, in depth. Not true.

An open-minded person isn't an intellectual jack-of-all-trades, it is one who is aware of their own mindset and able to look beyond themselves. To explain, I consider myself pretty open-minded, but I am well aware that I am biased on some things and can be prejudiced, and there are likely many thoughts I'm uncomfortable with. The difference is I am aware of this and I am able to consider things I am biased against despite myself. I don't go "shopping around" for such ideas, but if they should cross my path I won't allow my bias to cloud my view, though I am also aware that my own bias can and does cloud my view. It is this awareness of one's leaning of mind that makes the difference, not cluttering one's mind with a billion different thoughts for the sake of having "different" thoughts.

Indeed, I think his description of "serious mindedness" to be closer to open-midnedness, thus my "afraid of his shadow" comment.

His primary concern is that "open-mindedness" really in effect leads to intellectual consumerism, turning the intellectual world into a strip mall for ideas. "I'll go over here to the Christian boutique, then head over to the Buddhist store, and stop by the Po-Mo cafe for a light lunch of Foucalt."

I've touched on this earlier, but I must ask: "what is the inherant danger of considering other ideas?" The way one's mind works is it tends to keep a "core idea" that they look at in depth, even when they consider others. And for the sake of argument, assuming Dr.Reno is correct, can you clearly describe an inherant danger in what he suggests? Where exactly is the intellectual danger he alludes to? Can you think of a logical argument, not based on emotion? Dr. Reno seemed to be arguing mainly from an emotional, Christian basis from what you describe.

It struck me as having particular relevance to the situation that metal is in, where the current trend is toward the incorporation of ideas from far outside the genre, "Folk jazz prog-death with trip hop beats" sort of stuff. Admirable in the sense of "trying something DIFFERENT," but ultimately terribly shallow, and lacking in any sort of greater meaning or deeper understanding that would be obtained by a closer study and refinement of METAL.

That has much to do with your own musical tastes. Personally, I enjoy jazz-fusion metal bands and experimental prog. Perhaps that's not your bag, but lucky for you there are also many bands looking to the refinement of the core genre of metal as well. Personally I think it's better than doing the same things over and over to be safe and avoid doing something radically different.

Also, one can rightfully argue that by introducing elements of other genre it is a sort of refinement of metal itself.

To head off a potential source of confusion, Reno doesn't advocate ignoring alternative explanations/possibilities. Central to the concept of "serious mindedness" is the critical examination and re-examination of beliefs, ideas etc., which, by definition leaves one open to other possibilities. Rather, what he attacks is that construction of "open mindedness" (a construction particularly prevalent in the academic community) which makes experiementation with different cultures, ideas etc. an end in and of itself, rather than actually searching for a deep UNDERSTANDING of any one culture or idea. It tends to lead to the unspoken assertion that "different = better."

People can't help looking deeply at themselves or their environment for a deeper understanding, and you can hardly blame people in an academic environment to try out many ideas, apparently, that's why they're in school in the first place.

And what Dr. Reno seems to fail to understand is that experimenting with other thoughts, cultures, etc, can be a stepping stone of understanding yourself and your own culture more clearly. A single view can only unearth so much. Sometimes a different point of view is neccessary to see the whole more clearly. Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, in the end they all talk about basically the same thing, using different words, symbols, characters, etc. The same goes for different phylosophies, cultures, etc. You'd be surprised how looking at a different mirror can lead you to see your reclection in a different light, which can lead to a deeper understanding of that core reflection.

But as I said earlier, I don't go around shopping for different ideas for the sake of being different, either.

 

[Static]

Sometimes I wish I could be bothered getting into these deep philosophical discussions. For now I will just lurk in the background, as usual.

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

Originally posted by Static
Sometimes I wish I could be bothered getting into these deep philosophical discussions. For now I will just lurk in the background, as usual.

i'll give my another 2 cents to this:

Mr. Reno's point was (from a religion point of view) that if you are in a certain religion, in this case christianism and you then go to let's say a buddhist church without having a very solid basis on your religion you'll get into a deep confusion and you won't know what you're gonna beleive in. I think that he maybe didn't explained himself very good, this is my view.

If you have a very soild basis in your religion there's no problem of going to another church or going into a deep investigation of other religions. But if you don't have a very solid basis on your religion or beleifs you won't make any headway on your quest.

I'll give an example in a musical point of view

If you're in a metal band and you wanna incorporate some classical music in it (classical influences)without having a solid knowledge of classical music you won't be able to do a good work at it.

this is my advice:

You can be open minded as long as you get to know very well the subjects that you wanna get into, if you only get to know something superficially you can get in deep trouble by trying to do something that you don't really know how to do.

 

[YaYo]

Originally posted by Flower of Disease
I attended an interesting small discussion group lecture yesterday with one Dr. Randy Reno, a post-liberal Christian theologian from Creighton. His lecture carried the somewhat provocative title "The Dangers of Open-Mindedness," and while I disagree rather violently with his personal religious convictions (he is, after all, a Christian), his central premise I found strangely compelling.

In short, he draws a distinction between the Liberal paradigm of "open-mindedness" with its emphasis on breadth of experience (and experiment) and resistance to passion and "dogma," and his own alternative of "serious mindedness," a contemplative approach designed to achieve depth of understanding within a given context of individual existence, even at the expense of allowing passion and even "dogma" a place in intellectual and spiritual life. He likened it to a process of "looking again" where Liberal open-mindedness encourages us to "look elsewhere."

His primary concern is that "open-mindedness" really in effect leads to intellectual consumerism, turning the intellectual world into a strip mall for ideas. "I'll go over here to the Christian boutique, then head over to the Buddhist store, and stop by the Po-Mo cafe for a light lunch of Foucalt."

It struck me as having particular relevance to the situation that metal is in, where the current trend is toward the incorporation of ideas from far outside the genre, "Folk jazz prog-death with trip hop beats" sort of stuff. Admirable in the sense of "trying something DIFFERENT," but ultimately terribly shallow, and lacking in any sort of greater meaning or deeper understanding that would be obtained by a closer study and refinement of METAL.

To head off a potential source of confusion, Reno doesn't advocate ignoring alternative explanations/possibilities. Central to the concept of "serious mindedness" is the critical examination and re-examination of beliefs, ideas etc., which, by definition leaves one open to other possibilities. Rather, what he attacks is that construction of "open mindedness" (a construction particularly prevalent in the academic community) which makes experiementation with different cultures, ideas etc. an end in and of itself, rather than actually searching for a deep UNDERSTANDING of any one culture or idea. It tends to lead to the unspoken assertion that "different = better."

A few points. Im in the middle of some recording so i cant take long at the moment, but here goes....

Open mindedness... its about considering everything, and then exploring deeply in the areas you see have most worth. You explore enough to form a pretty decent opinion of things then you move on, if in the end some new information comes up then you reevaluate. To limit oneself to a single subject is the path to ignorance. There is enough evidence out there in this world to make anything sound logical and correct (just take a look at any religion and they'll have thousands of things that support their beliefs). If you only read that then you will easily get sucked in and believe something which probably isnt true. The key then is to look at all points of view, and suddenly it can become obvious how certain points of view are flawed (in ways that you mightnt even consider, sometimes they are flawed all because they work on top of some underlying assumptions that are wrong... if you are never brought to question the basics then everything built on top seems logical).

We are pretty much wrong, every human probably believes more wrong things than right things. Im learning constantly and discovering faults in my arguments or thoughts. So instead of looking for the one right thing (the one religion, the one music genre) for the answer to everything (which is impossible that any one thing is completely 'right') you have to analyse in depth every aspect of all beliefs and take those which you believe are right, and those you believe are wrong. To analyse you need opposing views, you have to consider 'which one is right', whereas people who firmly believe one thing tend to say "how is that opposing view wrong" or "how is my view right".... a very biased way that is very hard to form a valid opinion from. (ie, by 'choosing' a viewpoint then an ego is attached to that persons view.... its "thier" view.... not "A" view which they currently believe... and we all know ego's are bad mmkay ? )

I think the important thing in taking in so many alternative viewpoints on anything, is to look at the underlying assumptions, because often if these are wrong then there is little value in the rest of the argument. Because of the sheer overload of different viewpoints out there its impossible to consider all them as in depth as if you were to focus all your thoughts onto 1 viewpoint (like christianity for example).. But calling that a bad thing is assuming that knowing lots about something is a good thing, i disagree about this because i think humans easily get caught up in their own ideas and beliefs and look into them so much that they can never be convinced otherwise, and this is a dangerous thing. And anyway, how do you chose which viewpoint/belief to take if you never considered them all in the first place, how can you ever be sure you've got enough information to chose a viewpoint...

enough, sorry if it was incomplete or incoherant :/

 

[Static]

Why is everyone here so smart.

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

Originally posted by Static
Why is everyone here so smart.

hey you consider me smart?

 

[Static]

Try saying something smart and I'll get back to you.

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

Originally posted by Static
Try saying something smart and I'll get back to you.

i don't know i guess i'm a dumbass know

 

[Static]

Originally posted by Ultimate_Symphony
i don't know i guess i'm a dumbass know

Yay! Another fellow dumbass!

We stupid morons gotta stick together. All this talk about 'open-mindedness' is giving me brain pain.

Oww....

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

Originally posted by Static
Yay! Another fellow dumbass!

We stupid morons gotta stick together. All this talk about 'open-mindedness' is giving me brain pain.

Oww....

wait you said everyone here was smart and that makes me smart, so don't call me a dumbass

oh now i know Opeth are geniouses, that's a smart thing to say

 

[Static]

Aww man...alone once again.

*Sits in the corner trying to figure out whether Opeth are in fact genious................is this true....I dunno....I'm too dumb.....*

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

 

[Flower of Disease]

Belial, thanks for the reply, I'll try to keep my own remarks here fairly concise.

Reno's attack is directed at a particular construction prevalent in the pedagogies of contemporary higher education, though it has also become increasingly common outside of academia as well. It is a construction rooted in postmodern critiques of traditional pedagogy (particularly the subjectivist and relativistic truth models favored by po-mo scholars), additionally, it might be understood as a consequence of the necessary shift away from Eurocentric curricula that has been the dominant trend of the last 40 years or so in the Western universities. The upshot of this is that your particular construction of "open-mindedness" is essentially irrelevant to the discussion (it might also be noted that your construction of "open-mindedness" parallels Dr. Reno's "serious-minded" approach much more closely than it parallels the construction of "open-mindedness" which is ubiquitous at most universities and increasingly prevalent outside them, especially among the more educated sector of society).

That has much to do with your own musical tastes. Personally, I enjoy jazz-fusion metal bands and experimental prog. Perhaps that's not your bag, but lucky for you there are also many bands looking to the refinement of the core genre of metal as well. Personally I think it's better than doing the same things over and over to be safe and avoid doing something radically different.

The problem here is that successfully melding elements of different genres requires that one actually understand those genres, not just in a mechanical (that is, aesthetic) sense, but more importantly, at a deeper, ideological/expressive level. Many of the recent experiments in genre bending have been undertaken by bands that clearly understand neither metal nor the genres they wish to incorporate within a metal context on an ideological level (I would point to Opeth and Arcturus as prime offenders), and what they create is superficial, pseudo-innovation. Such ultimately empty exercises in recombinant aesthetics don't advance the genre, they hold it back with a sort of stealth stagnation.

 

[Lina]

I agree with the majority of Belial's points, and I question Reno's true drive and motive. It sounds a bit like he's dressing up his social biases/phobias/laziness with pseudo-intellectual masturbation.

However...

Originally posted by Flower of Disease
To head off a potential source of confusion, Reno doesn't advocate ignoring alternative explanations/possibilities. Central to the concept of "serious mindedness" is the critical examination and re-examination of beliefs, ideas etc., which, by definition leaves one open to other possibilities. Rather, what he attacks is that construction of "open mindedness" (a construction particularly prevalent in the academic community) which makes experiementation with different cultures, ideas etc. an end in and of itself, rather than actually searching for a deep UNDERSTANDING of any one culture or idea. It tends to lead to the unspoken assertion that "different = better."

Originally posted by Belial
And what Dr. Reno seems to fail to understand is that experimenting with other thoughts, cultures, etc, can be a stepping stone of understanding yourself and your own culture more clearly. A single view can only unearth so much. Sometimes a different point of view is neccessary to see the whole more clearly. Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, in the end they all talk about basically the same thing, using different words, symbols, characters, etc. The same goes for different phylosophies, cultures, etc. You'd be surprised how looking at a different mirror can lead you to see your reclection in a different light, which can lead to a deeper understanding of that core reflection.

I agree with Reno in this paragraph, and I think Belial does too -- they're just using different terms. Reno's term for open-mindedness is "serious mindedness," which he defines as the "critical examination and re-examination of beliefs, ideas etc., which, by definition leaves one open to other possibilities." For Belial, and most people, this is the definition of open-mindedness. Surely, according to Reno, a "serious-minded" person would examine the religions and cultures Belial mentioned.

I would imagine Reno's differentiation of the terms is in response to the politically correct catch phrase that "open-mindedness" has become. It's something I see on this board all the time -- the idea that all opinions and people are equally worthy of respect; even if they're flat wrong, you can't tell them they're wrong; the world would be a boring place without this "variety" of opinions; nothing wrong with being homophobic, it's just my "opinion," I have a right to my "opinion," etc. Isn't that a serious perversion of the term?

Essentially what Reno is describing in that last paragraph is common sense -- which, sadly, is not common and cannot be taught. He's right that being open-minded does not, and should not, require a person to accept, applaud, and encourage poor choices. But the choices you make depend on how much sense you have, and most people don't have much. Therefore, open-mindedness has become misconstrued in our society to mean being accepting of everything and everyone, no matter how illogical, rather than simply being open to alternate evidence or ideas.

I'm not sure how it all ties in, but I absolutely agree with his last sentence that diversity should not be an end in itself. Nearly every college campus in this country holds "diversity" as a cornerstone of its mission. And yet, we all know what happens to minorities once on campus -- they flock to organizations of people that look just like them. I'm not sure what the answer is though -- you can't force people to sit down and talk. And surely, there is more chance for inter-race communication and eventual understanding, even if only among a few, if multiple races are represented. Tough subject.

 

[Lina]

Damn cross-posting. I see you've already pointed out the two different terms.