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You're too close minded (an attempt at a serious disscussion)

prplchknz

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Jun 11, 2007
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yupp
what does this mean to you?

is it a good thing or a bad thing?

do you think you're more closed minded or open minded?

have you ever been accused of being too open minded?

in your mind is this type related? if so how?
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
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close minded to me means not interested in the points of view of others... in extreme cases, willing to ignore data plainly in front of you... in favor of what you've already decided

most people are pretty close minded, especially when it comes to topics like politics and social mores and such

I've been told that I'm fairly open minded, but I suspect that's just because I see no point in arguing things with most people because they ARE close minded, so my silence on the issue is seen as open mindedness... I'm not (except for in the cases of art, literature and food) but I see no point in trying to force my views on others either because it's an exercise in futility
 

Snow as White

ƃuıǝǝs | seeing
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sx/sp
what does this mean to you?

is it a good thing or a bad thing?

do you think you're more closed minded or open minded?

have you ever been accused of being too open minded?

in your mind is this type related? if so how?

to me it means not rushing to judgement, or if you do, being able to walk back that judgement and reassess.

i tend to test extremely high on open minded for OCEAN. just had to take the test again for my psych class and I got 96%... i think there is some truth to that, but maybe not to that extreme?

i can be pretty judgemental on some things, but i also find that there are very few exceptions, including politics, where i am unable or unwanting to reevaluate my position. it may not be easy :) with some entrenched thoughts and viewpoints. but i like trying at least and pushing through.

i find a good mix of both open and close. being too close-minded gets on my nerves if it comes off as being closed minded to just be close minded? a recent example is i made an offhand remark in front of my stepmother that i felt bad for melania because of how tight security in the white house is, and how being in that position would be such a prison. and she just went offfffffffffffffff on me. and yeah, i get it boohoo a billionaire's wife feels trapped. but at the same time i'm thinking of how terrible i would find it. how suffocating. and how much i hate being trapped by physical circumstances. (which is a big reason why i've never wanted kids is because the whole pregnancy thing freaks me out with the fact that you are trapped in that moment with pain and you can't charm or word your way out, you're just stuck pushing a watermelon out of your lemon aperture. no thanks.)
 

Frosty

Poking the poodle
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Yeah Ive been told Im open minded. Which isnt always the best thing because... when you believe everything COULD be possible it is hard to dismiss ANYTHING. You can believe in the possibility of even things that are just really unlikely,
:D
Hah. Which is a part of why I do not type myself. To many ‘what if’s
 

DiscoBiscuit

Meat Tornado
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Too much of anything is bad whether it be closed or open mindedness.
 
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Close minded is definitely a derogatory term. It means you’re unwilling to be open to differing opinions or concepts. Willfully ignorant. I also scored very high on openness on the OCEAN test (which is good because some of my other scores are abysmal). If I said I haven’t reconsidered several of my viewpoints over a lifetime of exposure to new experiences I’d be an epic liar. Some people mistake being mentally flexible for being weak. Lacking a strong but flexible framework from which to approach things- suffering from mental rigidity- is true weakness.

Now that being said, willingness to except differing opinions and concepts (open mindedness) doesn’t mean absolutely condoning others views for fear of appearing intolerant. You still might assess and judge the subject against your own opinions and beliefs and reject them. It’s the willingness to at least examine a position or concept and not just automatically dismiss it because it doesn’t fit your ideals. There are many things I disagree with or don’t mesh with my view but I attempt to understand them unless they are so morally reprehensible to me that they are fundamentally wrong according to my code. Even then I may understand something on a logical level but disregard it on moral grounds.
 

Yuurei

Noncompliant
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I suppose that I am very open-minded that it sort of doubles back around into closed-mindedness.

I never take articles or stories at face value. I assume they are always told from one perspective and cannot come to a conclusion without the other. I get extremely annoyed at others who don't. I always assume that the truth is neither this perspective or that but somewhere in between. Yet i realize that it is entirely possible it may in fact be one or the other but unless I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt I will never accept it.
 

Norexan

Quetzalcoatl
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Jul 2, 2017
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It is usually relate when someone is unable to see another perspective. Stubbornness. Very common for people who have strong Si or weak Ni.
 

á´…eparted

passages
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8,265
Ha. People have claimed I am close minded for much of my life. But, the vast majority that do, hsve an agenda against me and are not qualified to judge that in me. The main thing is I am very decisive and stubborn. At tjis point if someone tells me I sm being close minded I just roll my eyes. It means nothing to me and I do not care.
 

Yuurei

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Ha. People have claimed I am close minded for much of my life. But, the vast majority that do, hsve an agenda against me and are not qualified to judge that in me. The main thing is I am very decisive and stubborn. At tjis point if someone tells me I sm being close minded I just roll my eyes. It means nothing to me and I do not care.

Something I hear often may apply to you; " You're so judgemental! But your judgements have never been wrong and I greatly rely on them!"
 

rav3n

.
Joined
Aug 6, 2010
Messages
11,655
Context matters. Relative to politics, at present, slammed shut since I don't like what I see with the current Admin. Relative to people, at meet and greet, primarily open until they evidence patterns of behaviour that set off warnings. Relative to discussion/debate about new topics, relatively wide open even though I question things that don't make sense.
 

ceecee

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Generally speaking, I am open and if you give me a POV with logical, sensible (no not what one thinks is logical and sensible to them, what actually is), I'll listen. I've changed political views as well as personal views I once had due to these compelling arguments. To me being close minded comes directly from fear of the unknown and a mental block to any new data. People can choose to be lead by fear or not, up to them entirely, however these tend to be the least logical people so a compelling argument based on fact isn't going to work for them, it has to appeal to their emotional, reactionary personality.
 

Lark

Active member
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Jun 21, 2009
Messages
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I think it depends on the topic.

I would say that there's some topics I'm not worried about being close minded about and think there ought to me much, much more close mindedness about, but there are others which I would be less keen on being described as close minded about. Most of the time people who've said I'm close minded about something have drastically under estimated the amount of thinking I've done before I've actually arrived at an opinion ABOUT ANYTHING, often its a lot more than they themselves have done.

To me both can and are used as vague generalisations used to label people, shut them down, or conversely entice them into some kind of discussion by provoking them to protest "I'm not close minded" or "I am open minded".
 

rav3n

.
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Generally speaking, I am open and if you give me a POV with logical, sensible (no not what one thinks is logical and sensible to them, what actually is), I'll listen. I've changed political views as well as personal views I once had due to these compelling arguments. To me being close minded comes directly from fear of the unknown and a mental block to any new data. People can choose to be lead by fear or not, up to them entirely, however these tend to be the least logical people so a compelling argument based on fact isn't going to work for them, it has to appeal to their emotional, reactionary personality.
It can be the bolded but it can also be certainty about social and economic policies, relative to most destructive and least destructive. Even if someone logically lays out social and economic policies, if they're destructive to most and beneficial to very few even if I'm one of the few, I can't accept that.
 

Qlip

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I'm very open minded to understanding what the world and people are. I'm more close minded as to what I want see and be within it.
 

prplchknz

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Jun 11, 2007
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34,397
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yupp
I'm not sure if I'm open minded or close minded, I'm open to either possibility. So many people will huff at the idea that they might be close minded, though I do agree 9 out of 10 times someone saying your closed minded is just away to tear you down. but that being said i could be either way.
 

rav3n

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I'm not sure if I'm open minded or close minded, I'm open to either possibility. So many people will huff at the idea that they might be close minded, though I do agree 9 out of 10 times someone saying your closed minded is just away to tear you down. but that being said i could be either way.
Often, it's moreso 'you're close minded to what I believe in' which makes me chuckle since unintended irony can be quite funny.
 

cascadeco

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While I definitely understand and can relate to how frustrating it can be to be interacting with someone who is incredibly black and white, won't budge on anything, is very much in their own bubble, etc etc, at the same time I don't actually think being super open-minded is an incredibly glamorous desirable thing either. I mean at the opposite extreme you have someone who is so bendable that they almost have no identity or personal values/opinions at all. Sure this can make for interesting discussions but at the same time this person can also be targeted by those who want to take advantage of that malleability (/ negative spin), or they have difficulties making any decisions due to their 'openness'.

Anyway, I'm probably kinda in the middle. I can be insanely stubborn, because I do have strong values when it comes to some things (for example: nature/environmental stewardship/ not exploiting the land), and I really am not interested in 'exploring' the opposite side. Or I have my own beliefs around more philosophical/life views and perspectives, and while I can certainly listen to others and appreciate other viewpoints, I'm probably not gonna shift a whole lot since I've put lots of thought into why I believe what I believe, etc; but nor am I out trying to convince others either in some debate (I'm not a debate person). So, yeah. At one point in life, when I was younger, I think I thought it was a super negative thing to NOT be open-minded... but I'm kinda shifting as I get older and I am o.k. with being stubborn and set in some of my opinions and such.
 

Lark

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Generally speaking, I am open and if you give me a POV with logical, sensible (no not what one thinks is logical and sensible to them, what actually is), I'll listen. I've changed political views as well as personal views I once had due to these compelling arguments. To me being close minded comes directly from fear of the unknown and a mental block to any new data. People can choose to be lead by fear or not, up to them entirely, however these tend to be the least logical people so a compelling argument based on fact isn't going to work for them, it has to appeal to their emotional, reactionary personality.

Could I ask what you are talking about here in the part I highlighted? I'm just interested.

Also, as a matter of interest, how does telling people that they are lead by fear or that they are responding to appeal to their emotional, reactionary personality work in terms of bringing them around to your own way of thinking?

I'll give you an example of being extremely close minded that I'm very much a fan of as an example of when it does not come from fear of the unknown, I meet people occasionally, it once happened on this site a long time ago on this site, I think it was Elfboy who posted repeatedly about it, who try to argue that there ought to be no age of conscent in terms of sexual behaviour, or that the age of conscent should be as young as 12 or 14, now I'm outrageously comfortable with being very closeminded on this topic and that sexual behaviour should not be encouraged at such a young age, not with peers, not with the creepy old men involved in some sort of disgusting cash transaction which I imagine this scenario is much more likely to involve.

There's a bunch of reasons for this, I could simply defer to the law of the land, public policy in my country or professional practice of the public authorities but in the main its because of a seriously long winded ethical and moral philosophical consideration that no one should be anothers means to an end, that the categorical imperative of respecting anothers right to self-determination is justified when managing the risk of significant harm is at stake. Also considerations about maturation, appropriate intergenerational relationships, the incidence of and social policing of exploitative personality types, societal norms with respect of sadism, cruelty etc. play their part too but in the main I'm very much fine with being close minded about that. In fact I dont even discuss it much these days. That same sort of rationale I'd apply to most other topics that I consider in the same category, euthanasia, people trafficking, assisted suicide, some sorts of late term abortions, slavery revivals, ethno-nationalisms etc.

Some days I just think taboos have served a very good role for a very long time and probably did not emerge over night or because someone was a jerk in the past and the pas is full of jerks whereas the present has some kind of superior knowledge, just because.

I'm aware of just how far the whole open mindedness argument took sketchy, shady movements such as the NAMBLA group into left wing camps such as the ACLU, communist fringe groups in the US and in the UK groups like Liberty (its the equivalent of the ACLU), there was a raft of arrests of individuals for sex offences within various gay rights or gay welfare groups at one time in the UK, and I dont mean a bunch of minor call operators or something either, but real discussion of this by liberals is difficult and generally just avoided. Which is a shame, if people are going to, rightly, attack older institutions for their handling of these sorts of things its unwise to start out by repeating their errors in the practices of your new social movements.

Anyway, point's made and I'm not trying to label anyone or make anyone feel bad. I also acknowledge its not a fun topic and no I dont spend all my time every day focused upon such sinister and depressing topic matter.
 
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