Goal
Today, I discuss closed-mindedness, what it is, and why you shouldn’t always fear it.
Table of Contents
- What Is Closed-Mindedness?
- The Reason I’ve Become Closed-Minded
- The Three Ways To Deal With Your Closed-Mindedness
- Never Feel Ashamed For Moving On
What Is Closed-Mindedness?
Being closed-minded can make you feel trapped in a cage.
Closed-mindedness is “having or showing rigid opinions or a narrow outlook.”
Generally, being closed-minded is bad for two reasons. Firstly, individuals should be open to objective improvements in societal and philosophical concerns. For example, slavery is wrong. Rejecting this moral truth and others stunts societal advancement while empowering injustices.
Secondly, we should not close our minds to the preferences of others. For example, if someone uses meditation to improve, then you should remain curious, not hostile. Knee-jerk rejection of peaceful, voluntary preferences does not serve your long-term self-improvement.
The Reason I’ve Become Closed-Minded
I’ve closed my mind to the notion government can improve my life.
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” – Socrates
However, as I grow older, I’ve become more closed-minded. My opinions are rigid, and my outlook narrows. Yet, my mind has not closed to virtue, individualism, or sustainability. My mind has shut to collectivism, brutality, and manipulations.
Debating the latest government or corporate sellout is stale. I’m learning nothing new. For example, people offer hackneyed critiques of capitalism. They always fail to acknowledge the overbearing state and how state coercion undermines the free market. They never discuss how the corporatist system is not capitalism because corporations are created, supported, and funded by the state apparatus. And they refuse to see how fiat currency, regulations, and other non-capitalistic measures limit economic choices and mobility. Then, after refusing nuance and rational discussion, these weak individuals will eagerly criticize capitalism for being “exploitive” or “lacking compassion.”
I’ve argued against collectivism for more than a decade. I’ve read the works of great men and women who spent their lives debating and winning against collectivists. Thus, the argument for human freedom has been won on philosophical, legal, economic, historical, and moral grounds. And the collectivists have nothing of substance to offer. I’m closed off to their dangerous ways of thinking.
The Three Ways To Deal With Your Closed-Mindedness
As the world burns around them, all weak individuals have to offer is violence and snark.
Are you tired of debating weak individuals? Or, hearing collectivists undermine every life-giving institution our ancestors built? If yes, then I have a suggestion.
Accept you are closed-minded. You have to move on from the people who spit in the face of virtue. Weak people will dance as society burns. They have nothing to teach you.
In the meantime, here are three things you can do:
- Firstly, continue on your path of virtue. Virtue cultivates excellence within you when you pursue what is sustainable, challenging, and meaningful. Stay virtuous, and you’ll grow in wisdom as your mind closes to manipulators.
- Secondly, admit you have to move on. The world will eat itself alive. You do not have to get involved. Focus on surviving whatever madness the world will bury itself in. Weak people have every opportunity to set themselves on a better path. You are not responsible for the insane collectivism they worship.
- Lastly, focus on small things you can do to contribute to culture and society. Be generous and participate in politics. You cannot stop the implosion of our civilization. However, you can assist virtuous individuals while slowing the implosion of society.
Never Feel Ashamed For Moving On
Our civilization is imploding. It is wise to move on.
“Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living.” – Mark Twain
I end by telling you never to feel ashamed about moving on. Having children led me away from arguing with idiots online. Earning more money pushed me away from reading yet another sophist book justifying the horrors of socialism. Helping virtuous individuals led me away from watching the news and expecting the media to be nuanced or honest.
Therefore, be closed-minded to the socialist barking about free healthcare or the racist spitting hate at the majority. Ignore the thugs who refuse to take responsibility for themselves. Or, the “woke” idiots willing to defend the brutish instead of the innocent.
In the meantime, grow your character. Develop physically. Build better habits. Crush your vices. Expand your economic influence. Grow your wealth and invest in yourself.
Become an individual, and you’ll flourish in a broken world.
Actionables
- Do you feel closed-minded? Are you closed-minded towards subjective things?
- What is one argument you are tired of hearing from collectivists? Which arguments are predictable?
- What are some arguments you no longer engage with? Are there people you no longer engage with?
Please remember that it’s important to do the actionables. You’re not on this earth to simply read but to do. To become an individual, you must act more than you consume.
*Image credit to Unsplash.
