There is an excellent CNN commentary, written by Rudy Ruiz, called "Open your minds, America." The article comments on the intolerant and hostile tone in our debate over health care. Ruiz argues that our inability to form rational dialogue is a symptom of a larger problem — "A contagious culture of close-mindedness threatens to suffocate our progress as a society"
"Increasingly, the willingness to change one's position on political issues has been misread as a mark of weakness rather than product of attentive listening and careful deliberation."
How has this happened? The ability to change our opinions in the face of new information is actually a sign of intelligence, yet our culture seems to disparage such self-reflection.
Riuz argues that there are a number of factors that prevent a healthy and rational dialogue.
- The use of labels associates an argument with the term's connotative meaning. For instance, "government-run" may bring to mind "communist" or "socialist."
- Our culture of sound-bites and knee-jerk responses favors quick explanations rather than recognizing the complicated and nuanced reality of issues.
- The consumption of media suffers from an agenda-melding where individuals choose only media information with a similar alignment.
This seems to be a valid diagnosis. How often do we label something only to demonize it? How often do we just want a simple answer? How often do we turn the channel because we don't like what we hear? Ruiz's explanation is rather commonsensical. Such a simple explanation should yield a simple solution, right?
Unfortunately, it's not a simple solution. Though Ruiz addresses this pertinent and growing problem with care and thought, even he struggles with an effective prescription, though he offers one — "We should eschew the notion that changing our minds is a character flaw."
I couldn't agree more, but this is easier said than done. If it were as easy as simply "losing the labels" or "making independent decisions," as he suggests, then this wouldn't be as big of a problem.
What we should ask ourselves is how do we do those things that repair our broken dialogue. For instance, how can we create a society that doesn't rely on labels, that thinks for itself, that listens to the other side. It's one thing to suggest that we should just "open our minds," but how do we go about doing it? Even more importantly, why are our minds "closed" in the first place?
In other words, why do we assume our opinions to be right? How can we explain our certitude? A growing body of research is explaining this through the way our brains are wired. Robert Burton, neurologist and writer, argues that we can trace feelings of certainty back to primitive parts of the brain rather than conscious rationalizations or thought processes.
"Despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of "knowing what we know" arise out of primary brain mechanisms that, like love and anger, function independently of rationality or reason. Feeling correct or certain isn't a deliberate conclusion or a conscious choice. It is a mental sensation that happens to us."
Burton offers a simple yet powerful prescription: "We must learn (and teach our children) to tolerate the unpleasantness of uncertainty."
Ruiz is correct; we should be more fair with our use of language and think more critically about our beliefs. First, for this to happen we must learn that what we think we know are only beliefs, not necessarily knowledge. We as a society should learn the humbling reality of our cognitive limitations, that we are not blessed with knowledge. Perhaps then we might be able to cast away our preconceived notions and enter discussions with an ability to learn and listen.
Photo: Patrick J. Lynch