What exactly is wrong with being narrow-minded?

Or a low I.Q.

 

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Someome once said that a slim chance and a fat chance are the same but a wise man and a wise guy are opposites.

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Same goes for the mind, as long as it isn't closed it's still open, narrow or otherwise.

 

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Don't you miss a whole lot of life and living by being narrow minded? Narrow minded people usually don't try new things.

 

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Is there anything wrong with being narrow-minded?

If narrow mindedness makes you happy then I supposed there's nothing wrong with it As long as you are happy. Some people I know are brilliant in their academic life, great achievers but they suck so much when it comes to accepting other people's differences/opinions/stance on things they dont agree, and their narrow-mindedness piss me off.

 

It's hard to say. Everyone has diffferent ideas of what is being narrow- minded. What some ppl say is thinking narrow_minded, another may say is being crazy, out to lunch.

 

Anyone who disagrees with me is narrow-minded. Simple really..

 

Verily, a narrow mind is easier to close than one which is wide open.

Paul to the Intellectuals

 

It doesn't have to be wrong to be narrow minded or "rigid".

But you should be able to accept new ideas also. At least for consideration, do you think it's bad with new ideas? Creativity? To daydream about different concepts without the need for them to totally rigidly fit reality?

I think it's good to be "rigid" as long as you can accept and take in new ideas (narrow minded can mean alot more than just "rigid", so it may not be good at all times).

 

Has anyone a choice ?

 

Nothing is wrong with being narrow-minded but being open to at least understanding what other people are saying and their point of view makes someone much smarter and wiser in my opinion. You don't necessarily have to believe them, just see what they are trying to convince you of instead of just saying "U is wrong"

 

For those who see not being narrow minded as better, what have your open minds recently come to accept that was at first unsettling or seemed impossible or at least very unlikely?

I am not talking about ideas that you that plopped in nicely with most of the other ideas you had, but something that really challenged you, or might have if you were not so open minded.

If you cannot think of an example, how do you know that you have an open mind - if you do believe this? Further how do you know it is better?

In a sense I am asking what evidence led you to believe an open mind is better or have you arrived at this conclusion merely via deduction rather than experience?

 

If you don't want to work for your happiness...

Ignorance is bliss.

 

I guess being open minded is that the ideas doesn't "challange" you, you don't feel like you are going on a dangerous road, cause you know that you have a inner truth about things, and that nothing can stur that.

Open mind is freedom of ideas. To not be oppressed by ideas and to not having to be right for the sake of being right.

Knowledge and intelligence is important...but not that important and there are other values in life.

 

I don't think most people use the term that way. I think most people use it to mean that they will seriously consider new ideas, are aware of the ways in which they might consciously and unconsciously want to reject them and since they have a handle on this they can really be well, open to changing even basic beliefs.

Your definition is valid and in fact I think it is what most people say they have an open mind actually function like. They can hear the idea. They can banter about it, but the liklihood that something new (even if it were true or possible) would shift any of what to them are important beliefs is nevertheless next to null.

I think your version is often confused with what an open mind is thought to be.

 

Apparently, narrow mindedness is not good for "Strategic Thinking", according to this paper:

Strategic Leadership and the Narrow Mind:
What We Don’t Do Well and Why
by
Col Fernando Giancotti

The paper also gives a lot of interesting evolutionary background on why we tend to be "narrow minded", for example...

"Our hunter-gatherer ancestors dealt with a limited
time horizon, characterized mainly by the influence of hunting
seasons on their nomadic movements. They had simple but
intense social interaction since they lived primarily in small
groups of 20–30 individuals, with rare but regular interaction
with an extended tribe of up to 500 individuals."

 

What exactly is wrong with being narrow-minded?
-well, look at history. there are many cases that imminent danger has been evident to certain people with the capability of making decisions, but they ignore them since the evidence isn't enough to convince them. The disaster hits and many people die. A saying from Chinese goes -You will not cry until you see the coffin-
But I'm also not saying be open minded all the way: if you are too narrow minded, you dont have a brain, if you're too open minded, your brain falls out and you might as well not even have one. find the middle ground.
What exactly is wrong with having a rigid mind?
-same as above, this question is more of a euphemism instead.

 

Ok.

 

I came across this older message thread while searching for a specific quote on open minds, but the comments were too engaging for me not to leave a comment...

@Simon Andres: you said "For those who see not being narrow minded as better, what have your open minds recently come to accept that was at first unsettling or seemed impossible or at least very unlikely?" For those with truly open minds, many ideas wouldn't "seem unsettling or impossible or at least very unlikely." And right there is the difference. You weren't even able to make that simple jump in reasoning. I don't mean that as a negative in any way. It just is what it is.

Now, about that quote I was looking for. I still havent found it, but I will paraphrase since it fits the conversation so very well. One problem with being open minded that one must accept right off the bat is the unsettling possibility that one might be wrong whereas the close-minded individual is quite at ease in the sure comfort of the knowledge that he or she is definitely right. :shrug:

 

And on their way to becoming a psychopath perhaps too.:shrug:

 

Clusterinflux already mentioned the infamous quote about "persons whose minds are so open that their brains fall out."

Maybe some other persons are so narrow minded that their glasses fall off?