Solid advice.

I am only reacting to it because so much of it these days seems to be more in the vein of “I hold these ideas so I am open minded and you hold those ideas so you are closed-minded”.

For example, his advice to know when to ask questions and when to make assertions is excellent, but this comment:

“Closed-minded people say things like “I could be wrong … but here’s my opinion.” This is a classic cue I hear all the time. It’s often a perfunctory gesture that allows people to hold their own opinion while convincing themselves that they are being open-minded. If your statement starts with “I could be wrong”…, you should probably follow it with a question and not an assertion.”

is more a stylistic trope than anything else. It depends on how perfunctory the speaker is when deploying this turn of phrase. Criticizing it in this manner is easily turned into a blanket rhetorical weapon in which one can automatically discredit one’s interlocutor’s opinion or even their right to offer one without having to argue against it.

The process of moving from an open mind to a closed mind is called, in English, “learning”.

His list may be useful for detecting open/close in yourself and others.

When I saw this one I giggled aloud on the bus. People looked at me as though I might be dangerous. That was cool, at least for a moment.

It’s hard not to laugh when these self-regarding tropes are allowed to break free of their intellectual places as tools and become moral shibboleths and combs for moral preening.

I am reminded of a few years ago when progressives started accusing conservatives of “epistemic closure”. Good times. I can’t remember who first threw that one out but I dimly remember wondering whether he had found it on word a day toilet paper.

To my mind, the things they’re saying here that are indicative of an open mind are things I associate with utter f**king idiocy.

The usual run of this crap is that I hear some utterly idiotic idea being put forth by the supposedly (and, self-declaredly…) “open-minded”, such as “Let’s put women into combat arms jobs, where they’ll have a strong likelihood of seeing direct combat…”, I refute it and point out the various issues with the idea/concept, and then I am promptly excoriated for not having an “open mind” on the subject.

Openness can very often equate to utter vacuity, in my experience.

Then, too… Every time someone tells me that they have an “open mind”, wellllll… Usually, they don’t. It’s a warning sign–Guy that says he’s open-minded is usually like that biblically guilty man, who fleeth where no man pursues.

If you have to tell other people you’re open-minded about things… Well, usually, you aren’t. You’re just mouthing the words, in pious hope that they let you get away with your BS.

Let your mind be first open to experience, and then closed by experience.

Be humble toward the universe, and haughty toward lesser minds.

And setting that aside, the “closed minded” traits just decribe someone who is right. If I spend all day arguing that 2+2=5 you are going to look awfully “closed minded” in your reactions.

And some of the indicators of closed-mindedness match reasonable behavior. Suppose an idiot is babbling at the top of his voice about UFOs in his underwear drawer or something, and you need to inform everyone of a car with lights on in the parking lot. In order to be heard, you need to shut the idiot up, or at least shout louder than him. There you are, blocking others from speaking. It’s the bandwidth problem. Sometimes free speech is zero sum.

Me, I suspect this whole closed-minded vs open-minded dichotomy. Drawing conclusions about the world is an important mental process. We’d have a hard time functioning without it. To draw a conclusion is to close one’s mind on a particular question. And all of empirical science is based on the idea that if you can reproduce something in the lab over and over again, then anyone who says it isn’t so is suspect. Repeated experience gradually closes a rational mind.

If you’re of a Bayesian bent, you always maintain a philosophical doubt. But beyond a certain point, the philosophical doubt gets lost in the background noise. Are there actually UFOs in the idiot’s underwear drawer? You may never know for sure, but you have to operate on the more plausible theory.