There is often a debate between people in my close circle and I over the merits of changing ones mind verses picking an ideal and sticking to it no matter what. The conflict has often been as just heated internally as it has been with those who disagree with me.
As a teenager and younger man, I was known to be very stubborn and set in my beliefs. I grew up in a family of staunch Republicans and was surrounded by a lot of political and religious debate. The men in my family are very opinionated and vocal. Perhaps, it was due to this environment that I felt the requirement to pick a set of beliefs and defend them to the death.
But as I grew older, I realized that many of the right wing party line politics that I was so vigorously defending were based upon flawed assumptions and a lack of my own research and education. I read books and studied the history that lead to the events that are unfolding in front of us today. The more that I learned about this, the more that my paradigm of the world changed.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I suddenly turned into a flaming liberal republican hater. I have simply migrated from a strong team player to an independent free agent. I have shed the party loyalty and let my own research and logic drive my point of view and not a bunch of assumptions and spoon fed rhetoric by a political party.
Here’s where the conflict arises. People around me have started to call me wishy-washy and a flip-flopper. They have said that I need to pick a point of view and stick with it and stop changing. For me, the cat is already out of the bag. My mind is opened and I can no longer close it.
After seeing so many things, that I just KNEW were true, proven false by just a little research and willingness to admit that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was, how could I possibly just blindly trust that whatever ideals that I have today can never be proven wrong in the future? I owe it to myself to keep my mind open to evidence that contradicts any and all conclusions that I have ever or will ever draw.
I believe that the standards are different for public servants. If you are going to run for office on a set of ideals, you had better damn well make sure that those ideals are something that will not change through the term that you are elected for. The American people need to know what they are voting for and politicians should not be as wishy-washy as the average Joe.
To clearify my position, I am not in the least wishy-washy. I only change my point of view in the face of credible evidence. It took evidence for me to form the original view point and it will take even more evidence to cause me to modify it.
Here’s a little hypocrisy to conclude this rant. Those who mock you for changing your paradigm only do so when the change is away from their own point of view. If you change to accept their argument, they would cheer you for finally seeing things “how they really are”.
JMacDiggity Dizzog...Jamie 2:40 pm on October 22, 2008 Permalink
“I owe it to myself to keep my mind open to evidence that contradicts any and all conclusions that I have ever or will ever draw.”
“I only change my point of view in the face of credible evidence.”
You are totally validating your feelings here.
This is why I have not chosen a party but rather a candidate for every election I’ve voted in.
This is also why it USED to be so fun to argue with you. But alas you are now a free and more open mind.
sbostedor 5:46 pm on October 22, 2008 Permalink
lol – don’t get too relaxed. There’s still plenty of room for debate. I still have strong opinions on things based upon my own research that can only be influenced by stronger facts. Not to mention, the influence of preference.