day no. 15,256: an open and shut case

"Chesterton once said (Chesterton always once said) that 'the purpose of an open mind was the same as the purpose of an open mouth—it is meant to close on something.' A man who is not closed in certain respects is a man who was never open in the right kind of way." - Douglas Wilson, European Brain Snakes

Open-mindedness has been solicited as a good thing and narrow-mindedness, consequently, as a bad thing. But as Chesterton and Wilson point out, a perpetually open mind never wraps itself around anything by closing. It cannot wrap it's mind around anything because it refuses to close itself around anything. In a similar sense, a mouth that is always open is a mouth that is always starving or in its best efforts at least very rude.

All that to say, openness is not, in itself, to be admired or pursued. The follow up question of "open to what?" and "closed to what?" must be asked. After all, an insistence on being open-minded is also an insistence on being closed to the idea of closing, which is awful narrow-minded when you think about it.