I have been watching the UK election from afar, which is great. It is not daily news here in Turkey, so I can dip into the election reports when I feel like it. I started watching a televised debate between leaders of the opposition parties, with an invited audience and the event was chaired by the veteran political commentator, David Dimbleby. The participants were Ed Miliband (Labour), Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru), Natalie Bennett (Green), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) and Nigel Farage (UKIP). The current Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, declined their invitations to attend. The absence of representatives from the ruling parties shouldn't have affected the quality of the debate. People know what they've got in power and have to make a judgement as to whether what the opposition parties are each offering, could be better. So the battle of the closed minds commenced!
The election fervour, in my mind epitomises the danger of closed-mind thinking, which abounds in all walks of life - political, social, religious, personal, business, pleasure .... you name it! I guess when we are born, our minds are open. But as we adapt to the world we've been born into, the process of teaching from others, together with our own personal experiences, moulds our mind and thus provides the 'lens' through which we view the world. We develop a complex adaptive system that, in my opinion, becomes more predictable in the way that it 'filters' information and produces opinions, as time progresses. Our minds suffer from being too closed. But that suffering is probably inevitable because closed-mindedness, or an unwillingness to consider new ideas, can result from the brain's natural dislike of ambiguity. By default, we see a person with different views to our own, as an opponent.
So returning to the political debate, there were questions from the audience being answered by five individuals, each a leader of their respective political party, but very obviously driven by the straightjackets of their manifestos. It soon got to the point in the programme, when whatever question was raised, I had a very good idea how each politician would answer it. So the value of the debate to me was zero and I switched off after 60 minutes of the 90-minute programme. Maybe I was being unfair. Perhaps it is not unreasonable for a politician to stick rigidly to a party line and it's the electorate who should assess what's better for them individually and society collectively. But does the electorate display open-mindedness? The answer must be to varying degrees, which is why the results vary from election to election but never by very much.
It's slightly hypocritical for me to preach open-mindedness because I know I have plenty of mindsets. That said, I do make a conscious effort to step away from my personal agendas and biases. I find a powerful technique is true listening. In the words of Stephen Covey: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." You can only understand by, at least temporarily, pushing your own preconceived ideas to one side and not, as is so common in political debates, using the 'listening' time to practice, in your mind, a pre-prepared response. True listening really is very powerful and rewarding. As Mark Twain said: "An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it."
"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than closed by belief." - Gary Spence.
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