Why You Should Consider Changing Your Mind

To say James and Deborah Fallows are familiar with the United States would be an understatement. They spent four years flying their single propeller plane across the country, visiting towns and cities alike, to get a good idea of what makes small town America tick. The Fallows chronicled their journeys in the book, Our Towns, which I highly recommend.

Upon reading the book, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was almost entirely non-partisan. The Fallows found that, at the local level, Americans are happy to put aside political differences in the spirit of civic accomplishments and local improvement. Job creation, education, and downtown revitalization – these are all areas in which small town Americans are willing to reach across the aisle to better their towns.

This drives the reader to wonder, what is different at the national level? Why do people root their identity so deeply in a political opinion that they are not willing to budge for the progress of society as a whole?

Dodge City, Kansas was one of many stops on the Fallows’ journey. Dodge City, according to the authors, “is a red part of one of the country’s politically reddest states.” The local economy is heavily supported by the meat packing industry, which in turn is heavily supported by immigrant labor. The town is “majority minority” and is made up of both documented and undocumented immigrants.

How does this work? One of the most conservative places in the country facing a reality that is in stark contrast to party lines. It works because it is mutually beneficial, because people are generally good, and as one of the residents of Dodge City put it, “people here recognize that we’re in this together.”

James Fallows made an interesting observation: “build the wall” chants were more common in areas that were further removed from where Mexican immigrants actually lived. Fallows also said, in one of the only hints of non-objective reporting, “As we’ve noted throughout our journey, the more ferocious the anti-immigrant passion, the more distant actual immigrants tended to be, and the more theoretical – and, apparently, the more frightening – their menace was.” These observations stopped me in my tracks. Referring back to my earlier question about identities rooted in political opinions – I think the answer is, at least partially, ignorance.

At this point, I began to think about intellectual humility. “Which of my opinions are rooted in ignorance?”, I wondered. This led me to an interesting thought experiment. Make a list of your three strongest political opinions. Opinions that you would defend vehemently and opinions on which your political counterparts would totally disagree.

Now imagine that maybe the root of your belief is actually ignorance. Under the same premise of ignorance, pick one or two of those opinions and imagine conceding your position to the other side. Would it affect you? Would it have any impact on your daily life? In my case, I found that it probably wouldn’t.

But imagine if somebody on the other side of the aisle did the same for you. How would it make you feel? Probably pretty good, right? You might even gain respect for that person and be more willing to work with him to get something done. Maybe that’s how the small towns and cities across America are keeping the peace with their neighbors and pushing their communities towards prosperity.

Need more ideas on how to improve your intellectual humility? Me too. Start with these. Or try this post on how I changed my mind about something small.