Obviously, we aren’t absolutely unable to consider other views. If we couldn’t, people would never change their views and yet they do. Furthermore, evidence isn

Obviously, we aren’t absolutely unable to consider other views. If we couldn’t, people would never change their views and yet they do. Furthermore, evidence isn’t the same thing as a self-sufficient body of premises. We interpret evidence in light of prior beliefs. There are disagreements where those prior beliefs are concerned. The truth is often difficult to know and even when you have it, convincing others is still going to take a lot of work. Don’t trivialize that difficulty. What this article is really circling are not these things, which are natural and with which there is nothing wrong per se, but about cultivated prejudice. Cultivated prejudice can be overcome, but it requires humility, that is, an openness to considering other views to see if what they claim is plausible, likely, necessary, or whatever. Should you change your mind, it may also require courage to state your change of beliefs to your milieu, but it is possible, even if risky in some circumstances. I would caution against the opposite errors of relativism and intolerance toward others’ opinions. What has happened of late (a matter of decades) is that quotidian political squabbling has turned into a full-scale war because of the Left’s vicious and total attack on Western tradition and the very foundations of Western culture (in most cases, in profound ignorance of the depths of that culture). In turn, many on the Right have overcompensated by moving away from the cautious, principled pragmatism of conservatism. If you want a more measured atmosphere, where exchanges of views can take place without the strident nonsense that dominates today, then the Left has to stop its total, emotionalist, destructive, oikophobic siege on “the West”, especially as it offers no better alternatives. Nature abhors a vacuum and it will be filled with all manner of demons far exceeding the boogeymen haunting the Left’s imagination.