"I was just now ruminating, as I often do, what a free and roving thing human reason is. I ordinarily see that men, in things propounded to them, more willingly

"I was just now ruminating, as I often do, what a free and roving thing human reason is. I ordinarily see that men, in things propounded to them, more willingly study to find out reasons than to ascertain truth: they slip over presuppositions, but are curious in examination of consequences; they leave the things, and fly to the causes." (Michel de Montaigne) I feel like open-mindedness is something you can practice. Strong and inflexible opinions are often the result of motivated reasoning, and motivated reasoning occurs when you feel that to believe certain things would harm your identity. But the thing is, it doesn't have to harm your identity unless you let it. You can feel strongly about social justice and equality, and still calmly read about e.g. minimum wage, all of the pros and cons and the results of empirical studies without, poof, instantly turning into a neoconservative. The other thing to realize is that being very settled in your opinions also means that you're probably closing yourself off from other perspectives and new information – you already know everything there is to know, which is why you're so vocal about it. But again, there's really no need for any of this. You can eat meat but listen to a vegan explain their choices without feeling the need to defend your own opinion and without feeling that not to immediately make a counterargument would make you lose the argument and to admit to being a bad person. Who cares about winning arguments? Try to learn something new instead, even if only why other people think what they think. When you think along those lines, over time you'll (hopefully) become less emotionally attached to your opinions, less tribal and less easily riled up whenever someone says something you disagree with.