For some reason in the West we regard this as a great evil. Not all of the political ads about “flip-floppers.” I mean if you change your mind, you are…evil!
But of course it is nothing of the sort and scientific method of empiricism itself is rooted in such a concept.
I will say that most human beings definitely do not want to change their mind too much. They will on certain things, but things like political beliefs are hard and fast. However, change does occur.
Both of my parents strongly disliked homosexuality. My father was outraged by male homosexuals and considered them weird and insane. Both were against gay marriage. My mother was more sympathetic to lesbians than to gay men, and I kept calling on this crap and pointing out what bullshit it was, but she kept defending it on moral and public health grounds, mostly around gay male promiscuity, which is unfortunately a legitimate critique.
They moved to a small town to retire and met some very nice gay people, in particular gay men. Most were associated with their church and I can confirm that they are very good human beings. Anyway, apparently these experiences were sufficient to get both of them to change their minds as they made friends with some gay men. They both came around to gay rights and I believe even gay marriage. My mother in particular reverted her longstanding opposition to it.
This was very interesting to me because for one thing, political opinions do not seem to change a whole lot, especially later in life. They get fixed and then they are hard and fast. This showed me that human beings can actually – gasp – change their damn minds!
I change my mind all the time about everything under the sun but then I have OCD, and we really don’t believe in anything as the nature of the illness causes you to doubt so many things, even the obvious. I actually love to change my mind sometimes. At other times it may be painful but it is always pleasant to believe in the truth, ugly or beautiful. I am not into pretty lies.
“The man who is ridiculous is he whose opinions never change.”
- Barthelemy, French poet.
Pretty much describes most people but there you go. To change your mind, especially politically is to suffer humiliation. You have to admit that you were wrong and you were an idiot for a long time. Humans do not like to admit they were wrong. This is an attack on the ego and we can’t handle it so we use ego defenses to defend against ego attacks. So people keep believing the same crap they have always believed simply to preserve ego strength, which strikes me as idiotic but there you go – the human condition.
