Many of us become attached to our core beliefs, including social and political convictions. It becomes easy to dig in our heels, and to not be open to re-examining a cherised conviction you have held for many years. But this is not an intellectually admirable quality. We should be open to persuasion if we encounter good reason or reasons to abandon that which we have always regarded as correct (until now). The quality of our public debate depends in part on our collective willingness to be less hard-headed and more intellectually humble.
In this episode of In The Ring With Eusebius McKaiser, critical thinking lecturer Jacques Rousseau (University of Cape Town) joined me, and we both shared several examples of when and why we had changed our minds on a range of issues. We also examined the reasons why it is not a weakness to be open to counter-evidence, and the implications for society if we fail to do so. At the beginning of the discussion, my good friend and fellow writer and broadcaster Redi Tlhabi shared a fascinating perspective and personal example of how she approaches the burden to self-examine an established conviction.
