"I Need Something To Change Your Mind"

This is one of those questions that is so big and important to me that I end up never contributing to it. I thought for a minute you were linking to her 'told you so' piece of Wednesday (or worse still, Christopher Hitchens's).

(I suppose I should say that I'm thinking about changing your mind on big broad opinions, like your political outlook or cultural outlook or goals in life or moral principles, rather than changing your mind about the Strokes being good.)

tom, why would you want to change my opinion of big broads?

Ah but Tom, changing your mind on whether the Strokes are good is the key to this kind of thing. The popular culture we like is often used to define our personalities - so the knee jerk dislike of the Strokes which seems to be overturned in the last couple of weeks is actually saying "I am an individual, I do not fall for the next big hype".

Rather than changing ones mind, I tend not to make up my mind and vaccilate between posts. My parents taught me at a young age that the best form of learning was argument, therefore both devils advocacy and stating an opinion that I did not hold to see how an opponent would defend their viewpoint has always been the best option. Politically I don't think I have ever really hugely changed my mind, the politcial parties have changed around me. But I certainly do not see a stigma in changing my mind, and I often do it about people I like or dislike.

I now appreciate similarities in people rather than difference and prima donnas don't have the appeal they did in the past.

I stopped working out#much happier and better lover.

I think doubt is an important component in a thoughtful, intelligent personality. Too often self-doubt, and questioning yourself, is seen as a weakness and not as part of a positive thought processes that results in better outcomes in the long run.

I realise that this was a somewhat rhetorically strident and dogmatic statement.

i believe Will is correct concerning doubt

Allow me to third that last point, although for the sake of my ego (I constantly doubt and augment my position on politics etc.) I prefer to consider it as holding a position critically.

Flexibility in one's political opinion is an absolute necessity.

I don't know how other people feel regarding current world events, but to me it's like I'm holding the broken shards of a mirror in my hand, and from these I'm expected to construct an accurate reflection of the truth. The more conflicting reports and statistics I read, the more oscured my perspective becomes.

So yes, I find my opinion shifting all the time with each new piece of knowledge I absorb. The most important thing is to keep an open mind, and concede that with the best of intentions you could be holding a mistaken belief because you're not in possession of all the relevant facts.

Oh yes, and Talking Heads rule.

I think part of the reason politicians don't often publicly admit to changing their minds on a particular topic is for fear that it will undercut public confidence in them. The fact that politicians and public are quite often wrong seems to me to be a largely unspoken truth (by the masses in the States, anyway). For a politician to admit that they were wrong about a certain issue opens the door to possibility that they could also be wrong about their current belief/position, which I think generates a fear that the public's confidence in them will be compromised, thus jeopardizing their ability for future lightning coups.

On a personal level: I used to be quite zealous and religious. I have since denounced it all as hogwash. I'd say that's a pretty substantial change of mind.

the phrase "politicians and public" in the preceding post was created by some sort of bizarre editing error. please drop the "and public" portion.

Epistemology - or 'philosophy' more generally and hazily. Roughly speaking, I have found myself carted into a more and more 'pragmatist' position.

Various discontents with conservative orthodoxies like religious belief caused my departure from such positions, and as I've wittered on about radical subjectivity remains my current orthodoxy ;-), I don't need to repeat it too much. I would like -- *like* -- to think that I can see through muck to some form of objective truth, what precious little there is of it, when it comes to the material world and the here and now, but everything ultimately is covered in spin and sludge, somehow. As said sludge is truth for others, it really can become a game...

I was anti-patriotic until 1999, now proud of *Englishness*. This'll sound stupid but recently discovered I really like everyone. After a long time having contradictory feelings, pitting instinctive pacifism against aggressive resentment of moral / religious / politically- different majority, now I feel affection towards them all and the Pacifism is total. Sep 11th really cemented a conviction that Pacifism is the only way but I'll have trouble explaining that.

Sorry, Chris, but there is no "only way" forward. Forward to where exactly?

War, torture, genocide, injustice, inequality....it all happens cos that's what we *do*. We haven't "lost our way" and there is no way back to the garden. We were never there in the first place.

Ahem, sorry....

Oh, this must be the nihilist left that Toynbee was talking about.