Opening minds

A conscientious young liberal of my acquaintance, a "rising 9th-grader," told me yesterday that he makes a point of listening periodically to local talk radio troglodyte Phil Valentine. Exposing himself to narrow and intolerant thinking (if you want to call it that) will better inform his own burgeoning progressivism and balance his own perspective, he supposes.

According to Jonathan Haidt (as related by Nicholas Kristof), that's a well-intentioned but unpromising strategy. Listening to Limbaugh and other shouting ideologues, on whichever end of the spectrum, does not create sympathy for their views in those not predisposed to sympathize.

A study by Diana Mutz of the University of Pennsylvania found that when people saw tight television shots of blowhards with whom they disagreed, they felt that the other side was even less legitimate than before... we often form judgments through flash intuitions that aren’t a result of a deliberative process. The crucial part of the brain for these judgments is the medial prefrontal cortex, which has more to do with moralizing than with rationality...

“Minds are very hard things to open, and the best way to open the mind is through the heart,” Professor Haidt says. “Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games.”

So what should my young friend do to expand his openness to those with a different point of view? Don't tune in to the loudmouths. Take a quiet conservative to lunch.