A lot of people think it's a virtue to be open-minded. What it means to be open-minded is that you're willing to consider new ideas and take into account new information in an unprejudiced way. I agree that this is a virtue.

However, the word is often misused to mean an unconditional acceptance of everything. To think that anything is bad, wrong, or untrue in an absolute sense is therefore considered closed-minded, rigid, intolerant, and unacceptable.

But here we have a self-contradiction. To someone whom he considers closed-minded, this type of self-proclaimed open-minded person will essentially say, "I accept everything. You don't. I find that unacceptable." In other words, if he thinks it's wrong to be closed-minded, he himself is being closed-minded.

So the truth is that we're all closed-minded in this sense, just about different things. And that's fine, because being open-minded in this sense wouldn't be a virtue anyway. It couldn't be because it isn't logically possible unless virtue itself doesn't exist. If there is no right and wrong, then we can logically accept everything, including not accepting things, because nothing matters anyway. But if right and wrong have any real meaning, then accepting things for the sake of acceptance will get us nowhere.

The real virtue is in considering new things with an open mind and an open heart. And a natural result of considering things is that we gradually form theories and draw conclusions. Sometimes the most rational conclusion you can draw is that a certain thing is bad, wrong, or untrue in an absolute sense. And this doesn't make you closed-minded in the slightest unless you refuse to reconsider your position should new information or ideas present themselves.

In actuality, a person who seems closed-minded in the misused sense of the word may in fact be the most open-minded, and the most virtuous, of us all.