About Independent Thinking

By Robert Dixon McKinley, Sr

We are all biased. The nature and strengths of our biases are quantifiable.

Our biases do not necessarily limit our range of thoughtful inspection. For example, there is a functional difference between a bias toward truth and a bias bounded by an ideological belief. The former can require us to expand our field of inquiry while the latter could constrain it.

Open-minded people are receptive to new ideas or arguments. They strive to be unprejudiced truth seekers. They gather facts and then use logic and reason to form their opinions.

Closed-minded people are not receptive to new ideas or arguments. It’s hard to discuss almost anything with, much less convince, a closed-minded person. More often than not, they lack the facts necessary to arrive at informed opinions. If presented with the facts, they either dismiss them, posit their own pseudo “facts,” or rigidly hold on to their opinion in spite of the facts.

Being politically independent means to not be inevitably committed to any political party. That said, I cannot think of any plausible circumstance in which I would vote for a Democrat. This is not contradictory. I have done my due diligence and gathered the facts about both major U.S. political parties, and they could not be more different. However, my bias toward truth compels me to continually inspect my current political choices along with a commitment to change whenever the facts and other relevant considerations recommend it.

Politically independent thinkers are receptive to all well-developed fact-based ideas and arguments. They are also non-receptive, even dismissive, of poorly-inspected ideas or ill-considered arguments, especially when they are based on hearsay, pure emotion, or insupportable ideological beliefs.