The opposing tendency, a mind so closed that new or unexpected truths are inadmissible, is comparably pernicious.
It was something that closed the mind rather than opened the mind.
Time after time he scolds the fantasy of a spotless past that has closed the mind of scholars and tourists to the full historical range of the city's achievements.
Still, Dai delivers an important message: any system that fears knowledge and education, any system that closes the mind to moral and intellectual truth, is evil and will prove in the end to be impotent.
Setting aside two predictably thoughtful essays, one by David Brooks and the other by Peter Berkowitz, a more accurate wording might have been "Why I Turned Right: Or, The Experience That Closed My Mind Forever".
"It would be entirely reasonable for the UK to take its share of responsibility for refugees and I think it's unfortunate - to put it as mildly as I possibly can - that we have closed our minds to that possibility, when other countries in Europe have taken a much more generous position," he said.
And you know, it doesn't mean that I've closed my mind to – if that ever got presented to me again, one of those cases if there were new evidence.
"That, to me, has been the most impressive thing that he's done, to take that mind-set and close out the inning," the pitching coach John Farrell said.
But we'd closed our minds to that possibility.
Most importantly, however, such fear-mongering just does not strike their amygdalas, that reptilian part of the brain that triggers the defensive, closed mind reaction when the brain encounters an unfamiliar situation.
