Cultivating Broadmindedness for Positive Social
Change
Written by: Anthony C. Ajah PhD
Two days ago, I led a short reflection with past
and present members of the Catholic Association of Postgraduate Students,
University of Nigeria Nsukka. I titled the reflection: “The 21st
Century Christian Faith, Broadmindedness and Positive Agency.” This was a
welcome reflection to a reunion with the theme “Proclaiming the Faith in the
Contemporary Society.” I was so excited to underline the following words from
the Address of Welcome by the current President of the Group: “The thrust
behind this coming together are… (3) to form a network of educated and
committed critical mass of Catholic Lay Faithful, that should be agents of
positive changes.” That there is such a focus on having educated members of my
Nigerian society; a focus at forming a network - not of ethnically and
religiously biased, and therefore narrow-minded persons – but of critical
persons willing to be agents of positive change, was for me so heart-warming.
Those words gladdened my heart because mine is a society wherein even those considered
to be learned discuss social issues from such narrow-minded perspectives
[predominantly ethnic and religious] that I remain consistently worried about
what such persons can contribute in large-scale discussions.
Today, I write my first LinkedIn Post, with a
focus on ‘Broadmindedness’ and ‘Positive Social Change’ by broadminded social
agents.
A social agent is a human being who can effect an
action, and can be held responsible for the effect(s) of such an action. [This
definition of an agent automatically excludes robots from the list of beings
worth considering as social agents]. The actions of individual agents in every
society are nothing but results of their judgments regarding one or several
realities or aspects of their societies – including their judgments regarding
fellow human beings.
I recall the very common story of some blind
persons who went to ‘feel’ the elephant. Each of them came out of the
experience with a terribly one-sided judgment of what an elephant is. For one
[the person that touched the abdomen]: The elephant is a rough wall. For
another [the person that touched the trunk]: The elephant is like a pipe. And
so on. These are sample cases of myopia and narrow-minded judgments. What if
each of those blind persons called on the others to share what their individual
‘perceptions’ were, and to attempt a description with better details about what
an elephant is? The result would have been a fused horizon (Hans Georg Gadamer)
which would have further resulted to a better description of what/how an
elephant is.
Broadmindedness is a state of mind which enables
an individual to assess any aspect of reality with focused attempt at
objectivity. Broadmindedness, usually contrasted with narrow-mindedness,
implies a willingness to assess a reality not based on a single perspective,
but on as many perspectives as can be considered (or are available to the
assessor) at the moment of assessment. This includes a willingness to listen to
other people’s opinions; a willingness to imagine the possible justification
for other people’s choice, action/action; a willingness to consider the
possibility that their point(s) of view may be better [because more humane and
life-enhancing] than mine; and a readiness to shift position in acceptance of
the better [because more humane and life-enhancing] point of view. The idea of
holding an agent responsible – say someone who was so angry with his girlfriend
that he killed her – implies that there is a natural demand in human societies
that every human being who has come of age and is sane, be broadminded. If this
were not so, why should a person be punished for attempting to kill another,
after all, in some of the cases, emotions and feelings of disappointment with
the person being targeted might have been so heightened and reached a certain
‘unbearable’ limit?
Several factors can be heavily responsible for
narrow-mindedness. Some of these are: utter ignorance (sometimes intentional,
some other times not intentional) about the aspect of reality under
consideration; ideological fanaticism; excessively emotional attachments to
ethnic, religious, and party affiliations, and so on. The last three can, in
many cases, even make a person very knowledgeable about something, to be unable
(or refuse) to put into proper consideration and perspective, what he/she knows
so well. On the other hand, broadmindedness can be cultivated just as
narrow-mindedness can be intentionally sustained and projected in pursuit of
self- or other-deception.
Cultivating broadmindedness requires: (a)
acquiring proper and reasonably reliable knowledge about the aspect of reality
under consideration; (b) realizing that there is nothing known to humans about
any aspect of reality which is the complete and final knowledge; (c) realizing
that fanaticism of whatever kind is a sign of large-scale ignorance about human
nature and particularly human history; a sign of pride and therefore of
emptiness, and is therefore irrational; (d) realizing that to reject any
judgment about reality offered by another person simply on the ground that the
other person is from another ethnic group, religious group, or political party,
is an indication of lack of depth on the part of the person rejecting such a
judgment.
Only the fusion of the experiences of each of the
blind men who went to ‘feel’ the elephant would have led to a more reliable
knowledge of the reality called the elephant. It is only based on a knowledge
from fused perspectives that the elephant can be so well described, for a
considerably reasonable action by these blind persons in relation to the
elephant. Every social reality can be approached by various human beings from
various perspectives, just like the blind persons approached the elephant from
various perspectives. A broadened description as well as a broadminded judgment
about any social reality are among the two tightly related primary conditions
that make human actions to result to positive and life-enhancing changes in the
society. This means, then, that a society where the citizens – by reasons of
intentional ignorance, fanaticism, excessive and therefore irrational
attachment to ethnic and party affiliations, and so on – are predominantly
narrow-minded, there is the huge danger that the various groups in the society
can rarely identify grounds for common interests. This further means that
synergy is hardly possible from among the groups. Thus, large-scale social
changes are impossible.
With specific reference to development in Africa,
and Nigeria in particular, what can easily be noted is that: there is
predominant narrowmindedness in development discourses, in policy
considerations, in citizens-government expectations, and so on. Regarding the
first: it is so easy to observe that in development discourses in relation to
Africa, there is what can be described as a campaign for narrow-minded youths.
This is seen in the fact that in South-East Nigeria, for example, while the
political leaders, school administrators and teachers, and many other persons
serving in public places, make fat personal money from those they claim to be
representing, and from those who come to their schools and offices for one need
or another, these same leaders, representatives, school administrators, and other
public servants, make their youths [especially in their University lecture
rooms) accept the argument that the single-story-answers to the problem of
under-development in Africa/Nigeria is the manipulation by governments and
companies from/in Europe and the America. One thing that this argument does is
that it shifts the attention of the youths of countries like Nigeria – from
holding their leaders to task, to blaming political leaders and companies [and
finding ways to cheat citizens], from Europe and America.
Since the return of Democracy to Nigeria in 1999,
one notices that in each administration, while the so called representatives
for the various regions in the country are busy lavishing the resources meant
for improving the lives of the people they claim they are representing, these
representatives find ways to raise alarms about marginalization. Once they do
this successfully, the citizens who they are supposed to represent are no
longer able to carefully assess both the good-willed activities of whoever is
the president, or the scandalous embezzlements by their representatives. As
long as this remains the case, the attention of the youths is shifted to
fighting a supposedly biased president who is marginalizing their region or
states, while their representatives are very busy embezzling the resources
meant for them.
To curb such ills like those just described, there
is this urgent need for citizens in African countries, and specific ones like
Nigeria, to gradually cultivate broadmindedness. The results will include: (a)
a gradual abandonment of the old and necessarily sterile argument that the
Western countries and companies [solely, and without our collaboration and the collaboration of our parents, uncles,
and aunts] under-developed and are still under-developing us. It needs to
be noted that each time any African child or scholar supports this argument,
he/she is arguing that the human beings in the West are fundamentally superior
to the human beings in Africa. The other positive results of cultivating
broadminded are that: (b) there will also be an improved awareness of citizens
of the specific ways their negative biases and narrow-mindedness inhibit them
from carefully observing the several evident ways their supposed leaders are
short-changing the well-being of the larger society for their immediate
families and friends; (c) there will also be an improved awareness of the fact
that the emergence of any political leader from a particular party or ethnic group does not necessarily foreclose
any possibility of the person coming up with well-meaning policies; (d)
finally, there will, above all, be a gradual change of a very dangerous,
development-impeding mind-set evident in (a) to (c) above, namely, the
blame-pushing mindset.
Human beings are ‘supposed’ to be reason-guided
agents. Proper reasoning requires – or in fact presupposes – broadmindedness.
Broadmindedness highlights where the various human beings and societies have
some common interests. It is the basis for more careful and reasoned social
analysis. It is also a primary basis for a sense of responsibility [accepting
blames for our actions or inactions] and synergy [resulting from the ability to
go beyond our myopic and fanatic mindsets/interests] for the good of the
greater number. Thus, if the human beings in societies like Nigeria really want to improve their wellbeing,
there is the grave need that we develop broadmindedness for better social
analysis, for better holding-to-task of our leaders, for any possibility of
request for accountability from any political administration by the greater
number of Nigerians, and so on. These last are the situations that gradually
result to large-scale positive social change. And, they presuppose broadminded
assessment of realities, including the actions of citizens and government, and
citizen-government expectations.
