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Either One Does or One Does Not
Harper’s Weekly (December 25, 1909) : 27
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      An open mind is a serious drawback. It is difficult to understand how any one ever supposed anything else to be the case. We say with innocent injured eyes, winking away nobly born misunderstanding, “I hope no one thinks that I am prejudiced!” But every one not only thinks us prejudiced, but is perfectly sure of it. If we were anything else we should be rendered incapable of action. An undivided mind, if it came upon one suddenly, would wreck the most promising career. It is only with a mind neatly parted in the middle, the promptings of one side alone recognized by us, that we so much as manage to go up-stairs instead of down. It is only with a mind neatly parted in the middle, the promptings of one side alone recognized by us, that we so much as manage to go up-stairs instead of down. If we were not hotly partisan we would sit on the step precisely in the centre of the first flight of stairs, and argue ourselves into old age. For any one with the least pretence at justness or intelligence will see how much both sides of even a simple question have in their favor.
      “If I go up-stairs, I can wash my hands, which I have been meaning to do for the last half-hour, and which would be a definite thing accomplished. Though, on the other hand, it would only have to be done over again during the course of the afternoon, so that it cannot be regarded as an absolute gain, while there is, of course, a chance that if I went up-stairs I either should or should not get my accounts finished. Going down-stairs would mean that I should be on time for luncheon, which has its points; yet ought I to appear at table with ink on my fingers? Not to mention that passing the front door would put it into my head to lunch away from home where I either might or might not meet some one of interest. The fact that I shall be late if I sit here complicates things still further, yet there are advantages to sitting here in gentle contemplation of life instead of eating; a position unfortunately involving my questionable rights to sit on my own stairs when such an action prevents the other members of the family from passing either up or down.” This simple example of what would happen if any one did possess an open mind will perhaps teach mankind not to indulge in idle boasts.
      The suffering involved would be terrible. Old men might still be arguing with their parents the propriety of walking on their feet instead of their hands, and the parents, if people of unprejudiced mind, would not feel justified in persuading them toward either course. For, though to walk on your feet allows you to see for some distance ahead and thus lay out your route, to walk on your hands would bring your head so near the ground that you could pick your steps with prudent care, besides centring the utilitarian part of you, and leaving your feet to wave bravely on high, like pennants on a pair of lances.
      We must not be open to reason, for it would be our undoing. All public men realize this. It is our salvation that we are passionately, blindly in favor of one side for no adequate reason and in defiance of capital excuses for choosing the opposite side. We must not be open to reason, for it would be our undoing. All public men realize this. It is on our bias alone that the world has progressed, though, in spite of the obviousness of this, men from time to time put up a hollow pretence that they are reasoning creatures. Women, having seen the hollowness of such a pose from the first, with a laudable desire to get something accomplished and start the ball rolling, took sides hotly. If asked why, they cried, “Why? Why? Because, stupid,” “Why? Why? Because, stupid,” and managed by their example to make men cease reasoning and so saved the world.
      If it is important that we should act blindly on small matters (picture the partiality necessary in the tiny detail of bowing only to those people you do know in preference to those you do not, when there would be so much to say for the reverse method), what must be the importance of acting with a narrow-minded intolerance when big issues are at stake! Our great men must, and it is wholly unnecessary to repeat that they do, choose a stand with the inconsequence of inspiration, following up their choice with a violent fancy. They must become enamoured of their point of view, so prepossessed in its favor that they find reasons to make it tenable, and with a loving and fevered care deck it in virtues, prune away the drawbacks, until finally with all the bigotry of possession they cannot be weaned from their opinion, are even so conversion-proof that they can look the opposite argument in the eye and see no reason in it.
      It is so that we arrive at action. On just such groundless enthusiasms are wars fought, marriages contracted. and lives lived. Obliquity of judgment is the ground on which we base our happiness It is so that we arrive at action. On just such groundless enthusiasms are wars fought, marriages contracted. and lives lived. Obliquity of judgment is the ground on which we base our happiness, and because we are secure in it let us dwell a little longer with patient sympathy on the sad. case of those few people who are open to conviction. There can never be a moment in their lives when they feel quite safe. Facing in one direction would no doubt distress them horridly. Why be so rabid about gazing ahead when the view behind is equally good? Why marry one man because you want to, when the arguments of the other seem to contain so much more sense? Why be an American when you hear on all sides how pleasant it is to be an angel or a Hottentot? You do not wish to be obstinate, and if you are in a hand-to-hand struggle with a person who wants to kill you, why, he may be in the right, you have not looked into all the facts of the case, it would.be a pity to let hot blood cloud yewr judicial sense. Perhaps he feels in duty bound to kill you. In that case you naturally want to give him all the help and encouragement possible, and not upset his plans with any baselessly hectic action of your own.
      There is something poignantly distressing about a person who sees both sides of a subject. So much is denied her — all conversation, very nearly all tastes. She must have no habits, of course... no quarrels, no real comfort taken in anything... There is something poignantly distressing about a person who sees both sides of a subject. So much is denied her — all conversation, very nearly all tastes. She must have no habits, of course, for they have to be fought tigerishly for, and can never be reasoned about. She would feel so dogmatic to prefer her children to those of other people, and if she arrives at the happiness of declaring her husband to be the best man in the world the remark would have to be qualified a moment later with, “That is, so it seems to me at the moment, and only as it were after a manner of speaking. I dare say I am wrong; I shall be very glad to listen to any arguments you have to produce to the contrary.” No sweeping statements, no general remarks. No squelching, “dogs are nuisances,” or “babies are mere desserts we have not earned,” or “men are superfluous, and so are women.” None of the decisive inaccuracies that relieve our tempers and purge our dispositions. Nothing but mumbled, “Every one should work or else they shouldn’t, either one or the other, unless, to be sure, there is an alternative of which I have not heard.”
      The poor souls, with nothing settled, a complete revision of their mode of life every time they read a magazine or a Sunday paper, no quarrels, no real comfort taken in anything, a shivering disintegration every time a new idea is presented to them. Suffering, deep thoughts, all concentrated at the end of their lives into a shattering, “One lives to learn, or rather one learns to live, or — well either one does or one does not.” Then at last death happily arranged for them by some one else, it being doubtful if they could have been sufficiently single-minded for the necessary moment to bring it about on their own account.
 

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