Are you worried about your ideas?

How does having a conservative mind make you a narrow minded thinker? Because you don't agree with what they think or believe? The greater question is how do you prove you are right or more open minded? You can still see the big picture and be very narrow minded. In the end you never know what another is thinking. Maybe they have good reasons for the way they act and why would they answer to you or anyone else? It is their life after all. Some times it's better not to care...

 

Do you mean that the ego causes people to be narrow-minded and rigid with their beliefs?

If that's the case I would say so. Though I might say personally that it's more of a way for me to be more sane.

The mind is a powerful object if I might add and it gives rise the way your thought processes function which in my way has to do a lot of how the ego function as well as it relates to those thoughts that you perceive from the world. When I obtain new information my mind molds it into an existing frame of previous knowledge and it either does two things if given free reign: 1.) Dismisses new information or 2.) It accommodates that information to support what I previously had stored in my framework. That to me is the ego working at full blast. When my not-ego self tries to make sense of new information given to me to understand it in an objective and biased-free way my "ego" might convince this source that what he has in storage is sufficient and that no further addition to this framework is needed(making me look as rigid and closed minded sometimes.)

So in my opinion, the Ego and the mind work interdependently and when it actually becomes a problem for myself is when I'm too lazy to take control of the information I perceive and instead of evaluating correctly I dismiss it or I molded to my Ego's content.

 

Not asking for help would probably fall in that category of wounding one's ego. But as far as they're outlook on life... It really depends on how there ego drives them.

I know professors that feel they are in essence the "gatekeeper" and will treat students worse than dirt and sleep fine at night but among their peers is different.

Can ego blind people's judgment? Hell yea. Can conservatism? Yes it can too. In all instance? No to both; people are people and cannot and shouldn't be put in boxes as I, for example, tend to side with conservative economic policies and am open to debate it if need be.

 

As far as my ideas I am rigid in the sense that what I believe (politically and philosophically) I have come to through a mix of talking to people and thinking about the world. As I said in the previous post before I realized you were asking about our own ideas I'm open for debate and talking and can say what I believed in 3 years ago are not the same as of today.

 

I dont get worried about my ideas, but I worry about what I may ignore as a result of those ideas.

 

I've got a huge ego, and tend to see the big picture above the small.

A desire to not have your ideas stolen, not be paid for them, or even acknowledged is narrow minded?
I'm a social conservative. It doesn't mean the same thing in The USA as it does in the rest of the world. I'm dedicated to conserving our society against every new law that comes in, or imported values from nations that have proven they cannot work.

I'm not narrow minded, I'm a cynical idealist.

I've met a lot of narrow minded liberals and libertarians though.

 

Sometimes people can be narrow minded in one area (such as politics or religion) and broad minded in other areas. For example, when C. Everett Koop was Surgeon General of the U.S., despite his conservative religious and political views, he once said something to the effect that he was Surgeon General of everyone, including "sinners." My wife is a physician and I've observed how training and professionalism can easily trump personal opinion.

OTOH, I make my living off my ideas. To own them, I had to start my own businesses instead of working for others. If I have a good idea and I want to protect it, I patent it or copyright it. When I used to work for others, bosses sometimes stole my ideas. I took that personally even though my ego isn't particularly inflated.