“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
To be unable to entertain an idea one doesn’t accept makes for shallow thinking. The best defence knows the case for the prosecution as well as or even better than the prosecutor. The case for the defence is strong when one knows the best arguments against it, and, thereby, has counter-arguments prepared. Dostoevsky could portray the atheist Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov despite his rejection of atheism, & Turgenev the nihilist Bazarov in Fathers and Sons, without, I think, being nihilistic, because of their ability to walk in those shoes, to, in a sense, get inside the enemy’s head and think like them.
To be able to entertain a choice – a preference – without accepting it, I think, is harder than an idea, for the simple reason that my choices are a part of me, while ideas – even those I accept – rarely are. I can entertain the idea that the Earth is flat even as I accept the idea that the Earth is round without difficulty. There’s little attachment, even to most ideas I accept, unless I attach some kind of importance to always trying to seem right.
With choices, one often has reasons, motivations, for both choosing and rejecting (and rejecting is also a choice, just a negative one). What I like, is good, natural, fun, interesting. What I don’t, is unnatural, boring. One sees this more with some choices than others. If I like dancing or partying, I all too easily label those who don’t, or vice versa. If I like reading, I might view those who don’t with prejudice, and vice versa.
Most choices imply rejections, and for whatever reasons, perhaps as a strategy to avoid cognitive dissonance (to convince myself that my choice is better), often rouse strong feelings. STEM v/s humanities, weightlifting v/s cardio, solitude v/s parties – the choice often brings disdain for the alternative, even, sometimes, becoming a source of bonding, like seeking like, shunning what is unfamiliar and incomprehensible. At an individual level this tendency of birds of a feather to flock together breeds parochialism and a kind of conformity. At an authoritative level, it is a form of cultural authoritarianism, imposing one’s own preferences and curtailing other’s choices.
This is all the more true, I think, when one’s choices are – or at least so it feels – in the minority. A reader among non-readers, a teetotaller among drinkers, a moderate among extremists – or, to balance things out, a non-reader among readers, drinker among teetotallers, extremist among moderates. The sense, real or imagined, of being judged, or, by those who succeed in rising above judgment, tolerated, but seldom understood, is, I think, something many would relate to, in varying degrees, for isn’t everyone a minority in some dimension or another? Unless, of course, one consciously tries always to follow every trend.
If I know what it is like to be judged for my choices, then, perhaps, I can be aware when I do the same. The stronger my choice, the more likely I am to make a judgment, even if I fancy myself empathetic. If I love to read, do I have patience for the non-reader, or condemn him as jejune? If I love to run, do I condemn the overweight couch potato? An educated mind can entertain an idea without accepting it; an independent mind can accept a (another’s) choice without adopting it.
To accept is not simply to ‘tolerate’ – who am I, after all, to ‘tolerate’ another person’s choices? An acceptance, in this context, is, I think, an ability to suspend personal judgment, to avoid labelling, to be able to simply see something, different from oneself, without attempting to weigh it, at least not on one’s own weighing scale. To be able to observe without necessarily understanding, let alone agreeing.
One can never get free of judgment in its entirety – every choice, after all, is a judgment, a selection of one path and a rejection of alternatives – such as this choice, on what to write about. One can still, however, judge or weigh without bringing one’s own opinions and scales into the matter. “I judge people by their own principles—not by my own,” Martin Luther said, who, as a pacifist, could admire a general – not as a pacifist, but as a general. The pacifist need not agree with the general, need not even understand why a man would want to be a general, but he can still accept him and get along with him.