It seems that holding resolutely onto what we believe has become a part of our culture. Those who don't let go are called leaders. Those who do are labeled weak and fickle.
Yet, rather than allowing us to charge confidently forward, both personally and collectively, this cultural small-mindedness has become our greatest burden.
As a society, we have become lost in a sea littered with opinions, each one floating by another without even the possibility of joining together into something greater.
Living under a myth that we already know the answers, our growth as humans and as communities has been stifled.
People expressing their opinions surround us on every front. Whether it's talking heads on television, columnists in this paper, the loud guy in your lecture class, or even professors who take no time for questions, the politics of talking is central to the society that we've created.
Those who express their opinions in a convincing way are lifted onto our societal pedestal. Those who do not are assumed to be less intelligent.
Yet, even perfectly crafted speeches, full of verve and potent abstractions, can't change the fact that social programs in this country are terribly inefficient and leave many people without a way forward.
A hundred speeches on Iraq haven't led the Iraqis to greet us as liberators. Rather, the flowery rhetoric has only distracted us from the information that we could be getting from the ordinary people who are being talked about.
We are a nation driving to watch Al Gore talk about global warming, praying on national television for world peace in a way that is offensive to Islam, and watching Bill O'Reilly talk about civic duty instead of going to city council meetings.
The tyranny of talking has given us nothing but entertaining half-truths. If we want real solutions to the complex problems that we face, it is time to stop worshipping people who can do nothing besides express themselves.
It is time for a new politics of listening.
If we had taken time to listen and genuinely debate our actions as a nation, we would not have made the mistake of entering Iraq. We would have seen the disaster of Katrina coming. We could have avoided international outrage that now stymies our attempts at diplomacy and fuels fundamentalism around the world.
Yet, a politics of listening cannot begin with politicians. It must start here, with each of us approaching life with more humility, and respecting those who do the same.
Too often we approach every discussion with the assumption that one person has the correct answer and all others are wrong.
In fact, good ideas are not naturally selected, with the best naturally rising to the top and all others falling.
Ideas are more like small towns, emerging gradually through decades of change, strengthened by the diversity of the people contributing to the overall structure, with their unique additions.
When we discuss ideas, our assumption must be that each person has something to add. Our responsibility is to begin with respect and to stretch our own imaginations to see how each perspective is valuable.
Changing your mind doesn't make you fickle. It is more often a sign of honesty and humility. New opinions are not evidence of some personal crisis - they are a reflection of your growth as a human being.
At no point will you have more access to diverse perspectives than in college. If you still can't answer the question that opened this column, it may be time to start listening more closely.
After this week, Taylor Jackson is devoting himself to listening to you full time. You can send him a list of your opinions that have changed, tell him why you were right to begin with, or give him another opportunity to exercising his listening muscles at: taylor.jackson@asu.edu.
