Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Open Mindedness vs. Closed Mindedness


The spiritual equivalent of this may be detachment, or disengagement. Attachment to outcomes, according to Buddhist tradition, and Jesus' own admonition with the rich man, causes suffering and leads one away from fulfillment.

Chapter 1.
In his conversation with Miss Watson, the Widow Douglas' sister, his defiance (to put his feet up, to yawn and stretch, to resist his spelling lesson, to slump instead of sitting up straight) leads her to threaten him with the possibility that this behavior would lead him to hell (or the bad place).
Huck, responds that "I wished I was there".
Shocked, she tells him that she would never utter such a wish.
Huck therefore concludes that since she wishes that she would never go to hell, and since he doesn't want to be around her and acquiesce to her discipline, he concludes:

"Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going (ie. heaven or the good place), so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it."

I can't decide whether this belongs under the Open category, or Ignorance.
For Huck, he has no idea of the possible horror that being send to hell would signify. Whatever it is, it isn't like being subject to Miss Watson's discipline. Ignorance. But perhaps he just doesn't buy that there is a hell? He doesn't make that observation.

However, when talking about Open Mindedness, we have to observe that Miss Watson is caught in that Victorian world where hell is a real place where a conscious soul suffers and is completely aware that they are in hell, and therefore it is a place to be avoided, and to help others to avoid. 
Huck sees this. 
So he is faced with an example of someone who has a shallow view of the nature of good and evil, heaven and hell. A close-mindedness about biblical concepts that are archaic, even in the 19th century.
Now I can't say Huck is open minded, and thinking of hell and heaven in an enlightened way. But he is resistant to the old trick of threatening someone with hell as a means to make them behave or acquiesce to discipline.

At last Miss Watson tries to attract Huck with a description of heaven as a place where one sings and plays harp all day long. What is attractive to her is repulsive and boring to Huck.

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