In comparison to a conservative person, it’s easy to associate our tendency toward new and improved ideas as being open-minded. But that isn’t what it is. That’s being progressive.
Being open-minded means that you’re willing to consider different viewpoints and different factors. You’re willing to consider your point of view to be wrong and another’s to have validity.
Being progressive, on the other hand, often means you want to change things for the better, but if you’re not willing to be open-minded, the chance of succeeding in that diminishes.
If you’re progressive, it’s very easy to believe you’re open-minded without a need for concerted effort, and if you see someone as conservative, it’s very easy to believe they must be closed-minded.
But do the two spectrums automatically align?