What does it mean to be truly open-minded. Open-mindedness is a popular concept (often coupled with its buzzword cousin tolerance) strewn about in our society with reckless abandon as a way to win support for political leaders or try to convince people of their own self righteousness. To be truly open-minded is it necessary that we attend gay pride parades, or that we immerse ourselves into the million man march, or other such alternative movements, or do we need only to tolerate those who are different than us, and not take hostile stances to those within our population? Which of these must we abide by to attain this state of rhetorical nirvana? I say neither.