It is good to get others' viewpoints, others' interpretation of the world and the way things work.
All of us do this to differing degrees.
Some seem to merely parrot the teachings and thinking of their parents but even in those cases there has to be some evidence that it is the correct view and the proper way to think.
Some get their concepts and opinions from studying others, discussing with people, and so forth, balancing the input with what they KNOW to be true from their own experience.
Unfortunately, for most people, the growth stops at some point.
They get comfortable with what they know and decided nothing else could be more correct or more perfect to hold as opinions on a subject. Intellectual docility has set in.
Though there may be a vast array of untapped knowledge out there, they decided that what they knew now, what concepts and ideas they embraced in totality, was the culmination of all points in the known (or viewed) universe.
This applies to their political leanings, their concepts on race, religion, and so forth; all their biases are covered within the data sets they hold dear.
Many people stuck in this stage for too long a period seem to become upset easily with other forms of knowledge, especially with people of differing opinions. Whether it is religion or science or anything in between, they have come to the very firm conviction that anyone who does not think like they do are "stupid", ignoramuses incapable of understanding the simplest of things.
Then, like radical adherents of some religious cult or other, they vilify different thinking and might even become violent, trying to force their singular opinions down other, less capable people's "pie holes".
This fixidity on a single level of stratum of knowledge may come about at any age.
I've known people who formed all their later mature opinions when they were only four or five years old. How they can fixate on such data so young is amazing. How it comes out as a middle-aged person, of course, then sound very immature but what would one expect of a four-year-old intellect. And, no, it never looks very pretty when coming from – chronologically, at least – a mature person's mouth.
Many people can get quite knowledgeable on certain subjects to which they have become affixed.
They read and study in great depth a plethora of works approving or supporting their ideas; they can quote facts and figures along such lines for hours but when confronted with any portion of the opposing view they can only resort to ad hominem attacks because they really don't know the subject – or possible variants – at all, no matter how well read on the subject they become.
I'm not saying any of this is wrong. This is just the way it is. I am not even suggesting such things need to be cured or fixed – heaven's no!
Just as we can learn a lot in this world from the people who reject the borders, scoff at the boundaries, and lead themselves and us into exciting new worlds, new thoughts, blazing trails into new conceptual universes the likes of which have never been thought before, we can also learn a lot from those people who simply stop learning at a certain point, assured they have reached the summit of all available knowledge and that this, here and now, as conceived by them, is truly the best of all possible worlds.
If those of us who truly want to learn as much as we can about all things, these people are of interest as they can show you where you might be doing the same… fixating on one perceived fundamental universal truth (that is really nothing more than your labeling of such a concept) rather than testing the boundaries of reality to broaden the human vista into realms hitherto never even imagined.
Not that there's anything wrong with such contentment.
I understand a lot about this issue as I was born and raised in Texas and spent twenty-five years of my life in Arizona where the wall against the illegals could not be built fast enough, it seems.
Not only did I grow up with many Hispanic friends, my wife is the granddaughter of two illegal immigrants as well. Her grandfather came across the border at age eight to make a life for himself and met his wife when her family skipped across the border when she was fourteen.
They raised ten kids and many grandkids who have become valuable neighbors and productive citizens including doctors, accountants, and lawyers. And my wife, of course.
The problem with the illegals is more involved than simply trying to keep them out. The will to survive is what drives them northward, into the land of milk and honey, the United States.
Of course, their country could become a better place too if our big monied interests would quit their manipulations of the markets and politicians in that country.
No, I don't see it as any sort of conspiracy but I do see it as a business model that has worked remarkably well. So well that it has pressured the citizens of Mexico to leave their dwindling economic system for one that is superior.
It is a problem we have created on our own, a problem made by our own system.
We bled their country to make ours greater, then we object when they are drawn to the light.