Roxton's Journal: Roxton's Guide to Liberal Thought

So you've got a viewpoint. It has an element of cleverness, it's consistent, and it means something to you. It's valuable.

Steps:

1) Recognize that it did not spring from God's vagina, that other viewpoints exist, borne of life experience and unknown facts.

2) Put it on the shelf.

3) Read up on those other viewpoints, not in opposition to yours, but with a desire to understand another's frame of reference.

4) Academia probably has many people who have committed their lives to exploring the issues you're contemplating. In doing so, they often form their own language and become unreadable, but it's worth trying to scratch the surface.

5) Take your old viewpoint off the shelf and look at it. It has probably developed a certain element of malice while you were away.

Embrace cognitive dissonance, exist in a mental space that acknowledges some amount of parity in views, and make good moral decisions within that space.