America needs ‘The Mature Mind’

I remember not only the sense of enlightenment, but relief, when I first read the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” As a teenager, I was developing many opposing ideas.

In his commentary, “What moderates believe,” David Brooks paraphrases this notion by saying, “The wise moderate can hold two or more opposing ideas together in her mind at the same time.” Wisdom, he implies, evolves with the maturing of the mind when it is blended with the self-awareness of humility to recognize that truth is ultimately the synthesis of opposing ideas. It all requires the maturing of the mind.

This calls to mind a rather phenomenal book I came across years ago, written in 1949, by H.A. Overstreet, an esteemed intellectual and lecturer in academic circles. This runaway best-seller, “The Mature Mind,” basically lays out the fundamentals of “the maturity concept”— essentially, the maturing person as one “whose linkages with life are constantly becoming stronger and richer because his attitudes are such as to encourage their growth rather than their stoppage.”

It may be time for an updated printing of “The Mature Mind” as we witness the epitome of petulant immaturity in Donald Trump and the arrested adolescence of his supporters who need to view the world in absolutes. We need all the help we can get in understanding this mindset to maturely oppose it.

This story was originally published October 4, 2017 at 2:10 PM with the headline "America needs ‘The Mature Mind’."