Why Open Societies Argue With Themselves
An old psychotherapy joke says that therapists are excellent at guiding others toward change, so long as the therapist does not have to change. The joke endures because it reflects a larger truth: people instinctively prefer stability to uncertainty, even when change might be beneficial. Societies often behave similarly.
In psychotherapy, the ability to tolerate discomfort is often a prerequisite for growth. Patients must be willing to question long-held assumptions about themselves, their relationships, and the stories they tell about their lives. This process can be unsettling. Yet without it, change becomes difficult.
Something similar occurs in nations.
All societies develop cultural frameworks that reinforce certain beliefs while marginalizing others. The difference between open and closed societies is not whether such frameworks exist, but whether they can be challenged without threatening the legitimacy of the system itself.
Authoritarian governments frequently regulate information in the name of social stability. Independent journalism is restricted, dissent discouraged, and alternative interpretations of events treated as threats rather than contributions to public debate. Political homeostasis becomes a governing principle. The preservation of certainty matters more than the pursuit of truth.
Democratic societies are hardly immune to these tendencies. They too develop orthodoxies, taboos, and assumptions that can be difficult to challenge. Yet healthy democracies possess a form of collective distress tolerance. They allow disagreement to occur publicly. Elections, courts, legislatures, journalists, universities, and civic institutions create mechanisms through which competing interpretations can coexist.
The process is often messy. Democracies appear argumentative, divided, and at times even dysfunctional. Yet what may look like weakness can also be a source of resilience. Public disagreement allows societies to adapt without requiring unanimity.
Israel offers a striking example.
Few countries subject themselves to the level of internal scrutiny routinely seen in Israel. Government policies are criticized daily by journalists, opposition parties, academics, activists, former military leaders, and ordinary citizens. Disputes over security, religion, judicial authority, settlements, diplomacy, and national identity are conducted openly and often fiercely.
To outside observers, this constant internal argument can appear as evidence of instability. In reality, it reflects a society unusually willing to expose its own assumptions to challenge.
The contrast with many of Israel’s adversaries is notable. Throughout much of the Middle East, narratives regarding Israel are often deeply embedded within educational systems, political rhetoric, media institutions, and religious discourse. Over time, such beliefs can become less like opinions than inherited social assumptions. Challenges to those assumptions may be viewed not merely as disagreement but as threats to communal identity, dignity, or historical memory. Offenders often pay a heavy price, up to and including death.
This helps explain why some narratives prove remarkably resistant to revision even when events complicate them. Once beliefs become institutionalized, questioning them becomes increasingly difficult. Individuals may privately harbor doubts while remaining publicly silent. The social costs of dissent can become greater than the perceived benefits.
The result is a paradox. Societies most in need of cultural revision are often least equipped to undertake it.
Yet history also suggests that deeply embedded beliefs are not permanent. Nations revise their understandings of themselves. Former enemies become partners. Once-sacred assumptions are reconsidered. What appears politically impossible in one generation may become commonplace in the next.
Such change rarely occurs through coercion alone. It requires mechanisms that allow questioning without equating revision with humiliation or surrender. Just as personal growth demands difficult emotional work, cultural change requires leadership willing to risk uncertainty in pursuit of a more durable reality.
Ironically, the systems most capable of rapidly reshaping public belief may also fear change the most. Once citizens begin questioning one protected truth, they may begin questioning others. That possibility helps explain why some societies encourage debate while others suppress it.
The ability to tolerate criticism may ultimately be one of the defining characteristics separating open societies from closed ones. It is not a sign of weakness. It is often the mechanism through which societies learn, adapt, and endure.
