Interestingly enough, although
Western culture is notorious for its
condescending and
unsympathetic attitudes towards the foreign and the different, it is only an open culture that could find itself in this
predicament in the first place.
If one lived all their lives in the Amazon forest, never coming into contact with the rest of the world either through travel, visits by other travellers or some form of verbal communication, one could not be accused of being intellectually inbred because the frame of reference for their cultural scope of knowledge would be completely different - more self referential, less comparative etc.
A narrow mind is something that can only exist in a wide world. It is not incumbent upon us to know any more than is necessary for our day to day survival, and althouh I myself try to educate myself on foreign customs and beliefs, and sneer at those who are only interested in what goes on in their back yard, I can't, upon rational reflection, really justify this behaviour.