There's an adage... "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock". It's a hokey saying often attributed to Jefferson, although he didn't actually say it. It is a moralism that people use to justify intractability and reduce subjectiveness in discourse.
I see the ability to reassess information and change a decision or opinion on a subject as a strength. To use the language of the above moralism, I don't draw a distinction between issues of style and matters of principle - I see both as largely subjective, and therefore as my life situation changes in time, my perspective on each is likely to change: either intentionally, or through accumulated experience.
In my day to day interactions, I have deliberately sought to be flexible. I work in that career field where it is an asset to be able to separate your ego from your work. I justify my work through iterative and evidence based testing processes. This means I make a guess based on what I know, I test my guess, I iterate my guess based on feedback, and retest. The cycle is repeated until I reach a result that has broad acceptance. Many years ago I discovered through these processes that my gut isn't always correct, and that I am valued for my responsiveness to counter-evidence.
However there are many contexts where flexibility can appear to be a weakness. Thanks to my history in competitive debating, I have also developed the ability to argue or debate a point separate to my own opinions. To Devil's advocate. This is a hallmark of the careers that follow from debating. Be it in politics, law, dispute resolution, etc, debaters are trained to take a position on a subject that is separate to their personal beliefs. Certainly, as a lawyer it is important to be able to argue a client's perspective - and the law demands that even the most abhorrent person out there must have fair legal representation. And politicians have to argue within the framework of the party that they have been chosen to represent. When I see a politician change their perspective, they are often castigated, either for their former perspective, or their latter.
Where things get interesting for me is when we throw cognitive biases into the mix. While it is important to be intractable when arguing for other people's perspectives - as a lawyer or politician for example - It is harder to justify intractability of principle when debating subjectives from a personal perspective. Most of us here who debate online, become good enough at arguments that we become almost impossible to convince of wrongness. We become so effective at reframing evidence to suit our desired narrative that the use of evidence itself becomes secondary to our ability to reframe. Through this process and combined with the lack of accountability that the internet provides, we entrench our perspectives.
I would go even further. I would suggest that through our debating culture we not only strengthen our cognitive biases, but we also we render our ability to change course in a discussion as weakness. This leads to forced binaries in our conversations about nuanced and potentially subjective topics for which there is not necessarily any wrong or right. It also leads to us debating ideas that we don't entirely agree with, simply because they are part of a broader set of perspectives that we are defending. I would argue that the most dangerous opinion, is that which is held by someone who is good enough at debating to convince themselves of their righteousness, but not introspective enough to see their own misjudgements. Most of us here would fit into this description - dangerously opinionated.
When I look back through my posts over the years, I can see a hardening on some issues, and completely changed perspectives on others. Two questions: Do you see the ability to change your mind a personal strength or a weakness? and when you see others change their mind do you treat it as a strength or weakness in them?