The Bias

I am biased and so are you. Don’t deny it and don’t lie to yourself. We live in a very biased society. Politics, entertainment, sports, religion etc you name a “group” of people, there is a good chance that they can be biased. Why do we have our biases? Personally I’ve noticed it helps me in making quick decisions/judgements, which is very close to what I’ve read about Cognitive Bias.¹ 

Scientifically there are two types of bias: implicit (subconscious) and explicit (conscious). I want to approach these two biases in three different ways: examples, recognizing and accepting. Please note, there is a good chance that I would cross very thin lines, if anyone is offended I am not apologizing. As a cynic I believe that humans should accept their shortcomings and improve to the extent they can. And I say “they can” because we are only human.

Implicit Bias

Implicit bias is natural. To understand how at a subconscious level our biases are formed, is a journey everyone should try at least once. If I had a penny for every time I heard, “I have some soul searching to do” or “I have to find myself”.. sigh. So let’s do some soul searching here.

I’m making up this as I write, so just for fun follow my thought patterns. What is our brain? No, I’m not asking for anything scientific. On a very basic level, our brain remembers and can co-relate. Now stay with me, let’s start with stereotypes. What is the first thing you can relate to when you hear the word stereotypes? I’m sure you might have got couple of examples but just hold onto two. I can almost guarantee that you had some sort of bias in it. This is implicit bias on a very basic level. 

Great, now that I have helped you (hopefully!) to recognize that almost everyone gets impacted by implicit bias.. now what? Acceptance is a good start. My next step is to ensure complete eradication of all biases (I know it’s hard for all non-cynical people to get this joke). It’s only human to be biased but understanding the possible cause of others biases makes humans have humanity.

Explicit Bias

Examples – Seriously? Are you kidding me? You want me to list it down? Fine, let me list it down. Below is a small list but this could cover the major explicit biases that exist.. loudly.

• Religion
• Skin Color
• Nationality
• Gender
• Sexuality
• Political
• Culture

Our implicit biases along with being conscious about it, drives our explicit biases. So what makes up our biases? Literally all the factors mentioned above. One of my favorite topics in this is media bias.

I’ve been in US for a long time and am quite well versed with all the influence of media in this society, like everywhere else. There has been a study conducted on this by ad fontes media. Which shows how explicit biases exist on the political spectrum of conservatism and liberalism. This new wave of extreme political beliefs has currently split the world into two. One stating it’s better than the other, explicitly. Now put the same thought process of “better than the other” for the other above mentioned examples.

Recognize it. Accept it.

Again, now what? Unlike implicit bias, you can actually make an effort to improve yourself for recognizing explicit bias. The term “open mind” exists for a reason. Understand others, where they are coming from. You can’t change others, but you can change yourself. Give me a hallelujah. As a cynic, I can sometimes feel the symptoms when sometimes a sense of positivity rises. This was one of them.

The Prejudice

“I don’t judge” 

Don’t say that. You do. Don’t be in denial. Everyone judges and no one can deny that. 

Everyone has a prejudice because of their biases, both implicit and explicit. The impact of our biases to our society have caused wars and revolutions. It’s hard to rectify our implicit biases, but recognizing our explicit biases which are currently relevant to the society goes a long way. You can be at either end of a bias and still get along with people. Just because you are prejudiced doesn’t mean you can’t be understanding. 

Living with technology has changed the course of human thoughts and life. Technology has allowed humans to help voice out, to be heard: the innate nature to be validated. I’m writing this hoping someone agrees with my thoughts and beliefs. It’s only human.

Let’s have a look of how human life as we know revolved with opinions(yes, I am researching at it as I write this).

Mesopotamia (Bronze age) ² – The invention of writing,  helped to “write” history. Currently reduced to emojis. Anyways, the first law codes were written and one of the famous was Hammurabi’s Code of Laws³. How does anything become a law? In a dictatorship well the dictator does or in a democracy a group of people does. But what is law? An opinion set in stone (in the days of yore). If you do look at the translation of Hammurabi’s laws one of the laws translates to “If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.” Not only this was validated at this time, but also was accepted.

What we see here is the first ever written opinion. We have normalized ourselves with the belief that a person without an opinion is weak. Our brain is wired to co-relate events, people, places etc to create an assumption/opinion (yes I say both because often we fool ourselves in believing that an assumption is a fact. Yay fake news!). And that is set in our grey matter. To be acknowledged of that result is the validation that everyone seeks.

Sometimes there is a very thin line between an opinion and a fact. If you see our human history, wars have been created over this (what were you expecting? I’m a cynic).

So what few minor/major factors in the creation of our opinions?

• Core Personality (duh?)
• Faith or No Faith
• Culture
• Fact/Fiction
• Media (audio, visual and written)

Yes, pretty obvious. But say these out loud and now think of an opinion you heard today or this week, that didn’t make any sense to you.  Use the above factors and analyze their opinion. light bulbs? No this is not a self help blog, hey I’m seeking my validation. But if the bulb does light for you, I’m guessing it’s a good sign. You don’t have to like or accept their opinion but I’m guessing you can understand why they have their opinion.

If the small bulb lit in you, then it’s a giant leap for human understanding. Sure, I believe that (could I be more sarcastic?). So in my humble opinion regarding opinions, this is bound to cause more misery for humans like they have caused in the past (too dark?).

I’ll be lying to myself if I said that I am optimistic. But let’s be realistic, if you are willing to take the next step to understand the origin of an opinion. I think we have a better chance of stopping misunderstandings that can have horrific consequences.

I don’t debate much with people but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any opinions. This blog is an outlet of my views/opinions of life, world; well anything. I judge everyone and every event but my judgement doesn’t change my behavior towards anything. And I would love to be proven wrong.

Welcome to my brain.