The Power of Bias

We are all biased! Not a single one of us lacks bias. We are biased about absolutely everything. Clothes, food, housing, transportation, nature, and yes, people! It is impossible to eliminate bias. It is a survival mechanism. It is not, however, impossible to limit the impact of our biases. But, it is very hard to do and takes an incredible amount of patience, energy, and just difficult, strenuous, and sometimes painful work!

Our biases exist to keep us both physically and emotionally safe. But, our biases can be harmful to ourselves and to others. If we refuse to recognize our biases, we can make decisions that lead to behaviors that are destructive. My bias towards chocolate covered peanuts, if not checked could result in excessive weight gain and a long list of other health issues. My bias towards people who are like me could prevent me from learning about different cultures and everything those cultures have to offer. My bias towards people like me might result in my attribution of all sorts of bad things to people who are different! This has happened in my life and it has happened in your life too. I admit it regarding my life. Can you admit it about your life?

Once we admit that we are biased, we can do something about it. As long as we hang onto the myth that says I can be totally unbiased, we run the very real risk that we will be controlled by those biases we refuse to recognize! Bias is not associated with any specific political ideology. It exists in socialists as well as fascists. It exists in Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Communists, Green Party members, and any other political affiliation you might want to name. We are all biased! Let’s just admit it and start working to reduce the impact those biases have that are detrimental to one another and to our society as a whole. Right now, we can’t work together because we all think it’s the other guy that’s biased.

Here’s what I propose we all do. We should all start our interactions by introducing ourselves and our biases. We can offer up some of our more mundane biases and maybe three of our biggest and potentially most harmful biases. I’ll start off. Hi, I’m Jay Newman and here are ten of my biases: I love chocolate but I hate Lima beans. I love the Chicago Bears but really don’t like the Packers. I prefer to work on projects that I can control from the beginning to the end. I prefer living in a more rural setting and get very nervous in large, not very well kept urban areas (I’ve lived in both). I prefer more moderate faith driven Christianity. I prefer conservative fiscal ideals and moderate to mildly conservative social values. But I prefer to be more pragmatic in how we deal with both fiscal and social issues. Here are the hard ones. Yes, indeed, I prefer to be with people who look and act like me; white, middle class, educated, middle of the road, hard working, neat, tidy, lovers of classic rock! I can list more biases but this is safe start. I’d love to hear what others are willing to share. I believe if we can bring our biases out onto the table, we can start working together to make our world a better place.