Biased Bias against Bias

As a culminating activity to our workshop camp last weekend, we asked our fourth year high school students to come up with a presentation demonstrating what they have learned over the past weekend. We turned the presentation into a contest to provide the students some form of motivation and asked their facilitators to judge. Knowing that some if not most of them are “stage facilitators,” we decided that they would only judge sections in which they did not facilitate. We nipped the possibility of their being biased to their sections in the bud. Of course, they are probably more impartial than we made them out to be but better safe than sorry, you know.

We have always been taught and reminded to be fair in our decisions and actions. We often consult our rational side and strive to adhere to what it dictates. During these times, we often here how we should not let our biases influence our decisions. Being unbiased has become a synonym with being impartial. And catering to our biases has contracted negative connotation. Even Macbook’s dictionary and thesaurus has associated it with prejudice.

Thus, dear reader, I’d like to ask that you temporarily drop this bias against bias when you read the rest of this entry.

After reading about social psychology, I realized that we are biased individuals. Face it, we all have biases. It’s an effect of culture and experience. Being born into a certain culture already renders us biased since we are brought up in a manner which reflects the beliefs and values of the culture we belong to. W thus inherit these preferences and biases even before we realize that we have them. Experience also creates an impact on our biases as we lean towards those we like. Our biases evolve as culture and experience coalesce even greater. In a way, our own biases contribute to our diversity as individuals. Imagine if we all had the same biases. Wouldn’t that be like living in a bland world where homogeneity robs life of its variety and vigor?

Given such perspective, all decisions then made by men and women are influenced by bias. There probably is no decision completely made without bias. Of course, to varying degrees. No matter how supposedly impartial the systems and measures we create to curb bias especially in crucial decisions, the fact remains that as long as men and women decide, bias still comes in. Thus, we should not blame being unfair to the system but to the people who run the system.

What does this talk about bias give us then? Simple, be aware of your biases and how they influence you in your daily life. Again, bias is not something evil to have. It’s human nature. It only becomes evil when you draw on your biases to accomplish evil acts.

We should use our bias then to pursue the good. As such, one of the prime biases we should have is a bias for the good and the truth. In this way, we would be able to adhere to the truth, become impartial with our decisions and pursue the good. All accomplished with the acknowledgment that we are biased. In this newfound positive sense of course.

We are biased. We would not be who we uniquely are without our biases. The only thing that’s biased is this bias against bias.