Bias – Part 2

As noted previously, within the context of practical critical thinking the best way to deal with biases is to be upfront about them while simultaneously keeping bias in perspective. With that in mind, I have a set of biases you should be aware of when looking over anything written in this blog.

Starting from the most universal, I (like other human beings) have cognitive biases wired into my brain. The most notable of these is confirmation bias (i.e., the desire to believe facts and arguments that correlate with pre-existing beliefs and opinions and be skeptical or reject those that do not). Because this global set of biases impacts everyone (including you and everyone you know), they should not be considered particular to me and this blog, but instead represent something that we should all be aware of as we listen to other voices (as well as our own).

Moving one level down from humanity in its entirety, each of us also fall into broad subsets of the general category “human being.” For example, in addition to being a human I am also a white, heterosexual, middle-class, American, Jewish male.

Now there is no question that my membership in these (and other) categories provides a lens through which I view the world. And some people feel that these categories come so loaded with biases that all other factors pale to insignificance. But if that were the case, then there would be little to no difference in the political opinions between the Yippie radical Abbie Hoffman (a white, Jewish, American, male) and Commentary Founder Norman Podhortz (another white, Jewish, American, male). So while factors such as race, nationality and gender should not be ignored when we think about our own opinions and evaluate the biases of others, evidence does not seem to warrant presupposing that membership in these broad categories determines agreement on all (or even many) issues.

With those category biases put into perspective, I can think of two specific personal biases worth putting on your radar.

First, in every US Presidential election I have voted in since 1980 I have voted for the Democratic candidate. This doesn’t mean that I would never nor could never vote for a Republican, but given the visceral internal response I felt when I cast my vote for a Republican Senatorial candidate in the last election, it would be dishonest to claim that each and every one of my Presidential votes was solely the result of impartial, rational, analysis vs. some sort of emotion-informed party loyalty that has strong implications for bias.

The second admission has to do with a particular political issue, rather than a particular party. While there are a number of political matters on which I have an opinion, few of these come with enough of an emotional attachment that would raise them to the level of a belief or cause that should trigger bias alarms. But on one issue (the Middle East conflict), I do have a firm position (I am a strong supporter of Israel). Now topics related to the Middle East (or foreign policy in general) might not emerge on this blog for weeks or months. But if they do, you should keep in mind the specific bias I bring to the table since (like my party-based voting history) I will be particularly sensitive to them as I try to look at next year’s election from the perspective of critical reasoning.

As you look through this list of general and specific biases, notice how they have been categorized and prioritized, with specific biases taking precedent over general ones, and general ones that definitely impact critical thinking ability (like cognitive biases) taking precedent over category biases (such as those related to race or gender) that may or may not come with a set of obviously predictable pre-dispositions relevant to this discussion.

And just as individual biases need to be placed into perspective, so to the whole notion of bias sits alongside other things that can impact the quality of our thinking. For example, information we use to create the premises for our arguments could be irrelevant, incomplete or out of date (even if it comes from completely unbiased sources). And even if we start with unblemished source material, faulty logic could lead us to poor conclusions.

Still, bias is enough of a serious issue with regard to discussions of politics that some sort of rule-of-thumb could be helpful in guiding us. And we’ll turn to my favorite tool of this type in the next posting: the Principle of Charity.

Bias - Part 1

One of the few concepts highlighted as much in discussions of both critical thinking and politics is the subject of bias.

Whether one is studying information literacy, media literacy or even critical thinking as a standalone topic, the ability to spot bias is of primary importance with regard to analyzing information sources. And this makes perfect sense, given that problematic premises (due to biased sources or some other shortcoming) can lead to faulty conclusions, regardless of the quality of the logic linking the former with the latter.

The reason bias is such a frequent topic of conversation outside of critical thinking studies (whether in the context of politics or other matters) is because it is an issue all of us grasp intuitively. Unlike other critical-thinking tools (such as logic), bias is something that so permeates and surrounds us that most of us simply “know it when we see it” (especially when we see it in others).

One of the reasons for the ubiquity of bias is that human beings as a species suffer from certain types of biases, notably cognitive biases. We are all hard wired, for example, to see patterns. And while this pattern-seeking bias can be harnessed by reason to create powerful tools such as science, it can just as easily lead to error (based on seeing patterns where none actually exist), or inform superstition (such as spotting a revered religious figure in a water-stained wall or pattern of pizza toppings).

The most significant human bias that impacts how we think about politics is confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out and believe information that conforms to existing pre-conceptions and dismiss or reject information that challenges these closely held beliefs.

As Kevin deLaplante describes in #14 of this podcast (and I highly recommend you listen to his entire series), systems such as science have developed tools and processes to try to overcome confirmation bias (via experiments such as double-blind tests). But politics has no similar formal filters, meaning that most of us still gravitate towards and accept those newspapers, radio and TV shows, blogs and other online sources that tell us what we want to hear, while dismissing comparable media sources that we don’t agree with as horrifically and embarrassingly biased.

This is a pity since both bias itself and inappropriate ways of trying to compensate for bias can lead to error.

Most people, for example, simply embrace their biases (even as they construct elaborate mechanisms to convince themselves that both they and their news sources are “fair and balanced”). But in addition to closing the mind, this combination of bias and self-deception leaves one vulnerable to (among other negative consequences) surprise and disappointment. (Think of someone who dismisses sex scandal allegations against a favored candidate because charges first appear in a news source beloved by “the other side,” only to watch their candidate – and their own hopes - implode when those charges turn out to be true.)

Another common mistake is to assume that since everyone is biased (which we all are, at least with regard to hard-wired human cognitive biases) that no one is in a position to either claim truth or judge others. For example, much of what we call “political correctness” could more accurately be described as an ineffective means of dealing with the problem of bias. For if we believe that our own race, nationality, gender and class comes so loaded with associated biases that we cannot presume to judge those of another race, nationality, gender or class we are actually closing our minds to actually understanding others (as well as leaving ourselves vulnerable to deception or demagoguery).

So how should we deal with the problem of bias in a way that is not crippling? Within the framework of practical critical thinking, this is a matter of accurately perceiving and recognizing sources of bias within ourselves and others, prioritizing them appropriately, and taking them into account (but not being overwhelmed by them) as you process information and form judgments.

To give you a sense of what that might look like, in my next post I shall provide you a rundown of biases I am bringing to the table that you should be aware of as you read through (and hopefully think about and discuss) this and other topics between now and Election Day.

The Return of Undecidedman

This is actually the second time I’ve blogged on the subject of critical thinking and US elections, although I didn’t realize that this is what I was doing the last time around.

You see, four years ago I was getting set to cast a party-line vote, just as I had always done (for the same candidate most of my friends and family were voting for). But then I noticed something happening to my kids (who were 8 and 5 at the time). They too were getting swept up in the “mania” surrounding one of the two candidates for President, and were expressing their enthusiasm by mimicking the unquestioning behavior of their parents and most of the adults around them, treating anyone considering any other decision with ridicule and disdain.

This triggered memories of years spent in Washington, DC with a group of partisan friends who had trained their children to denigrate detested members of the other party, kids who could be called upon to sneer at their parents political bogeymen like trained seals. While amusing at the time, I was not prepared to let my children start their political life unexposed to anyone who was not prepared to consider more than one political option. And so I decided to become an undecided voter.

This decision came at a time when the undecided voter was making news, and for good reason. For while the results of the last election seemed inevitable on Election Eve, right up to that point if you added the statistically undecided vote to the vote assured by either candidate, the race still seemed up for grabs. And so a fevered rush was on to convince these undecideds and when that didn’t seem to create an assured result, cajoling of undecideds turned to ridicule and wrath.

In my case, undecidedness was a chosen (and somewhat artificial) identity that I used to alert my kids (and the rest of my family) that at least one person they knew was planning to think about whom to vote for until the last possible second. And a short-lived (and now-defunct) blog I created (called Undecidedman) was the place where I publically explored different issues and weighted each candidate until finally making my choice on Election Day.

Looking back, many of the critical thinking concepts (notably the Principle of Charity) we will be exploring during this election cycle were the foundation of that blog. And while the site gathered a small but stable following (some fellow undecided, some the aforementioned critics of anyone who had not made up their mind), it was the reaction of those closest to me that I found most interesting.

For while they were prepared to support this somewhat-eccentric project, it clearly disturbed them that someone in their midst was not acting in a politically predictable way. Some suspected this was an elaborate effort to justify switching parties, and it took until after election fever had worn off for many of them to somewhat “get” the point of what I was doing.

Looking back, this reaction makes perfect sense. For the period during which Undecidedman was up was the homestretch to Election Day in which all choices save one had already been made. In such a context, why shouldn’t someone who was still thinking things through be seen as either wishy-washy or weird?

Which gets back to the reasons why this project is starting so early in the election cycle. For, as noted previously, we are now in a period when more than one choice and more than one outcome are clearly possible. The candidate for one party has yet to be chosen, and even now one can imagine various possibilities for change in the entire makeup of the election, such as the emergence of a viable third-party candidate (something we have seen in recent memory).

Because people, by nature, like to think of themselves as open- and broad-minded, imagination thus becomes an effective component of critical thinking. For if you can imagine multiple possibilities then you are open to thinking about them. And while we will surely be seeing and talking about the closing of people’s minds to multiple options as the number of possibilities begins to shrink and we head into head-to-head electioneering between assured candidates, for now even the most partisan voter has a stake in maintaining their own artificial identity as an undecided voter.

And who did I end up voting for after the whole Undecidedman exercise ran its course? I’ll let you know next week as we explore (and this writer admits to) the all-important concept of bias.

Why Now?

In a sense, this is a long lead time to begin thinking about the 2012 US elections within the context of critical thinking (or any other context for that matter).

After all, we’re still months away from the actual election season. Yes, the Republican nomination race is on and both the campaigns and the news networks would like us to see our political passions (and contributions and viewership) pick up ever faster and ever earlier. But for most voters the real game begins once we know whose names will be on the ballot. But it is just during such a lull that a critical thinking analysis should begin.

For one thing, it allows us to introduce important critical thinking principles, techniques and ideas that will become useful later (such as cognitive biases, logic and fallacies, elements of rhetoric and argumentation, etc.) before they are applied to specific political speeches and campaign strategies. But it also allows us to begin political discussions before partisan passion overwhelms the possibility of critical discourse.

For it is during this period before the candidates are known and we voters are forced to choose sides that we are at our most open-minded. By nature, most human beings like to think of ourselves as independently minded. And even people who have never voted outside of party lines (whose vote in 2012 is so taken for granted that the campaigns aren’t likely to even come to their states), for this brief moment can at least imagine that their mind is open with regard to whom they will vote for.

Sure, they may have never and will likely never for “that other party” under any circumstances. But they can at least imagine a theoretically perfect candidate for them, and further imagine a situation (such as an incumbent deciding to not run or the emergence of a third party) that would make choosing this perfect candidate a possibility. And as long as they are willing to entertain the possibility of doing something other than voting along predictable lines, there exists a window in which to have a conversation before all choices are certain and passion makes analytic discussion more and more difficult.

Not that emotion will be irrelevant during any point of this exercise. As we will find out, being a critical thinker does not mean turning yourself into a Vulcan and looking at the world through the prism of logic alone. Emotion plays an important role in our thinking as do other “illogical” components of our mental makeup (including the seemingly anti-logical notion of faith).

It’s just that there comes a time during a campaign when all options are known and people begin dividing themselves into armed camps and build fortifications against facts and opinions that don’t comply with their beliefs. At that point (which is still months away) critical thinking is still possible, but finding someone to argue with becomes ever more difficult.

If it sounds like I know of what I speak, that’s because this is actually the second time I’ve done a project like this, albeit along different lines and based on a different schedule. So tune in next time for “The Return of Undecidedman.”

I was just thinking...

With the Presidential election a mere twelve-and-a-half months away, it’s never too early to begin thinking about who will be our ruler for the following four years (or longer).

I know the term “ruler” has a rough edge in this age of democracy and soft vocabulary, but it’s a term philosophers used for generations when thinking about politics, and given that this blog will be dedicated to approaching the upcoming election from the vantage point of critical thought, it seems right that we start by using a vocabulary that best describes what we’re talking about.

Why critical thinking? Well I’ve been learning about and teaching about the subject for a number of years, yet never found the right example to study publically that would resonate with the widest number of people. What decision, after all, do we all share that requires critical thought to reach a conclusion?

The answer materialized as the preliminary bouts of next year’s election began taking up more news ink and television airtime, an event in which every US citizen will take part and most other people of the world will take notice: the Presidential elections.

Recently, the New York Times began running weekly online columns applying philosophical principles to the news of the day. And thinking back (way back) it’s no surprise that the greatest philosophers of antiquity made room for politics among the metaphysics and other subjects they pondered, debated and discussed. For while the origins of the universe and the nature of truth are worthwhile topics of consideration, it is politics that makes the difference with regard to whether or not our lives (including the lives of the philosophers) will get better or worse here on earth (just as Socrates).

And so this blog begins a slightly-more-than-a-year-long journey to see if critical thought provides enough oomph to help us make the best decision for ourselves and for the nation.

Care to join me?