Is every person biased? Are you? Is it ever possible for a person to be bias-free?
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5 comments:
Personally I feel that it is mostly based on nurture or how you grow up and all of your influences. Naturally, you are very impressionable as a child so any and all biased influences will have a lasting effect on you.
I do think every person is biased (biased meaning having a one sided, incomplete view of a certain topic; the dictionary says “a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation”). First off, most of us watch the news, which is notorious for being biased. More often than not, we believe what the news tells us, when for all we know the media could be spinning the details of the story to their advantage, for ratings and such.
All parents come with their own biases, which they pass on to their children- about certain races, religions, anything really. Unless the child has a better sense of self, the child becomes biased, out of obedience, or believing their parents to be infallible. An obvious example is racism. There is a documentary I saw of the south in the sixties, where a lynching was going on. The film then showed a picture of a little girl who was watching this event, and she was smiling as if she was looking up at a Christmas tree instead of men hanging. Clearly she has been raised to see the hanging of black men as something good for society.
I am biased definitely. I have been raised Catholic, which influences quite a few of my beliefs. Based on my tendency to be judge and jury regarding certain decisions, I make hasty assumptions. I tend to be more pessimistic about a situation than is necessary, and this often clouds my thought process.
There is no way for a person to be biased free. The only way that could happen is if a person knew every side to each story/conflict, and did not let their emotions get in the way of making a decision. But facts will always get skewed one way or another. Even so, there are stubborn people who can be shown both sides, be proven wrong, and still insist they are in the right. There are others who will make decisions based on their emotions or personal beliefs. As long as we are human, we will be biased.
I think it's just human nature though and something we can't control. The difference between straight up racist people and those who think biased-like however, are racists act on their biases while biased people just think it.
Andrew E.
Maximus
Is every person biased? Are you? Is it ever possible for a person to be bias-free?
Everyone, no matter how tolerant, is biased in one way or another. Some people are more extreme than others like the KKK that only allow whites in their group, but even those who claim to be 100% tolerant will unconsciously be biased in some way. For example, if one of these “fully tolerant” people were doing college admissions and had two almost identical people to choose between except one had a 4.0 GPA and another had a 2.5 GPA, he/she would obviously admit the 4.0 GPA person. Even not concerning grades, if two people with identical scores on everything that had about the same amount of extra-curricular activity, etc. that differed only on their essay – the first was a fascinating experience about how they saved the life of a stranger and the second was a boring analysis about how the applicant’s academic performance, it would be obvious who to accept. Thus, it is not only impossible to avoid being biased, but it is completely necessary in order to maintain diversity, order, and incentive. Most people naturally have their own political views and opinions on certain candidates, and thus make a biased judgment. Most if not all news anchors vote, and when selecting their candidate, they are being biased towards the other(s) because they disagree with the others’ plans, political ideology, dislike their history, etc. There is nothing wrong with that because it is simply opinion. There is nothing wrong with a police officer stopping to arrest a group of men dressed in all black with black masks sneaking around right after a robbery was committed, even though the policeman is being biased by suspecting those dressed in a certain way more than others.
Of course, there is a fine line between expressing opinion and being excessively biased. It also depends on the setting. For example, in a Democratic radio station or Republican radio station it would be acceptable to show heavily biased opinion supporting one’s party and bashing the other since it would be primarily those of their party listening and the listeners would know that the radio station is biased. However, it is unacceptable for news media to claim fairness when political bias is clearly present. For example, FOX news clearly promotes right wing politics while MSNBC promotes left wing politics and both deny claims. Recently I was watching a segment of CNN called “No Bias, No Bull” which was very ironic in that its host Campbell Brown came off as more biased than the other unaffiliated news anchors in CNN. She became in biased support of Sarah Palin due to her gender, blaming McCain and his aides for picking her. Whether or not one agrees with that statement, it is clearly biased in that there was a controversy whether it was McCain’s fault for picking her or Palin’s fault for doing a poor job (some will even argue that her being on the ticket wasn’t a detriment in the first place). Host Brown stated to “Free Sarah” in that she was not receiving enough media coverage due to sexism, which was ironic in that she received almost as much media attention as the presidential candidates themselves, definitely more than her opposing VP. As a result I came to the conclusion that she could no longer be trusted as a credible politically unbiased source. Campbell Brown, FOX, MSNBC, and other similar cases all cross the line. They can have their own opinions, but trying to impose their opinions on others and claiming that they gave each side a fair voice is unacceptable. It’s not just the news media either, there are many other cases such as a police stopping someone just because he/she is African American or a college application officer rejecting someone because they were in the “Democratic Club” or “Republican Club” which was against their political beliefs.
Thank you for reading
– Michael Ch**ng
every person is biased. humans are impressionable and they are going to associate a person with the group that they were taught to place them in.
i admit it. i am biased against some people. for example: i am hesitant of letting some people borrow somethings because they never return it.
and i dont think there is a person that is bais free
cutie
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