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True Polarity
Friday, August 31st, 2007 by admiralIt is a fact of life that some people are biased. This is plain to see all around you. The organic brain does one thing better than any machine and that is to find patterns. That being written, some of us are biased and the rest of us are liars. The closest that any of us can come to not being biased is apathy; not caring.
I do not mean that in as harsh a tone as you are probably reading it. You probably see the term biased as implying many things that have nothing to do with the simple skill of having a preference. These are things that you would actually find easier to think and do in a state of apathy. Have you ever known anybody who showed exceptional bias in order to prove that he lacked any bias?
Chocolate, strawberry or vanilla? You probably show a preference for one of these over the others and your bias takes shape in influencing your actions. When you go shopping, do you buy the flavor that, being available, you like or the flavor that somebody else will like? Popular flavors sell better than other flavors. If it becomes unprofitable to sell a flavor which has less preference in the store’s stock, then the minority flavor will either rise in cost or vanish from the shelves. Do you realize that you are part of this mechanism?
Even my stand up philosophy shows some bias in the topics that I select in order to draw the least hostility toward the comic site that hosts these tirades. I am typing up opinion pieces. Look at the evening news to see what gets positive and negative coverage. Notice the uniformity with which movies applaud some ideas and despise others. This is not to call attention to any form of conspiracy. Some people do not recognize their own biases.
Personally, I think that it would be better if we admitted to our biases and trusted the audience to be smart enough to weight our thinking accordingly. We look for reviewers who have a similar bias toward movies as we do. Is it possible that the rise and fall of networks shows a bias both in the networks and in the audience? Brainwashing is the art of changing people. Entertainment is the art of providing enjoyment to people.
