The Definition of Bias

[1] If you think you understand the definition of bias, you should ask yourself the following question: Am I biased? If you answered no, like the vast majority of people are inclined to, this section was written specifically for you. If, on the other hand, you answered yes, there is nothing to be gleaned from this essay that you don't already know, and you should proceed to the Table of Contents.

[2] Bias is perhaps the most widely misunderstood word in the English language. At the root of the misunderstanding is the naive notion that there is such a thing as impartiality or objectivity. In the history of humankind, there has never lived a truly impartial soul, nor will such a person ever exist. To be biased is to be human.

[3] What is the definition of bias? Bias is simply each person's unique predisposition of how to see the world. It is our own prejudice in thinking when we are confronted with new events.

[4] To entirely escape these predispositions is impossible. We are born inherently biased. Much of our psychology is governed by the powerful, primal urges of the subconscious mind, such as the libido or the survival instinct. Indeed, the mere desire to continue breathing is itself a bias; there may, after all, be someone else predisposed to killing us and we certainly do not hesitate to identify that person's bias.

[5] But our biases extend far beyond our most basic programming such as the will to live or the desire for sex. Our entire brain is built upon biases, derived from our experiences, and these experiences physically imprint themselves upon who we are by forming neural connections in the brain called synapses. Our entire way to think is a kind of biological bias, and our predispositions are a large part of who we are.

[6] Put bluntly, the idea that anyone is beyond bias is at best intellectually fraudulent and at worst philosophically dangerous.

The Media's Definition of Bias

[8] At the root of such behavior is a particularly crude definition of bias, that can only be described, in Nietzsche's words, as "human, all too human." Indeed, the fundamental faith of the journalist is the faith in opposite values.¹ The media's crude definition of bias is actually a perverted form ethics, which defines only the opinions one disagrees with as biased (and by extension evil, though that word is never used), whereas one's own differing opinions are necessarily the opposite, which is to say, unbiased and good.

[9] This sleight of hand is perhaps the greatest magic trick ever performed, for the intellectual Houdinis of modern journalism (on both the right and left) have managed to make their own biases disappear while distracting their audience with the biases of others. Their definition of bias by necessity includes the most egregious, extreme, and obviously unjust forms of bias, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, but also more dangerously includes the ideology and partisanship from whichever side of the political aisle happens to oppose them.

[10] Fox News' slogan "fair and balanced", for example, has been widely mocked by the other news networks who dismiss Fox's bias as right wing, which of course it is. This criticism is naturally aimed at promoting their own left-leaning networks over that of Fox. But what is troubling, and typical of the media, is the strategy employed here. Their criticism is not, "Fox's bias does not reflect the beliefs of most Americans, but our bias does." Rather, their criticism is "Fox's bias does not reflect the beliefs of most Americans, so watch our networks instead which aren't biased at all."

[11] This claim of being beyond all prejudice, which is completely contrary to the very definition of bias, is common to all news networks and newspapers. Fox itself makes no attempt to be honest about its bias, and was even willing to sue when its "fair and balanced" slogan was satirized. Media enterprises to the left of Fox are equally vociferous in proclaiming their own neutrality, like CNN which declares itself "the most trusted name in news."

[12] But why is the notion of bias such anathema to the media? Why are they so intent on denying their biases? Why don't they employ the principle of charity?

[13] The definition of bias presented here is a natural one based upon the most rudimentary common sense. And yet, everything inside the heart of the journalist viciously resists any admission of personal bias, however natural. To understand why, one must first understand the ethical view of the world peculiar to those in the media.

[14] For journalists, the entire history of ethical thought can be condensed into a single idea from the Gospels: "Judge not, that ye be not judged."² Every other ethical precept is dismissed as relative and irrelevant. Journalists devote an enormous amount of their time and energy to the pursuit of just two themes, which recur again and again in their reporting: the biases of the newsmakers they follow and those newsmakers' hypocrisies. For journalists, the act of judging and especially of pre-judging is the sole sin. Their definition of bias is a definition of evil.

[15] Of course, the words good and evil are never used, for in the journalist's mind evil is synonymous with bias, whereas good is a sort of detached neutrality. There are, astonishingly, no real concepts of good and evil in journalistic ethics; there is merely bias and neutrality.

[16] This backward philosophy likely derives from the journalistic ideal, which for noble and obvious reasons, is neutrality in interpreting and reporting the news. And one should, of course, strive for ideals. But when one mistakes ideals for worldly truths, one's humanity is lost. As the poet William Blake put it, "Attempting to be more than Man we become less."³

[17] The journalistic definition of bias as the sole source of evil in the world is not merely absurd, but dangerous. The act of proclaiming oneself beyond bias is hubris tantamount to declaring oneself a god among men. It is, in essence, to flatly deny any fallibility and to elevate one's own opinions to the level of religious truth.

[18] The fallacy in all of this, is that bias is not necessarily evil. Jesus himself was biased against the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and it is the fool indeed who dismisses the Gospels out of hand as biased bunk. Nor, for that matter, when Christ spoke those famous words about judging was he endorsing a relativistic view of the world; on the contrary, what he was protesting was the smug superiority of those who camouflage their own sins through criticism of others, much the way journalists hide their biases by exposing the predispositions of others that contradict their own.

[19] Nor does bias necessarily make an opinion false. The journalistic myth that the truth is unbiased has done incalculable damage to the modern discourse and lowered the level of intellectual debate. Conservatives and liberals no longer argue matters on the merits of logic and the strength of arguments; rather, they construct sophisticated sophistries aimed at revealing their opponents' biases. The definition of bias, they believe, is simply to be wrong; to prove an enemy's bias is to prevail.

[20] But the origin of an opinion neither confirms nor denies its validity; the truth is not unbiased. Slavery was not a reprehensible sin because slave-owners were biased; it was a sin because the human soul is free and any attempt to imprison or injure it is a crime against God.

[21] Abraham Lincoln did not travel across Illinois to debate Stephen Douglas because his neutrality spurred him on; were he really so dispassionate and unbiased, he would not have had the motivation to continue breathing, let alone win the Civil War and free the slaves. Lincoln traveled across Illinois because he knew his own convictions and his own biases were right, and that when a man defends truth, he has both reason and God on his side.

[22] Today there is no need for debate on slavery or racism; because of people like Lincoln, we are able to dismiss racist opinions as evil of the very worst sort. But while there are indeed biases which merit no debate, such as racism or sexism, we forget that the reason these need no debate is because they have been debated. Western civilization rightly rejects such biases because other, superior biases have replaced them.

[23] Ultimately, the danger inherent in the current media discourse is that there will be no debate and our souls will be the poorer for it. Since the journalists and politicians of our age admit no bias, ideas are no longer considered on their merits but on their biases. Whereas Lincoln and Douglas dueled as virtuoso wordsmiths with facts as foils, the discourse of our age, which is almost exclusively limited to charges of bias, resembles a pair of chimpanzees flinging feces at one another.

[24] In short, ours is an age that denies the definition of bias. If we were wiser, we would not ask about others, "Is this person biased?" but rather, "Are this person's biases logically and morally justifiable?" Exposed to such criteria, the good biases inevitably triumph over the evil.

2006

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