Friday, May 2, 2008

Bias, and My Incredibly Closed Minded Take On It

There's an article recently posted on Scientific American online "Buried Prejudice: The Bigot in Your Brain". This seems like pretty disturbing stuff, but at the same time I feel like I've kind of already known this.

People, it seems, are very judgemental and categorize things simplistically. This is necessary, however, for people to easily interact and predict reactions in the world they live in. One of the steps in the development of a childs mind which make the leap from arbitrary shapes to existence of "things". The child then quickly rationalizes cause and effect with everything they can do and experience. According to psychologists at Harvard and UC Merced, children commonly develop their racial biases around 4-6 years of age. The extent of their biases are influenced, it seems, by parents. Though simplistic categorization is an entirely natural developmental process, the irrational race based assumptions may very well be galvanized in someone's mind by the time they enter kindergarten.

Now, I have to raise my hand and ask, is this bias thing something that is inherent in humans as a whole, or are we seeing some social construct which is imparted on someone. To this question, it seems the article's answer is "Both".

There is something fundamental in the understanding of 'we' and 'them'. There is an obvious pro 'us' bias and a negative 'them' bias. If a person identifies themself very solidly in a racial or ethnic community, there is certainly a chance for them having this arbitrary group bias. You can see something similar by looking at any rabid (*insert local sports team here*) fan and tell them that their favorite star player can go eat shit. Go up to a French person, and tell them to stick their stinky cheese where the sun doesn't shine. The reaction you'd get to this line of discussion is a pretty clear indication that people, generally like, associate with, and will defend many of their arbitrary associations.

Florida Spring break trip many moons ago (roughly 4am):
College Age Mississippi Douchebag (MSDB): Woooooooooooo! Ain't no party like a Mississippi party!
Me (DB): Why won't these bastards go to sleep! I need to get up early tomorrow to drink.
MSDB: Woooooooooooo! Who wants to fight a Mississippi boy! Who wants to?!
(*5 minutes later police arrive*)

It's obviously stupid, but had this kid been born in Tennessee he'd probably be saying the same stupid shit just about Tennessee instead of Mississippi.

This desire to associate with a like group, and to ascribe positive attributes to this group, I would argue, must be nature based because of its obvious benefits to tribal, nomadic, and BDSM societies. Believing that people have a desire to group does not mean we have to live with racist bias forever. Eventually we could get to a point, due to inter-racial marriage, we'll slowly bring society to a middle ground in which race is less of an issue. This could be due in no small part to the fact that the idea of race will become more muddled and less cut and dry. I think people will be less able to judge based on appearance alone because there will be too much middle ground. Any perceived differentiations of race will soften and overlap.

So, if we as human beings have this fundamental desire to experience, divide, and judge based on our simplistic distinctions, is that a bad thing? In my opinion it is bad in that negative stereotypes can be perpetuated, they're more difficult to overcome if it's what's expected of you. On the other hand, it's pretty obvious that positive stereotypes are a benefit. There are immigrant societies in America that seem to have a culture of hard work because that is who they are, and they won't accept anything less from themselves or their children. From what I see, communities that parent well, expect the best from their kids, and delineate good/bad repercussions to those kids' actions, in general beat the shit out of the statistical "rest of society".

So what's the freakin' point. What am I trying to get at? Stereotypes in and of themselves are what they are: (many times) irrational impulses which must be subverted and overcome based on rational judgement and what is expected of polite society today (sorry Nazis). These impulses can be seen in the same context as sexual urges after commiting yourself to a monogamous relationship; they'll exist, but you can conciously decide against them. To be a respected member of society today, judgements and actions must be based on moral and rational grounds, not irrational emotions and biases.

This brings me to an even bigger point to which I confuse myself on. So, let's say that media as a whole is a giant circle-jerk perpetuating and encouraging these arbitrary distinctions on what it means to be cool, connected, loved, a part of society, or what it means to be a true (*insert ethniticy/community here*) person. On one side of the coin I say we should never put down ridiculous media like hip-hop or death metal, because I love it for the ridiculousness of it. Anyone wanting to ban Eminem or Rammstein will have to pry it out of my cold dead fingers. It's just too entertaining to me. But it's truly disturbing when people take their social cues from this stuff. When people decide and interact based on their interpretations of these media caricatures, those people have a problem.

We need to look in the mirror and realize that, like this article in Scientific American states, we each have our own irrational biases. We must face these biases for what they are, and push everyone to be the best they can be regardless of arbitrary skin tone, distinctions. We cannot hold back constructive criticism for fear we will offend someone, we must push, help, celebrate people for what is out there for anyone to achieve.

We, as a people, need to cock-punch in the face those who are acting based on bias, but at the same time renounce anyone who holds themselves back based on bias. In America, in 2008, there is no racial, ethnic, or socio-economic reason for laziness, apathy, or rotting your brain behind a TV for hours every day.

People should rot their brain like me, by looking at engadget.com, fark.com, monster-a-day, digg.com, reason.com/blog, and a million other things that make me just as bad as the laziest of lazies. Well, I better go grab the windex, it looks like my glass house needs some cleaning.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Sunshine, Lollipops, Rainbows, and Oh, yeah, Fuck Religion

Alright everyone. It's time. I apologize in advance. I'm going to use poo-poo words to talk about religion. If you give a shit, please don't read this. I'm pretty surprised I stayed away from this topic for this long. Let's talk religion (sorry Jeebus).

To get a good feel for what religion is, we need to talk about what people are and what people need. Many people need to feel like there's order in their life. People need to feel continuity in things that they don't understand and at the same time people need to feel important and unique. Ratinoally, it's tough to square this desire of uniqueness with the thought that you're just one of untold billions of pieces of crap, circling space, waiting to be flushed down the toilet of eternity. In revealing that cosmic truth to someone, many people think you're insulting them. A child can look into the night and imagine, even viscerally feel, a world full of unseen and unimaginable horrors, that is unless a spiderman nightlight gives them a bit of reassurance. Lots of people shit their pants because of the always present spectre of bad things happening, that is unless they have the adult nightlight "religion". If we just say that bad things like Dave Coullier, Dancing with the stars, and puppies getting explosive diarrhea is all part of God's plan, well people feel better because at least we're not being tortured by these awful things arbitrarily.

Why do we think that in the year 2008 we are any more intelligent that all the golden calf worshiping heathens 2000 years ago.

Present Day Religious Person: "Worshiping Thor is stupid and unintelligent, but let me tell you about Scientology and how Xenu imprisoned billions of souls via a giant electro-magnetic cage."

Sure, it's incredible what we have at hand with technology now-a-days, but you have to remember that individual intellect is no more advanced than those living a thousand years ago. Scientific advances have brought society light-years ahead of where we were, but we're still reverting to that desire to say that someone in the clouds is pulling the strings. Many say this invisible cop is why the sun comes up every morning, and why I don't murder people for fun.

Why, though, did God get off his lazy-ass 2000 years ago, and not 3000 years ago? He could have "saved" untolds millions more people. Why weren't Asians, or African cultures in on this little secret called salvation? Why does God love Jews so much?

Why didn't God start saving people in pre-historic times? What happened to cavemen souls after they got done selling auto insurance? It's no fault of their own that God hated them, and forced them to live in a world of sleeping on rocks and eating wooly-mammoth turds to stay alive. Why the hell are certain people chosen to receive the word of God? I thought He loved everyone equally. What about other religions/people? Is their form of worship kosher just as long as they're mono-theistic? Saying only mono-theism is alright pretty much fucks native americans, tribal societies, Greeks, and environmentalists who simultaneously worship Al Gore and Obama.

For the sake of argument let's accept that it's perfectly fine for anyone to worship in their own way. Everyone should be able to get to heaven so long as they're a good person, right? That is, unless, you agree that God chose caucasians and says, "Fuck the yellows/darkies! I like BMW's and bratwursts. Europe! Fuck yeah!" Well what the fuck!

So just because my great-great-great-great-great grandparents received the story of Christ and his ressurection, and I can't claim ignorance, I have to live by a whole bunch of rules and self-loathe weekly to get into heaven? What about tribal people! It's not their fault they weren't taught that meat on Fridays during Lent, tattoos, and droopy-boobs are enough to relegate someone to pits of hell forever.

We had better decide that of all the religions out there in the world there is one right religion, or we must decide that they are all crocks of shit. If every religion is equally valid, every religion is equally invalid. If every maintstream religion is acceptable then there's nothing unique or correct about anyone's personal take on religion. Either every religion is wrong or there's one particular sect who's getting it just right, in which case 99% of the population had better get used the idea of spending a gajillion, bajillion years of having red hot coals shoved up their ass for eternity because we're all going to hell (me especially).

Which is it?

I do understand that religion encourages positive traits. I do understand that children need guidance and by telling them these biblical stories we seem to get the message through to them. People need a sense of community, and in the world today there are very few ways that people can connect with each other. Churches do contribute positively to society. Who else is going to do the dirty work of seriously reach out to the poor, give old people something to look forward to every morning, and rape little boys? NAMBLA only has one of those bases covered, so there is obviously a need.

It seems like society needs a way of connecting citizens together and feeling like they're part of something bigger than themselves. We need ways of teaching our children what is expected of them, and what society will not accept in terms of behavior. I just wish there was a less self-congratulatory, hypocritical, guilt-ridden, ivory-tower sitting, anal sex not having way of going about it.

Sorry for the ridiculousness of this post, but I would like to think I'm a very good person. I try to practice all of the virtues extolled in the bible (without quite so much Jew-violence though). Patience, virtue, humility, temperence, blah, blah, blah. It's all something to strive for and I am the first to admit that I fail every day in developing these virtues in myself. With all of this said, just please don't tell me to be something I'm not because some string-puller upstairs is watching me whenever I kick kittens.