Wired for Bias

The human brain may be a natural wonder, but it is often an irrational snarl of biases. With around 100,000 chemical reactions every second and over 50,000 thoughts every day hitting our brain, our judgements are often wrong because our brain trusts cognitive biases more than strong evidence.

An article published recently by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania explains how racial and gender biases are hurting our economy. It mentions a survey by the American Economic Association which acknowledges an alarmingly high level of gender bias in the field of economics, with around 50 per cent of the female respondents alleging they experienced discrimination. A staggering number of the female participants in the survey - around two-thirds - said their work isn’t taken as seriously as that of their male colleagues.

Additionally, around a third of non-white participants, from both sexes, admitted they had experienced racial discrimination, compared to barely four per cent of white respondents.                         

Corporate organisations and universities have procedures through their HR departments to address issues emanating from biases and discrimination, but measures taken to counter the problems are often toothless. Biases are so hardwired, appearing to be beyond any change, that most attention is paid not to counter them, but to avoid them.      

Our brain is wired for biases, but is it really possible for us to overcome our in-built biases or significantly mitigate them? Its answer cannot be precise or sharply defined. Corporate organisations, schools and universities, and government institutions have been only partially successful in their approach to a diverse and inclusive culture. Cognitive and implicit biases are natural, but the key is to understand that they have damaging consequences.                 

Yemen: Cholera in the Time of War

According to a recent report on Yemen by the United Nations, ‘cholera is starting to spread like wildfire across the country,’ with around 200 deaths and more than 110,000 cases of the disease outbreak reported over the past three months.

The Yemeni Civil War that began four years ago, involving Iran-supported Houthi movement and internationally recognised Yemeni government backed by Saudi Arabia, has brought around ten million people on the brink of famine and starvation. Around seven million people are malnourished, and, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, around 80 per cent of the population needs humanitarian protection and assistance.

To make the situation worse, the cholera outbreak - the third major one since the civil war commenced in late 2014 - have pushed Yemen to face the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis.            

The ongoing conflict has cut off transport routes for aid urgently in need including food and fuel. Incomes of families have been lost because of non-payment of salaries. The UN and international aid agencies have largely increased their response to assuage the grim situation, but only five per cent of $4.2 billion 2019 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan has been funded.

With no end of the civil war in sight, conditions in Yemen are so extreme that it may take long before the situation begins to normalise after a ceasefire between warring sides is agreed, if that ever happens. 

On How to Read Dangerous Philosophers

He who thinks great thoughts often makes great errors.

~ Heidegger

Reading and accepting even the most malicious forms of writing hold a high value in liberal democracies. A progressive society gains from provocative ideas that its members are exposed to in multiple ways. John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential thinkers and philosophers in the nineteenth century best articulated these liberal values in his celebrated work On Liberty (1859), in which he discussed the relationship between liberty and authority, and asserts that being open to ideas that are disturbing and challenging can be constructive.    

But how should we read and decipher writers and philosophers whose work has often been associated with totalitarianism?   

For many critics, philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau as well as Karl Marx carried destructive influence, and were dangerous and proto-totalitarian. Nietzsche disliked social and moral conventions as he argues they smother individuals. A recluse and an iconoclast, he ‘philosophised with a hammer’, in his own words, and was justly or unjustly accused of being fascist or racist (this remains a controversial issue). In philosophers’ circles of the twentieth century, he was a black sheep, regarded as Nazism’s official philosopher. Heidegger, one of the greatest philosophers known for his immense contribution to existentialism and phenomenology, was actually a member of Nazi party.

Anti-democratic thinkers have inspired American and European conservative and radical elites since French Revolution, but they also share with us indispensable truths about the society we live in that can propel us to think in a deeper manner about our own adamantly held beliefs and viewpoints.

Rousseau expounded on how the thoughtless pursuit of self-interest can lead to a deep sense of inauthenticity. Marx’s thoughts about capitalism - how it is a radical mode of production, and has ability to turn upside down traditional societies and their values - was a dazzling insight. Nietzsche’s genealogical insight into the history of moral truths was ground-breaking. Heidegger’s works and writings remain notoriously difficult, but they incite gaping reflection on various rationalistic dogmas that are ubiquitous today (he criticised Western philosophy, and even spoke of nihilistic values of modern technological culture).

We have not so much to fear from these philosophers than we do from those determined to construe them in a malevolent manner. We should not moralise about dangerous writers and philosophers, and straightaway condemn those who seek something of value in their work. Exposing ourselves to different ideas and philosophies - ‘the marketplace of ideas’, as Mill says - helps us cultivate a better understand of our society and the world as a whole.