I was a bit harsh in my last post because I really believe we all need a bit of a wake up call. I really believe if we don't start challenging our own bias, then the purpose behind this series of posts is a waste of time. I know how much bias and cognitive dissonance effects us and if I can't get people to start challenging that, they won't see the following for what it is. Instead of seeing it as a way to point out bias coming from both extremes, they will instead feel like I am attacking or agreeing with their biased view. I am not doing either.
I am not saying I don't have a bias, I do. In fact it was a realization of just how bad my bias had gotten that led me to start this blog to begin with. The problem is that while I admit I have a bias, a lot of people aren't willing to admit it and that's something that needs to change. Bias may be unavoidable to an extent, but what we can control is how much that bias influences our decision making. I know I am fighting an up hill battle, but I can't sit by and let it happen.
Below I will be posting and discussing memes that I gathered in just a few minutes of browsing various political groups on Facebook. I also collected a few on my feed as part of this project. Before I begin though I want it understood that I am not attacking a particular political stance, I am pointing out bias to the best of my abilities.
Insulting Memes as Bias:
I am going to begin with a bias that I think people tend to notice before most others and that is insulting bias. When you are insulted you automatically get defensive and this leads most people to feeling anger. When we get angry we stop thinking and tend to get reactionary. Guess what? this is exactly what Insulting memes are trying to do. By turning off our brains they work to not only get one side of a debate angry but also work to keep the other side feeling justified in their anger towards differing views. I am going to look at three memes in order to explain how this all works. One meme is kind of neutral, the other two are very partisan.
Us vs. Them Bias:
The picture above is something a lot of people will point to and completely agree with. In fact, it's a good point but I want to point out some flaws in this meme that people may not even be aware of.
1: Which Political Views?
Did you notice while it talks about political views it doesn't actually give any? Instead of focusing on one particular view or a side of views, it simply says "Political Views". Why? Because when something is presented in a general context we automatically assume it's talking about our personal views. For this reason we are going to be inclined to agree with it.
2: Who is Blindly Following?
This meme says "let's blindly follow" but doesn't say who is blindly following. In fact it remains rather obscure in this. Again this works towards the memes favor by working on our individual bias. When I saw this I smiled and said "yeah! that's right people are blind!" without even thinking about who those "blind" people were. I am sure I meant "blind" being anyone who disagreed with me, but do you see my point here?
3: Which Celebrities?
Notice how it says "follow the lead of idiot celebrities". It doesn't say which celebrities but allows us to infer our own "idiot celebrities" Also notice the word idiot. That is an insult, so again the meme is using our emotions simply to get an emotional response. What is interesting is that both the left and right have their list of "idiot celebrities" which are generally people in the media who have a different point of view.
As you can see this meme is full of things that in no way discourage the formation of bias. Not only that but it seems to exist simply to perpetuate itself by people who see it, get emotional to some degree then re-post it. This gives us a neat feeling of how much smarter we are than those "idiot celebrities" and that is basically the entire point of this meme.
Left vs. Right Bias
I saw this beauty and just groaned. While the things that are wrong with this meme should be kind of self explanatory, I am going to point it out anyway.
1: What is the actual purpose?
The first thing I have to ask myself about this meme is what the purpose behind it is. My guess is that the purpose is to a: infer that those on the right wing are dumb and thus b: infer that people on the left are smarter.
2: What is it's effect?
The only thing this meme is going to do is tick of anyone on the right while allowing the left to feel intellectually superior. In fact this is likely to really tick off someone on the right and ignite an emotional response of some kind. I know this because if it said "keep left" instead of "keep right" I would be kinda pissed off myself.
3: What does this accomplish?
The first thing this meme accomplishes is to piss someone off and make them even less willing to see a differing point of view. Once you have someone emotional they get defensive and when we are defensive we refuse to listen to anything outside our bias.
The second thing this meme accomplishes is keeping left wingers "in check" by inferring that if yo agree with the right on anything you are obviously stupid. Think about that for a second. This meme literally encourages you to not only look at the other side as dumb, but to look at letting go of your own left bias as siding with stupid people.
Finally this meme continues to keep partisan bias and thinking alive and well. It does nothing to encourage any kind of real discussion. It does nothing to even state a position beyond "people on the right are stupid." and that isn't a position, that is intolerant and fascist thinking as far as I am concerned. Honestly the person who took the time to make this meme did far more harm to their side than they did to the right and they probably don't even realize it.
Right vs. Left Bias
Here is another good one that I saw today posted in a right wing group on Facebook. Just like the last couple I am going to point out some things.
1: What is the actual purpose?
The first line says everything you really need to know about this memes purpose. It is intended to do exactly like the last meme I spoke about except instead of left wing this meme is right wing. It is designed to A: create an impassioned those who don't like Hillary and garner support for that cause, and B: Make liberals angry.
2: What is it's effect?
Just like the last meme it's effect is getting people to engage in emotional reaction instead of rational thinking. It doesn't state a view, it doesn't give any information on anything more than Hillary supporters will hate it, and that somehow it is related to "stop Hillary in 2016"
3: What does this accomplish?
Just like the last meme it is designed to accomplish making one group of people angry while giving another group a feeling of superiority for their view points. However unlike the last one it doesn't go as far in keeping a particular segment of thought "in line".
However, while it might not go to keeping a particular side "in line" what this meme does is encourage support for one side based off disrespect for the other. In other words, by making a joke that "Hillary supporters will hate" infers that if you oppose Hillary Clinton the best way to show that support is by disrespecting her and thus all those who would support her.
I could go on for quite a while posting insulting memes and discussing how they propagate our bias, but I am pretty sure people get the point by now. I know that I am unlikely to stop these kind of things from appearing, but hopefully anyone reading this will take time to think before re-posting these kind of memes.
I will be discussing other memes in the coming days, but for now I think I have talked long enough. Give some thought to what I had to say and let me know what you think. Feel free to leave a comment here or on Facebook and I will try to respond fairly quickly.
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