Bias and Prejudice

In Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen notes that “angry people are not always wise.”  How true that is.  Our personal prejudices often get in the way of wisdom, and often, too, get in the way of common courtesy and humanity.

The word prejudice gives away its insidious aspect quite clearly – pre judgement.  Therein is the problem with prejudice.  A judgement is made before the facts, the ideas or the character of someone is known.  We come to an opinion of, or a conclusion about, something or someone before we know the full circumstances, sometimes even before we know any of the circumstances.

Prejudice is usually a judgement made towards someone else, it is a desire on our part to reject, take offense at or disrespect someone else.  The other may be of a differing cultural background to our own, they may have a different skin colour, they may believe differently, they may be afflicted by a disability, they may be of a different nationality, they may be of the opposite sex, they may be younger or older than us.  The difference could be any number of things. 

When we assume the belief, understanding or characteristic of the other person to be inherently inferior to our own then we are pre-judging – we are prejudiced.

Does this mean that we should do away with our own views, beliefs or cultural norms?  Not at all.  In fact, we can still value, embrace and celebrate our personal or collective identity.  We can, if you like, be biased.

Bias

Bias is sometimes considered as a synonym for prejudice.  However, this is not necessarily a useful way of thinking of the word.  The word derives from old Latin and seems to have originally meant “on a lean, aslant or oblique to.”  Within that understanding there is the sense of a "leaning towards" something.  It was not until the 16th century that the association with prejudice came into the English language.

Dictionary definitions often add notions of favouritism or partiality to that of bias.  Thus, bias can be thought of as judgement that is towards ourselves.  Our bias is that we feel comfortable with ourselves or identify with our culture.

Being comfortable towards our cultural heritage or who we are does not mean that we are automatically prejudiced against another’s cultural background or identity.

So, we can be biased but not prejudiced. 

We already have a word for negatively stereotyping another because of their culture or identity – prejudice.  We need a word for being content with, happy with and comfortable in our culture or identity.  Why not the word bias?

Bias and Prejudice.  We can be biased, but we do not need to be prejudiced.  Anne Wilson Schaef said it best in the epigraph to her ground-breaking book “Women’s Reality”

“It is not necessary to deny another’s reality in order to affirm your own.”

Two Unhelpful Slogans of Change

A previous post discussed five slogans of social change.  Here are two more, only these have proven to be unhelpful in the various campaigns for social justice.

Power Grows out of the barrel of a gun.

This slogan has been attributed to Mao Tse Tung.  Undoubtedly, Mao did gain political power via the use of guns and weaponry.  However, as has been shown time and time again, the power obtained by violence is both illusory and transitory. 

Illusory because of the nature of power.  Until the 20th Century many of those working for change understood power in very much the same way that those who were the oppressors also viewed it.  That is, the power of one group over another.  The feudal lords over the peasantry or the owners of capital over the labouring classes.

However, the understanding of power changed significantly in the second half of the 20th Century.  Michel Foucault (the French philosopher) shifted the thinking about power from the idea that power was something held by one group and used to coerce or oppress another group.  Foucault’s insight was that “power is everywhere” and transcends politics.

The environmental movement also helped shape a differing conception of power – one that began to see everything as interconnected and hence that one part of an ecosystem was dependent on other parts and that if one part attempted to exercise control over other parts or the whole, it was doomed to fail.

Undoubtedly, the non-violent campaigns of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and later Nelson Mandela (and many others) rocked the idea that power is obtained through the use of violence.

Sadly, the nations of the world have not yet given up Mao’s slogan.  The “War on Terrorism” is a good example of that.  Since that war began the number of terrorists and terrorist organisations has increased rather than decreased.

The Ends justifies the Means.

This slogan was used by many working for social justice ideals.  Within community development it was used extensively by Saul Alinski, a social activist working in Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s.

However, this slogan also came to be unhelpful in a liberatory sense.  The feminist movement and the indigenous movements of the 1970s and 1980s both challenged this view.  Rather, they suggested, the means and the ends must be in harmony with one another. 

Later, those movements and the emerging sciences of systems and quantum physics suggested that the means and the ends are so intertwined that often it is difficult to tell one from the other.  Linear causality had been cast aside.

Joanna Macy, an American deep ecologist, engaged Buddhist and systems theorist, explains it succinctly.  She makes no distinction between ends and means, and defines means as “ends in the making.”

It is doubtful that many individuals and organisations working for social change have fully accepted and understood what dispersing with these two outdated and unhelpful slogans means.  It is not simply a rejection of one set of slogans and the picking up of another set.

We must be mindful of approaching our personal and worldly transformation in ways that truly understand what the ideas of non-violence and interconnection mean.

In Conversation with Peter Westoby

Peter Westoby launched his new book Theorising the Practice of community development – a South African Perspective recently.  I caught up with Peter over coffee at the University of Queensland a few days after the launch and we chatted informally.

Peter has now written, or co-written, six books relating to community development.  You can find a review of his (co-authored with Gerard Dowling) book Theory and Practice of Dialogical Community Development here on this blogsite.

Peter is originally from the UK but now resides in Brisbane, Australia, where he is a lecturer in community development at the University of Queensland.  His community development work has taken him to South Africa, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Vanuatu. 

Writing and Practice

I was keen to ask Peter whether the process of writing about community development changed the way in which he undertook his community development work.  Peter reflected that the process of writing reinforced practice and forced him to look at theory.  Writing helped to make sense of the world and enabled him to ask “what might it mean?”

For Peter, his writing is a creative process and opportunity.  “When I begin a book,” he notes, “there is a part that knows what I want to say and there is a part that I don’t know.”  Writing allows that part that is not known to become known.

For Peter, his writing helps to make explicit what is intuitively known.  Writing enables him to ask “is there is a different way of thinking about what we’re doing?”

The South African Experience

Peter’s most recent book looks at community development in South Africa.  I was keen to know if he thought that the South African experience had anything to teach us in Australia and New Zealand.  Peter was ambivalent in his answer, primarily because South African community development was operating in a very different setting to that in Australia or New Zealand.

“South African development is about survival,” Peter states.  Community development is about economic development – “it’s about jobs.”  Furthermore, in South Africa inequalities are at the “heart of things, whereas they are often on the edge here in Australia.”

Community development in South Africa is not located within a welfare state which means that it is often about livelihoods.  “Black practitioners,” says Peter, “want to talk about jobs.  Whereas in Australia it is about the right to a voice or a fair share.”

If the South African experience does have something to teach us here then it is that change is long term and that we must learn patience.  That learning includes being aware of the dangers of burn-out.  “When things get tough, the mistake is to work harder, (so that) we become our own worst enemy.”

What Next?

Peter has been a prolific writer of books dealing with community development (6 books in 5 years) so I wondered what was next on the authorship agenda for him.

“Soul,” replied Peter, “Soul, Community and Social Change.”  The title is an intriguing one and Peter explained that he was delving into this from four perspectives:

• soul as being embodied energy, of a downward, earthy nature rather than an upward, other-worldly kind.
• a soulful approach, as in getting close attention, becoming slow.
• a recognition that we are part of the earth, so how do we re-enchant the world, so that we come to understand the part we play?
• Gandhi’s soul-force (satyāgraha).  The use of non-violence and civil disobedience.

This certainly sounds like a book to look forward to.  Due for publication in the middle of 2016 – look out for it.

How to Change the World

As community development workers and those working for social justice we see things that are unjust or harmful.  We want to change the world.  How do we do that?

The first lesson for those who want to change the world is to realise the paradox that we can’t change the world.  So, do we just give up?  No, it’s all to do with ends and means.

We can’t change the world if our intention is to change others, to change the way in which others think or to change what others believe.

Years ago, soon after I had begun working in the fields of community development and social justice I found myself participating in various campaign meetings or networking forums.  What I heard often disturbed me.  There were instances of personal attacks and people telling others what they should do or what they should think.  I began to wonder why it was that this group of people who all espoused a better, more peaceful and just society could not behave well with one another.

It was only years later that I began to understand how to answer that question for myself.  Many of us seeking a better world are looking forward to that better world being in the future.  Therein lies our second mistake.  The better world will be if we allow it to be right here and now.  That means that we must act as if we already live in the better world of our dreams.

Before I am misunderstood to be recommending the “you can’t change anything unless you first change yourself” let me assert that that is not what I am suggesting.

The “change yourself first” notion is the third mistake.  The mistake is to assume that we are all individual and disconnected selves.  We are inter-connected beings.  Thich Nhat Hahn calls us inter-beings.  Thus, we must find ways to act now both as individuals and as connected beings.  That should be our quest.  For, until we are able to do that we will not be able to change ourselves, and we certainly will not be able to change the world – not in the future, nor in the now.

The fourth mistake and lesson that we need to learn is that we cannot convince, coerce, force or bully someone else or some other community into adopting our beliefs, ideas, or ways of behaving.  Indeed, attempting to do so may stimulate the opposite reaction.

Saying and Doing

What we say and what we do can also send mixed messages and it is our behaviour that often gets the attention of others.  A recent study from Harvard University found that almost 80% of middle and high school students ranked achievement and the pursuit of individual happiness above that of caring for others.  Ninety-six percent of their parents however said that they wanted to raise ethical, caring children.  What was going on?  The parents were acting in ways that suggested that achievement was the greater value, even though they told their children that compassion was important. 

We can behave in such a way that the other may come to accept that our way may be better for the world.  Equally, we may come to realise that the other person or community may be behaving in a way more conducive of a better world.

So, what am I advocating?

• Inviting others into dialogue and joining in dialogues with others,
• Acting in compassionate ways when we witness injustice, to both the victim and the perpetrator,
• Discovering the true meaning of forgiveness,
• Practicing empathy,
• Making our speech and our behaviour congruent,
• Being open and honest in our relationships
• Having the courage to change our minds and ways of thinking,
• Accepting that everyone brings an unique perspective and that no-one of us has all the answers,
• Sharing our skills, knowledge and resources,
• Promoting inclusive and open decision-making processes,
• Encouraging others in their quest for honest empowerment,
• Continue to be curious and open to making mistakes.

By adopting these traits and ways of being in the here and now, we can change the world.

Overshooting

We’ve done it again.  Every year since the mid 1960s we have done it.  We have overshot.  We have taken more than we have given. 

In the next day or so (posted on 18 August 2014) we will exceed the earth’s capacity to rejuvenate or replenish what we have used up since the first of January.  Overshoot Day is a symbolic day that indicates the rate at which we use up the earth’s resources without the earth being able to replenish that use.

It’s a bit like getting your year’s salary on 1 January and then exhausting it by 20 August.  From the 21st of August you go into overdraft.

What’s more – we’ve been going into overdraft at an earlier and earlier date each year (see table at right).  In the early 1960s we never reached overdraft, in fact, metaphorically, we were able to save a little.  But, since then, we have rapidly expended our biocapable income.  We have spent without a thought given to those to come.  Rather like spending the inheritance that we had planned for our children or grandchildren.

Collapse may come even earlier than in our grandchildren's era.  We may be in for a terrible shock sooner than we think.  Looking around on the surface it is easy to lull ourselves into a false sense of security.  The earth still provides – doesn’t it?  There are plenty of resources still to be used and found – aren’t there?

Systems don’t work quite like that though.  Have a look at this graph:

The bold dashed black line represents the earth’s carrying capacity and the solid red line represents our consumption.  Even as the carrying capacity begins to fall, consumption continues to grow and we continue to celebrate our domination over nature, we continue to espouse economic growth as the saviour of all our ills.

Eventually, however, resources and renewables become exhausted and consumption peaks and then drops rapidly.  The earth, and us with it, collapse.  Its all simple systems analysis.

Instead of continuing to strive for growth we must withdraw from continued high rates of consumerism.  We must once again become stewards.  We must act as guardians of our planet.  In short we must act response-ably.

In the coming years we must be seeking ways to ensure that overshoot day falls later and later in the year.

Deepening Community: A Review

Paul Born is an optimist – a joyful optimist.  He thinks that the world can be a better place.  In his latest book, Deepening Community, he asserts that the answer is very, very simple: “bring chicken soup to your neighbour.”
Furthermore, he believes that he knows how it can be a better place. 

With these words Born begins a 140 page journey into the possibility of community.  He shares stories from his own childhood and adulthood, stories from his neighbours, stories from his daughter and from 500 others.

Before setting off on this journey Born sought the insight of 2000 active members of Tamarack (the organisation in Canada that he directs) and received responses from 500 of them.  These responses helped form the basis of the book.

Born’s strength as a writer is that he has the ability to draw from these stories useful concepts, techniques and principles.  He does so with simplicity and clarity.

Noting that we live in challenging (and chaotic) times Born sees the possibility of community arising in three ways:

• by turning away from others – shallow community.
• by turning against others – fear-based community.
• by turning towards others – creating deep community.

We have a choice he says.  It is no surprise that Born chooses the third of these options.  After briefly traversing the dysfunctional approaches of the first two options Born uses the book to uncover ways to deepen community.

For Born the conscious act of building community begins with story.  By sharing stories we discover our shared identity, we begin to understand one another, we celebrate and care for one another, and together we create a better world.  This simple process is described by Born through a series of five stories.  Each of the stories that he shares (be it his own, or Anita’s, Lucas’, Rita’s, Jill’s or Will’s) is packed with the full scope of human emotion and condition. 

Born’s knack is to draw out of each story half a dozen pieces of wisdom that help to deepen our understanding of community and how it is built.

Born’s book is simply written and, in just 140 pages, easily readable.  All in all, it is a joy to read.  Indeed, what are Born’s final words?

“And what is deep community?  It is the process of finding joy – much joy! – together.”

The ABCD of Agency Advertising

Do you notice that the adverts of aid agencies or those seeking support for work with disadvantaged communities often feature people who are impoverished in some way?  Perhaps it is the child in Africa without access to clean water?  Maybe it is the person in a wheelchair in a western nation who is dependent upon a carer to feed them?

Each of these adverts pull at our heart-strings.  The agencies then hope that this tugs our wallet out of our pockets and we donate to the charity.

Of course the agencies and charities need funding to be able to continue their work.  But ads like these will never help break down the structural barriers that mean that these agencies have to exist at all.

The message contained in the adverts is one of “look at me, I am in despair, I am at your mercy.”  The message we are given is that the person in the advert - and presumably hundreds of others - has no skills, no assets, no creative ability.

In community development there is a concept known as ABCD – Asset Based Community Development.  Briefly, ABCD begins with discovering what the assets, skills, talents and abilities of a community are, and works from that base.  This is different to that of a needs-based approach, where the deficiencies and lacks of a community are the starting point.  The problem with the latter approach is that it views people and communities as inherently valueless.  People in this approach bring nothing with them to the process of development, they are dependent entirely on the expertise, skills and knowledge of the outside developer.

But, people, no matter what their situation, have skills, knowledge and talent.  Why not acknowledge that?  Why not utilise that?

This is not to say that those who are on the margins of society or those in situations of disadvantage are not in need of assistance.  But, it is not for the expert to judge what that need is.  It is not for the expert to devalue the person or community by advertising the neediness.  People are of more value than that.

I have seen one advert that bucks this trend.  A young man who uses a wheelchair speaks about what he has managed to achieve, because of his abilities, with the help of others.  He does not present as needy or dejected or demoralised.  He projects himself as a very competent, engaging young man.  His story is very much one of “this is what I am doing.”  His parting words are: “How you doing?”

“How you doing?” indeed.