Unconscious bias: Difference between revisions

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S’étonne aux Halles; <br>
S’étonne aux Halles; <br>
Un petit d’un petit <br>
Un petit d’un petit <br>
Ah! degrés te fallent.
Ah! degrés te fallent. <br>
Indolent qui ne sort cesse <br>
Indolent qui ne sort cesse <br>
Indolent qui ne se mène <br>
Indolent qui ne se mène <br>
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Tout gai de Reguennes.  
Tout gai de Reguennes.  
:—Luis d’Antin van Rooten, ''Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames'', (1967)}}
:—Luis d’Antin van Rooten, ''Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames'', (1967)}}
{{quote|{{rorty on truth}}}}


To utter a sentence is to prefer one model of the world; one “[[narrative]]” over the infinity of alternatives one could construct. To ''construe'' one is to do likewise: the success of the ''communication'' such an utterance and construal represents depends on how far the speaker’s and listener’s respective narratives coincide — how far they share the cultural conventions on which the language is founded. To understand a language is to understand the cultural conventions which it represents.  
To utter a sentence is to assert a model of the world; a single “[[narrative]]” over the infinity of possible alternatives. To ''construe'' one is to do likewise. The success of a ''communication'' depends on how far the speaker and listener share cultural conventions; how well their respective narratives coincide. Words are, like the world, are out there;  the meanings we assign them are not. To understand words is to share cultural conventions by which they acquire meaning.  


If speaker and listener do not share cultural conventions, the result is usually incoherence: a monolingual English speaker cannot understand a French sentence, and that is that. Not necessarily, though: ask a French speaker to read van Rooten’s poem to an English speaker and watch what happens.
If speaker and listener do not share cultural conventions, the result is usually incoherence: a monolingual English speaker cannot understand a French sentence, and that is that. Not necessarily, though: ask a French speaker to read van Rooten’s poem to an English speaker and watch what happens. You really should: it’s funny.


These cultural conventions are buried deep: the very beauty of language is that it allows us carry on without having to prove out all the assumptions, linguistic architecture, vocabulary, before communicating. It is to pre-agree a set of filters, switches and conventions. It allows us to take certain things as read.  
Our cultural conventions are buried deep: the very beauty of language is to allow us carry on without having to prove out all assumptions, linguistic architecture, vocabulary, before communicating. To share a language is to pre-agree a set of filters, switches and conventions and heuristics. It is to take certain things as read.  


These filters, switches and conventions are “biases”. We need them, to put one foot in front of another. An operating condition to meaning is shared, unstated, ''unconscious'' bias.
These filters, switches and conventions are “biases”. We need them, so we can put one foot in front of another without holding Newton’s laws of motion, Fowler’s laws of  ''Modern English Usage'' or ''Halsbury’s Laws of England'' in constant contemplation as we go. We want them biases out of the way, running in the background — ''unconscious'' — while we get on with whatever we are doing.  


''So, all'' language is biased. It’s part of the beauty, intractability, ambiguity and humanity of language. It is bias that sculpts the overwhelming white noise of the universe into meaningful figures; bias limits and makes manageable the infinite; bias makes the universe coherent to us.  
An operating condition to sharing meaning is sharing, unstated, ''unconscious'' biases.


Thirdly, the written canon, for all its flaws and biases, is the nearest account of how we as a population do communicate. It has skin in the game. These are the aggregated communicative decisions we have made. Yes, it is biased. It favours those who talk over those who don’t; the loudmouth over the introvert, those who have the time, resources and inclination to publish over those who don’t; those who have a platform over those who don’t. (For a while the great disintermediator, the internet, threatened to undermine that privilege, but hierarchy, like nature, abhors a vacuum.)
So, ''all'' language is biased. It’s part of its beauty, intractability, ambiguity and humanity. It is bias that sculpts the overwhelming white noise of the universe into meaningful figures; that limits and makes manageable the infinite; that makes the universe coherent.  


The same thing that is uncomfortable about that is democratic about that. It is democracy’s prerogative to deliver a result any voter, personally, might not like. That a small group of well-attuned, influential people — such a group you might call an “elite” — can make value judgments to correct for the unmediated, actual speech of the population – to second guess what the population did say with what, in that elite’s opinion, it ought to have said, is a political act. It is to rewrite the record. To erase the past.
This not to defend unconscious bias, but to recognise it is inevitable, and to observe there are ''useful'' biases and ''pernicious'' ones, and to wonder whether the biases targeted by the contemporary fad for unconscious bias training are’t themselves the subject of other kinds of bias — in particular [[confirmation bias]].
 
Now statistical correlations between words either do say something profound about the values embedded in a text, or they don’t. But either way one should tread carefully before remediating or correcting text for “unwanted” biases. Unwanted by whom?

Latest revision as of 19:29, 21 February 2021

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Un petit d’un petit
S’étonne aux Halles;
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent.
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu'importe un petit
Tout gai de Reguennes.

—Luis d’Antin van Rooten, Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames, (1967)

Truth cannot be out there — cannot exist independently of the human mind — because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own, unaided by the describing activities of humans, cannot.

- Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity

To utter a sentence is to assert a model of the world; a single “narrative” over the infinity of possible alternatives. To construe one is to do likewise. The success of a communication depends on how far the speaker and listener share cultural conventions; how well their respective narratives coincide. Words are, like the world, are out there; the meanings we assign them are not. To understand words is to share cultural conventions by which they acquire meaning.

If speaker and listener do not share cultural conventions, the result is usually incoherence: a monolingual English speaker cannot understand a French sentence, and that is that. Not necessarily, though: ask a French speaker to read van Rooten’s poem to an English speaker and watch what happens. You really should: it’s funny.

Our cultural conventions are buried deep: the very beauty of language is to allow us carry on without having to prove out all assumptions, linguistic architecture, vocabulary, before communicating. To share a language is to pre-agree a set of filters, switches and conventions and heuristics. It is to take certain things as read.

These filters, switches and conventions are “biases”. We need them, so we can put one foot in front of another without holding Newton’s laws of motion, Fowler’s laws of Modern English Usage or Halsbury’s Laws of England in constant contemplation as we go. We want them biases out of the way, running in the background — unconscious — while we get on with whatever we are doing.

An operating condition to sharing meaning is sharing, unstated, unconscious biases.

So, all language is biased. It’s part of its beauty, intractability, ambiguity and humanity. It is bias that sculpts the overwhelming white noise of the universe into meaningful figures; that limits and makes manageable the infinite; that makes the universe coherent.

This not to defend unconscious bias, but to recognise it is inevitable, and to observe there are useful biases and pernicious ones, and to wonder whether the biases targeted by the contemporary fad for unconscious bias training are’t themselves the subject of other kinds of bias — in particular confirmation bias.

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