A STUDY IN (POLITICAL) CONFIRMATION BIAS

Becoming Unpolarizable

Dear friend:

The center is gone, or so it seems. Where before we could sit down together and explore differing views over dinner, it has now become nearly impossible. Most everyone is polarized to one extent or another.

I watched it happen to me on Meta. I began there with a whole host of views, yet a real openness to other perspectives. I figured it was one of the advantages of aging. You watch as many of your previous perspectives fall away, often replaced by something entirely inimical to who you once were. When this happens enough, you come to realize that the best place to be is in the unbiased center, the place where you can inquire into and consider many perspectives. You may tend to lean one way or another once all the information is before you, but you begin with a sincerely centered openness.

At first, the Meta algorithm didn’t seem to undermine my centrist tendencies. But then something shifted there. Where before I didn’t find the algos to be biased (other than influencing my purchases), I began to feel as though my consciousness was being intentionally polarized with respect to my views of the political world. It wasn’t always obvious—they worked it in increments—but it was still apparent to me that something was shifting. Many blamed the shift on Trump and his arrival on the political scene in 2015, but I think that was a convenient excuse. I believe that he was just a prop utilized by powerful social media platforms to finally craft the divide-and-conquer consciousness they sought. They began by getting us addicted to their devices. Once that was accomplished, they took the manipulation of consciousness to the next level once an inherently divisive figure arrived. Then you became either combatively left, or combatively right, never the twain shall meet. In other words, riddled with confirmation bias. Nothing is more dangerous than humans being in a state where you can only confirm a singular view—but not grow beyond it.

Oxford Languages defines ‘confirmation bias’ in this way:

the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.

In other words, everything that comes in gets sifted through the same confirming filter. When that happens, you are not only unable to hear another’s differing perspective. You’re also unable to hear your own. There is no longer that interesting inner debate between your various parts and insights. There is only one inner voice. And that one-sided perspective limits the way you imagine yourself. Instead of seeing yourself as all kinds of (inclusive) possibilities, you are stuck right where you are. No nuance, no color, no new eyes. Just one thing.

When that happens, we are ripe for the picking by maliciously intended power brokers. While we are busy fighting each other over our definitive ideas, they are (enjoying a relaxed dinner) and busily manipulating technology to get even more people aligned with their politic than their competitor. That’s what all this polarization is all about. Someone is trying to win a war. At first, a war of words. And then, the physical war that many of us sense is coming. Without realizing it, most of us have already enlisted for one side or the other. This is not a good place to be. It’s a recipe for species-wide disaster.

So, how do we get through this? Combative debates between polarized views are surely not the answer. Anybody who has made the mistake of posting their political views in social media knows that. With no possibility of genuine discussion, everybody just gets worked up, frustrated and dysregulated. It’s insane.

Instead, let’s try something different. Let’s look closer at our confirmation bias and how it influences our thinking and our ways of being. In other words, not what we think, but why we think it. If we can get that right, we can’t be unknowingly polarized.

With that intention in mind, I want to share and discuss two of my previous political pieces with you. And then I will offer up a list of techniques to support you in reaching a stage where you are UNPOLARIZABLE. Not where you can’t have a strong view about Trump or Trudeau or anyone else, but where you can be sure that you arrived at it without being unconsciously manipulated by anyone else. In other words, where you are both holding a view and open to seeing things differently when the evidence supports it.

When I wrote the first piece below (in 2020), I was riddled with polarized (and polarizing) confirmation bias against President Trump. I had been lodged in the Trudeau camp in Canada, and despite my growing uncertainties about both Justin and Sophie, I still maintained a bias in favor of the so-called ‘progressive left’. At the time I wrote it, I believed it to be an accurate and fair assessment, a perspective rooted in my then-existing political biases and my downloading of information and perspectives communicated by Legacy Media. Not just US media, but also Canadian media, which is partially funded by the Liberal administration and, as I would find out later, quite happy to keep many pieces of key information about the Trudeaus from the Canadian public. In other words, they have their own economic reasons for fortifying our confirmation bias with respect to Trudeau and Trump.

Trump related post, first published on Facebook August 12, 2020

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1By8uw6eoU/

“This is what can happen when someone hasn’t cried since infancy. They become Donald Trump. They live from an armored heart. They are incapacitated with respect to empathy. They have no ability to form and sustain healthy bonds. They have a tendency toward misplaced aggression. They are internally (and hence externally) unstable. They have sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies. They have an egoic hole that can never be filled.

Trump boasts about his crylessness, as though it is a sign of strength, but it's not an indicator of strength. It’s an indicator of trauma. It’s an indicator of emotional illness. It’s an indicator that he was in so much pain that he had to stop feeling. In watching him, you are seeing what happens to a human being when they are frozen in time. Crying is not just necessary for healthy functioning. It’s essential for healthy development. It’s fundamental to the transition from babyhood to adulthood. He can’t act like an adult, because he hasn’t developed into one yet. He is still back there, in his cryless crib, in the repressive regime that is his inner life. All those unshed tears and unresolved wounds have congealed within, and permanently falsified his inner world. He can't feel compassion, because he can't feel his heart. It’s little wonder he lies all the time. His inner life is built on a foundation of inauthenticity. It’s all lies outside, because it’s all lies inside.

After all is said and done, we will realize that all the horrors we have seen with this man, are in direct proportion to the horror that is his inner life. He is living out his internalized pain and anger, in his outer world projections. He imagines himself strong, when in fact, he is a cowardly child. He tantrums against humanity, because he doesn’t have the egoic strength to confront his underlying trauma. And that's why he won’t wear a mask. Because his whole life is already a mask.

The sooner he goes back to his New York pentcrib, the better. And the next time you vote for a president, ask him how often he cries. And if his answer is “never”, don’t vote for him.”

When I read this piece now, I can see the confirm bias all over it. I see it in the assumption that someone not crying from infancy is “incapacitated with respect to empathy,” “has no ability to form and sustain healthy bonds,” necessarily has a “tendency toward misplaced aggression,” “are internally (and hence externally) unstable,” “have sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies,” and “have an egoic fill that can never be filled.” These may be more likely to be true if someone repressed rather than expressed their tears from early life, but they also may not be true at all. Many people have tremendous difficulty crying, and many of them function healthily in many respects. My bias—rooted in my political polarization and my personal psychotherapeutic experience with emotional release and healthier functioning—says absolutely nothing about Trump’s reality. It may well be that he actually does cry, or that his choice to not cry is rooted in any one of a number of possibilities, including the ‘tough your way through life’ mentality that is often found in men of his generation and politic. They put their feelings away to get the job done. It doesn’t make them pathological. Sometimes it keeps them alive.

In addition, I assert that all his “unshed tears and unresolved wounds have congealed within, and permanently falsified his inner world.” I can’t possibly know that they have congealed with any measure of certainty, nor can I say that his wounds and tears have permanently falsified his inner world. How on earth could I know that about a stranger from another country? And how can Mr. Clever over here know that Trump’s inner world is false? Many people voted for him because they find him far more emotionally authentic and transparent than other more ‘political’ options. Further, I contend that he lies “all the time” because “it’s all lies inside.” Is that true, or does he just believe that the political game is nothing but lies, and that the better liar wins? I don’t know the answer—and yes I am aware that he lied often before politics—but it’s clear that once you explore your own confirmation bias, a whole host of possibilities open up that make you look a lot less clever than you imagined.

Finally, I say that “the next time you vote for a president, ask him how often he cries. And if his answer is “never”, don’t vote for him.” And yet, I can imagine many contexts when it might well serve a Commander-in-Chief to remain tight as a drum, delaying his tears until some date long in the future. Trudeau cried all the time. I definitely wouldn’t want him running the free world.

I could go on, but I think you get my point. If I wrote this now, I would write it in a much more humble, balanced way.

______________________________________________

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.” ~Rumi

______________________________________________

During the Canadian election in September 2019, I had been sending occasional electoral ideas through Sophie Trudeau for the Prime Minister’s Office. Despite my growing uncertainties about both Trudeaus, I really wanted the liberals to win again and to ensure that those presumably evil Conservatives didn’t rise to power (of course, I knew nothing about those Conservatives. I was riddled with confirm bias.) I had heard through the Canadian media that the Conservative candidate had some Trumpians on his team, and we had to stop him! In addition, I was getting to know the political world on a more grass-roots level, delivering flyers (with my far more able helper- ‘Code name: Pumpkin Neighbor Lady’) for the local candidate and dropping pizzas off at the campaign office.

At some point, I wrote the following comment on Trudeau’s Facebook page. The comment was met with a strongly affirming response from his followers:

“It is entirely evident from the amazing work you have done to promote racial, ethnic, and gender equality, that you have progressed and evolved into a person of great compassion, sensitivity, and service. This is all we can ask of anyone, living in a human body in this challenging world. That they reflect on their choices, and their actions, and learn as they go. I don’t know a single person who wasn’t doing or saying things twenty years ago, that are no longer acceptable. Our cultural consciousness has shifted rapidly, and sometimes it is hard to keep up. We have to be compassionate towards ourselves and each other, as we endeavor to evolve and shift our patterning. All we can do is our best—as you have done—to keep growing and evolving beyond our cultural context and personal conditioning. I still catch myself using words that are no longer acceptable because this is what I grew up with and what feels familiar. And I know dozens of people who do the same thing. We’re human after all. As are you. You are very honest about your humanness, and about your desire to evolve, and that is a great comfort to me. The last thing we need is a Prime Minister who pretends he is perfect. We need one who acknowledges his mistakes, and models self-improvement for all of us. That person is you. You care deeply about humanity, and you reflect sincerely on your actions. You choose forward by choosing to become a better person as you age. I choose forward, too. You have my vote.”

I now read this, and it is entirely evident that I was completely flooded with confirmation bias. It’s apparent in the excuse-making, dramatic language {(“It is entirely evident… you have progressed and evolved into a person of great compassion, sensitivity, and service… We need one who acknowledges his mistakes, and models self-improvement for all of us. That person is you.”), projections and assumptions (“All we can do is our best—as you have done—to keep growing and evolving beyond our cultural context and personal conditioning”, “You are very honest about your humanness, and about your desire to evolve, and that is a great comfort to me.” “You care deeply about humanity, and you reflect sincerely on your actions. You choose forward by choosing to become a better person as you age.”)}

Look at how I gave Justin the benefit of a doubt, but didn’t give an inch with Trump. Now, if I was utterly certain that my opinions of both were entirely correct, there is no issue. In that case, there’s no confirmation bias to look at. But I wasn’t really that certain. Sure, these views were fair assessments based on various legacy media assertions, but not fair assessments based on anything truly objective. They were a figment of my rather intense imagination, one that had been actively polarized by some combination of my own Trudeau bias and the subsequent consolidation of that polarized lens in social media. In other words, I saw Trump as the “rock” and Trudeau as the “heart place”—and the latter was confirmed, despite knowing nothing about either of them from direct personal experience.

______________________________________________

The question that will save the species isn't always who is right. The question that will save the species is how are we being polarized in our consciousness and unable to embrace nuance and a more sophisticated view of reality.

______________________________________________

BECOMING UNPOLARIZABLE

(1) One of the things that can help with remembering what it was like to live without confirmation bias, is to write out something that expresses your strong views about something. It can be anything really. If nothing comes to mind, go back to my Trump and/or Trudeau writings above. Sit with a piece and feel into how you are responding to it. Are you angry at me, or are you not? Does it resonate with your beliefs, or does it not? Either way, begin to imagine bringing other perspectives to bear. Don’t feel threatened by them—nobody is taking away your views. Perhaps engage an empathic process and imagine yourself as someone who sees things differently. Feel any resistance and push forward. Think about how the piece would look from their perspective. Perhaps do some research that confirms or denies the veracity of various contentions. Try to prove yourself right and try to prove yourself wrong. Perhaps give voice to parts of you that pipe up with another view. Perhaps even re-write what you or I wrote, in a way that confirms your view or that reflects a much broader lens. It may well be that you do not have confirmation bias obscuring your clarity. If so, that’s great. But if you might be, grant yourself permission to have an experience, however uncomfortable, of what it would feel like to approach an issue or a perception without it. And make this explorative practice a regular one;

(2) If you can find someone to meet with one-on-one (or gather as a group) who is interested in exploring these questions, sit together and share differing views of whatever subject you see differently. Don’t engage in a heated debate. Let each person share their view for an agreed upon period of time. And then let each person reflect back what they heard for an agreed upon period of time. If it feels safe to engage in a productive discussion thereafter, do so. But don’t make that the point of the whole exercise. The important thing is to give yourself an opportunity to listen to something inimical to your bias, and to actually reflect that view back. One of the great challenges in these polarizing times is to sit with an alternate view for even a few minutes. Try to sit with it and reflect on it for as long as possible. Try to find that centered place that holds nuance and complexity, and allows for the possibility that whatever they shared with you holds value;

(3) Spend time with some legacy media articles. Take them in and then explore the very real possibility that they are riddled with confirmation bias. Ask questions, make notes, clarify for yourself where the bias may lie. One of the things that I have learnt, especially in Canada, is that there are only a few investigative journalists left. As a result, there really is nobody out there digging into details to confirm their veracity. So, become that person. Become someone who thinks like a true investigative journalist and knows that there is always another perspective worth exploring. Investigate the message and investigate the messenger until you are clear as to how you really feel about the view they shared;

(4) Give yourself permission to disentangle from social media for sustained periods of time. If you can’t help yourself, or your work requires it, try to engage in the most unbiased manner possible. For example, share your view in a post, remind your followers that abuse is not tolerated (God bless the block button), and engage in real inquiries into their perspectives. Model the quest for an inclusive consciousness with them. And allow for the possibility that their insights and wisdom will broaden your lens. Perhaps even create social media groups that are dedicated to de-polarizing consciousness with respect to the issues that matter to you. Invite everyone’s views to the table and explore various ways of relating that de-polarize your individual and shared consciousness;

(5) As I learned from my political experience, there are so many layers of truth (and influence) happening above and beyond the presentation. Just when you think you know who’s in charge, you find out that you were entirely wrong. In my view, the lesson from this and the whole question of confirmation bias, is to learn to live in the “not knowing.” This is precisely what the power-brokers don’t want and precisely what we need. The not-knowing keeps us curious. It keeps us from believing the lie that polarizes us. And it keeps us earnestly searching for the truths that are always lurking behind the veils.

Finally, keep these questions at the forefront of consciousness: Where does my certainty of perspective come from? Is it grounded in reality, or is it forged in the fires of polarity? What do I really know? What do I really not know?

Blessings always, Jeff