Blindspot

One of the most difficult things to teach a new driver is the task of checking your blindspot.  All of us who have been through driver's training may or may not remember being taught this in a class or a book but I guarantee we remember that feeling in our gut when we started to change lanes and didn't notice the driver in our blindspot.  It is a similar feeling to a roller coaster dropping suddenly.  The floor gives out from under our feet and we are left having to make a sudden reaction to avoid a collision.  The funny thing about these encounters is the emotion attached to it by the driver "fooled" by their blindspot.  Instead of embarrassment or humility, we usually respond with anger towards the person in our blindspot.  We hate being fooled and the we hate, even more, being fooled by a some sort of deficiency originating from within our space.  The car is our home for much of the day, a place of safety and personal time where we directly impact our direction and speed.  If we don't want to get hit, we stop at stop signs and lights, we mostly follow the posted speeds, we wait for openings when merging.  We feel that our minds can communicate to our bodies the safest decisions to get us to our desired destination in the most efficient way.  A blindspot throws all of that out the door.  We can't see the vehicle moving at a high rate of speed, the same speed we are traveling, positioned just out of sight and it makes us mad. We have a tendency to believe what we hear or see.  At least for the first few moments, we suspend disbelief and take in a piece of information and believe it to be true.  Our rational minds may then go to work to prove or disprove what we are seeing or hearing but there is a moment that our understanding is fact.  Just like when we glance in the rearview mirror, put on our blinker and change lanes, we believe that the adjacent lane is free of travelers because we saw it in that way.  Our minds don't naturally receive what we see, as false.  We are confident that what we saw or have heard is true.  The car, traveling nearly beside us, is a harsh awakening to our limited understanding of the reality of things.

Social Blindspot

There is quite  a bit of research in the field of Psychology on this subject of Social Bias.  Most people wouldn't debate the fact that we all carry some form of bias into our social interactions.  We all have lived different lives in different places and it does impact the way that we believe.  Research shows that even though we are aware that we are directly impacted by these ways of thinking, we think we are impacted to a lesser degree than everyone else.  So when we form an opinion about civil rights infractions, the gay marriage debate, the refugee crisis, etc, we think we have reasoned our response better than other Americans.  This is a potentially dangerous finding.  We aren't seeing clearly but we think our view is clear enough to change lanes.

One article I read on the topic by Nathan A Heflick PhD, discusses the issue of "The Bias Blindspot".  He discusses the issue of gun control in our country.  Everyone comes to the discussion with some sort of bias.  There is research on both sides of the debate that could be convincing, but for the most part we will only validate the research that agrees with our position.  No matter what we see, we refuse to change our minds.  To take it further, studies found that the more convinced that we were seeing things correctly and were not operating out of bias, the more likely we are to settle the conflict with some violent means.  I thought it was fascinating that the likelihood of whether or not you would defend your belief with violence had less to do with your position than how you held that position.

At the end of the article, Heflick says,

"I think it is essential to solving social problems to realize this bias to think we are not biased exists, because if we do not, it is like both sides of an issue are banging their heads against the wall. They think we are just as insane as we think they are. But, I imagine, with effort we can all try and undo this tendency and try and be less biased than we are." 

In my opinion, the majority of the responsibility for erasing social bias must fall on those who hold most of the power.  The reason that you have a blind spot when you are driving down the highway, is because you are ahead of the vehicle to your right.  Socially speaking, it is similar.  When you hold more power, i.e. "White Privilege", it is difficult to see clearly those who are behind you.  Heflick says that we have to follow the studies and the research.  We can't even rely on our emotions.  If we have an angry response to the notion of "White Privilege" we may have our social vision obscured by a blindspot.  If our response to "Black Lives Matter" is "All Lives Matter" or "Blue Lives Matter" it is further evidence that our bias is preventing us from seeing another person's perspective.  "White Privilege" has been in the passing lane, zooming past the disenfranchised for far too long.  It is difficult to realize that our careless lane change could cause a collision.

Blindspots in Faith

In the same way that we can socially be blind to another perspective, we have a long history of this problem in religion.  We have beliefs that we hold to that we were taught when we were young or vulnerable, not that that is a bad thing, and we have a hard time seeing in a different way.  It's like seeing a pig and being told to believe that pink pig is purple.  Everything in what we have understood about pigs and the color pink tell us that pig is pink.  We have to discount our own eyes and the way that we process information to be able to believe that in some way that pig may be purple.  So maybe that is a ridiculous example so let me make it more real.

For centuries, people read scripture and were convinced that slavery is endorsed by God.  Even within the New Testament we have scriptures that outline the way that a slave and his master should treat one another.  While this was progressive for its time, it still fell well short of prophetically speaking out about owning another human being.  If you hold to the belief that scripture is merely a historical document, a blueprint for the way that we interact with one another, then that scripture is going to be a challenge.  Something has to give, either you change the way that you view scripture and free the people you have "owned", or you stick with your view of scripture and justify slavery.  Because of the bias of the people who ruled and those who were in charge of publicly interpreting scripture, and the fact that many of them owned slaves, the literal an immovable reading of scripture prevailed.  They had a major bias that they believed with such veracity that the violently opposed those who would challenge it.

This is in our recent history, friends.  This isn't some distant past that we have been able to overcome through a growing rational mind.  We still think in this way.  We are still impacted by limited objectivity.  You are biased.  The things you believe about faith and scripture, society and culture, are deeply imbedded in your core.  Some people will never allow some new piece of information, evidence or testimony to impact them.  These are usually the places that violence originates from.  Let's agree to not be like that.  What if we limited the things that we believed to a few "essentials"?  What if we took the testimony from those who suffered under "white privilege", gun violence, the stealing of ancient ceremonial land, bombs from an invading army, ruthless bullying because of sexual identity, what if we took these things and gave them the same value as we do our biases?  Maybe we won't change our minds.  Maybe we will still feel the same way as we always did, for now.  I'm certain that we will at least be more likely to respond to a human being that thinks differently than us with more grace and humility.  I'd say that is at least a good start.