Bias and Stereotype

Every author has a point of view, but an author is demonstrating a bias when they ignore reasonable counter-arguments or when they distort opposing viewpoints. This bias is evident whenever the author is unfair or inaccurate in this presentation. That pretty much sums up what a bias is. It’s when the author is unfair or inaccurate.

So, like I said a minute ago, every author is going to have a point of view, but sometimes an author takes that point of view too far and undermines an opposing argument or is inaccurate in portraying the other argument. And so when that happens, the author is demonstrating a bias.

Now an author may use a bias intentionally or unintentionally, but either way, it should always alert the reader to be skeptical of the argument being made. So that’s an important point to make, and an important thing to remember: that an author may promote a bias intentionally or unintentionally, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter because either way the author is using a bias and that’s something that needs to be corrected. Now it should be noted that a biased author may still be correct. However, the author will be correct in spite of his or her bias, not because of it. So that’s another important thing to remember: that an author may still be correct, even if they do have a bias. However, the fact that the author is correct does not justify the use of that bias.

Now, many people are familiar with some of the hateful stereotypes of certain ethnic, religious, or cultural groups, and so you’re probably familiar with what the idea of a stereotype is because it’s like a bias except that it is specifically applied to a group or place. And so stereotypes are considered particularly distasteful because they promote negative generalizations. And any time an author uses a stereotype it reveals ignorance on their part and a lack of curiosity, so readers should be very suspicious of authors who stereotype. And so again it reveals ignorance or lack of curiosity. And so again, a stereotype is like a bias except it is specifically applied to a group or place.

So basically an author maybe looks at a group of people and sees something that they perceive to most of the time to be true or is often true and they make a generalization and apply it to the whole group, and generally it’s going to be something negative, and generally it’s something that’s hateful towards that group. And it indicates a lack of curiosity, and you want a writer to have curiosity so that they are exploring all sides of an argument. And then again a bias is when an author ignores reasonable counter-arguments or distorts opposing viewpoints. And because of that, the author ends up being unfair or inaccurate.

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