Perception

"The virtue in most demand is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. Conformity loves not realities and creators, but names and customs."—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The perception of reality is more real than reality itself."—Unknown

"A difference that makes no difference is no difference."—Lieutenant Spock

"The medium is the message."—Marshall McLuhan, speaking of television.

"The facts are easy.  The truth is a lot harder to come by."—Paul Newman to Sally Field, Absence of Malice.

Objectivity

"In a petitioning prayer we may ask for anything, even something as mundane as moving a mountain, provided we faithfully defer to God's will: 'Thy will be done' means 'rather than mine.'  The religious maintain that when we sincerely renounce our preference, saying instead to God, 'I want this, but even more I want whatever you prefer,' then our prayer is more likely to be fulfilled. In other words, objectivity enhances corroboration."

"The objective scientist is just as faithful when he says, 'I want the experiment to come out a certain way, but even more than that, I want to know how Nature would have it come out.' And so he suspends his conviction in his preconception by being objective. Both the faithful religious and the objective scientist remove from the actualization of their desires the barrier of their presumed autonomy, the presumed distance between themselves and the object of their desire. This objectivity, this faith, may make it more likely, not less, that the expectation will be realized. Again, in the language of traditional science we would say that objectivity enhances corroboration."

from "Is Objectivity Faith?" © 1997 Bill McKee.

Racial Profiling

The New York Times
 June 3, 2001

A federal judge has officially placed the Los Angeles Police Department under a sweeping federal consent degree, a portion of which requires officers to record what they perceive is the race, ethnicity or national origin of each driver they stop—without asking a direct question.

Arguing that Los Angeles was too ethnically and racially diverse to ever make sense of such information, both the police department and the city strongly resisted the data collection section of the decree. "How are officers going to guess what background people like me come from?" asks Raquelle de la Rocha, president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Ms. de la Rocha, the child of a Mexican father and a Filipino mother, is particularly offended by the notion that police officers will be guessing the racial and ethnic origins of each citizen they stop.

"With all the racially mixed people in L.A., and Latinos coming in all shades, the data will be garbage in, garbage out," she says.

But the Department of Justice—as well as the many police departments that have voluntarily begun to collect racial data—all agree that having officers explicitly asking people their racial background would only worsen tensions between the police and the communities they serve. Furthermore, say experts on racial monitoring, the purpose of such data gathering is not to find out the drivers' actual backgrounds, but to record the police officers' perceptions of them. "We're not trying to get at truth, we're trying to get at bias," says Margo J. Schlanger, who teaches at Harvard Law School.

What, pray tell, is to prevent police officers from biasing the results, to where no evidence of bias exists?  This is not to say there is not police bias toward the young and particularly toward young black males, but how on earth can an objective observation of it be made by police officers guessing at and noting race and ethnicity? What is to prevent them from disguising bias?  No, no, Ms. Schlanger!  You are looking for the TRUTH about bias, but you won't find it this way.

War Protest

War protestors have a mixed bag of perceptions, but fundamental to most of them is:

• George W. Bush is a liar;

• He is avenging his father's failure to remove Saddam Hussein;

• We are going to war to get the oil;

• Osama Bin Laden should be our primary target;

• There is no connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorist organizations;

• Inspections are working.  Give them a chance.

• America is a bully.

These perceptions don't appear to be based on direct or even circumstantial evidence, but on the illusive solidity of personal convictions, mistrust of authority and the anecdotal assurance of the like-minded.  Little in the way of objectivity seems to be applied.  It seems more to be a matter of choosing sides.

Strength of conviction is not necessarily a bad thing, except when it blinders us to the objective truth.  Mistrust of authority is not necessarily a bad thing, except as it breeds extreme negativity and lack of faith.  Anecdotal assurance of the like-minded is not necessarily a bad thing, except as it creates false positivity.  In reality, blindness and polarity lead mostly to tragic error!

Education and Capability

In the early '90s, I attended an informational public hearing on the then relatively new jurisdictional wetlands regulations.  At the podium and speaker's table were the Environmental Protection Agency, Soil Conservation Service, Army Corps of Engineers and local politicians.  The audience was a mixed bag of professionals, farmers and activists.  The farmers were particularly interested because pond building was going to be a part of the permitting process.  Many of the farmers depended on irrigation from farm ponds to make a crop.

After a thorough, involved (and soporific) explanation from the various authorities, a Q and A session began.  It became immediately apparent that the farmers were irate over the burdensome and time-consuming process of obtaining a permit for a pond.  One old farmer had some particularly pithy comments.

He came up to the microphone and looked up on the stage at the assembled dignitaries.  He raised his arm, waving it back and forth with his index finger extended, sweeping the entire assemblage.

"Now all of you people...," He paused.

"All of you people are educated FAAARRR beyond your capabilities!"

I didn't hear the rest of what he wanted to say, nor did anyone else, as most of the audience collapsed in helpless laughter. 

The Teddy Bear

Why is she there?  Well, it's because her head is stuffed with sawdust and she cannot sit up by herself without someone propping her up.  I placed her there as a reminder.  We are better than that bear, I just know it.

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© Philip E. Hodgkins, 2003