| Chapter Introduction: | Introduction to the Handbook on Prejudice |
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how to embrace one's bias in terms of tradition and heritage as the rich potential for a historically reflexive cultural identity.
Other interesting ways to approach this phenomenon lie in the theories of the philosopher Michel Polanyi, who coined the term tacit knowledge, and the therapist and theologian Dietrich Ritschl, who speaks of “implicit axioms” which guide our actions and understanding without becoming themselves the focus of attention and reflection (A. Assmann 1990). Much earlier, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Romantic poet William Wordsworth developed a theory of social and emotional “habits” which he wanted to ingrain into individuals to preserve and transmit human values in an age of mechanical capitalism. These various concepts all rely on the fact that important functions of channelling our perceptions, steering our impulses, and directing our responses can be fulfilled only if they are embodied and not part of our conscious mind-set.
To sum up: bias stands here for two different universal principles that are often conflated with prejudice, though they are clearly distinct from it. The first is that humans are partisans of their respective origins, backgrounds, traditions. As there is no neutral stance, we are, whether we acknowledge it or not, always already defined by our backgrounds, group memberships, and basic categories such as gender, race, class, and nation. We are all participants, members of groups, and the bearers of avowed or hidden loyalties. “As partisans of our own life we cannot help thinking in a partisan manner…Such partisan thinking is entirely natural, for our job in this world is to live in an integrated way as value-seekers” (Allport 2000, 30). What the stereotype is for human cognition, bias is for human feelings and the basics of social orientation. The second universal principle active in bias has to do with the building up of continuity. Humans are path-dependent in their decision-making; they abide by earlier decisions and tend to invest more into what they have already invested in.4 If bias is fortified beyond these contexts, it can become the basis of something severely limiting, distorting, insidious, and dangerous. This is why we must now move from stereotype and bias to prejudice.