On Bias and Truth in the Public Sphere

“The unceasing accusations of bias are no longer used to promote dialogue and bridge interpretive frameworks. Instead, they are used to seal ourselves off inside bubbles that allow us to preserve the integrity of our world view, free from contamination by the views of others.”

One of the major trends in contemporary discourse about the public sphere surrounds issues of bias. The usual complaint goes something like this: individuals in the public sphere, particularly in the media, are so compromised by their own biases that their facts cannot be trusted.

In the contemporary era, this trend is widely regarded as originating on the left end of the political spectrum. Left-leaning activists, allegedly inspired by relativistic post-modern philosophies, accuse their opponents of any number of different biases in their reporting of “facts” and “truth.” These biases originate in their opponent’s desire to preserve discriminatory hierarchies that benefited them. Classical liberal and conservative pundits are disparaged for their alleged “white privilege,” “misogyny,” “homophobia,” and any number of different biases which led them to misrepresent or even ignore facts as experienced by any number of marginalized peoples. This is how The New York Times can accuse Jordan Peterson of misogyny for criticizing various feminist doctrines without substantially engaging with his ideas. Or how the implicit bias of men towards supporting “the patriarchy” is reason enough to hate the entire group and largely dismiss what they say. And so on.

Unfortunately, these tactics are no longer limited to the left. Commentators from the right have gleefully lifted the technique of accusing their opponents of bias to dismiss counterclaims to the narratives of what I have elsewhere called post-modern conservatism. Dennis Prager accuses so-called left-wing media and universities of promulgating so much bias in their claims that it has propagated a crisis in American civil society. Canada’s Andrew Furey has ridiculed the left-leaning “establishment” for spreading misinformation and bias. And of course, the ultimate post-modern conservative, President Donald Trump, has famously castigated the media for its propagation of falsehoods and claimed it does not matter whether he tells the truth since “many people” felt the same way he did.