We aren’t really the very rational, objective creatures so many of us academics profess to be. You think only subjective emotions lead us astray? You think we don’t have what I’ll call “cognitive biases?” Think again. Those biases are called “labels,” “stereotypes,” “generalizations,” “perceptions,” “presumptions,” “expectations.” And, those cognitive biases routinely impose barriers and imprison. Those cognitive biases continually steer us wrong. Don’t believe me? Read some of the stuff by Harvard’s Ellen Langer. In a recent NY Times article, as well as in many of her other publication, this preeminent psychologist argued that people are trained not to think and are thus extremely vulnerable to right-sounding, emotionally satisfying, but actually wrong notions. “They’re just not there,” as she puts it. The bottom line is that when you’re not there, Langer reasoned, you’re very likely to end up wherever you’re “mindlessly led by the label.” And so, she went on to say, people, academics included, are also spectacularly inattentive to what’s going on around them. It’s an inattentiveness that makes them mindless; and that mindlessness, in turn, makes us indifferent. And, that indifference doesn’t allow us to see much, listen much, reach out much, touch much, much less welcome and embrace. We’re indifferent to those in whom we don’t believe can make a positive difference, and blame them for our ineffectiveness. They’re those “don’t belongs,” those “they’re letting anyone in.”
BELIEVING IS SEEING, II
But, that probably scares a lot of us academics who put themselves above the sordid fray of the “real world.” We don’t like being called “biased.” We don’t like being placed among the “mindless.” After all, we’re intellectuals; we tout ourselves as objective, apart from the brutishness outside the Ivory Tower . But, we’re not as clear sighted and sure sighted as we make ourselves out to be. Those sorting out labels give us a predisposition of believing who are the academic brahmins we see, who is worthy of our efforts, for whom we have the time, who we want in our classes, and on whom we lay doting wreaths of praise. Those caste-creating categories make us susceptible to the beliefs of who is an untouchable “waste of our valuable time,” who should go unseen, whom we should ignore, to whom we should be indifferent, and whom we should weed out. But, as Ellen Langer said, “the observer affects the observed.” Let me put it this way, what you believe about yourself and others you will see; what you believe and see, you will feel; and what you feel, you will live; and what you live, you will do. Think about how we have an easy time of carving our assumptions about students and ourselves into stone. Think about the fact that you can only ignore someone you don’t believe is worthy, valuable, sacred, and noble; but, you can’t ever take your mind and heart off, even for a second, those of whom you’re mindful, from the ones you see, from the ones you value and deem worthy of your time and effort.
I know personally what Maya Angelou meant when she said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I was once among Adelphi College’s academic untouchables until Dr. Birdsal Viault took me under his wing and treated me feel like an academic brahmin. As he did, it scared me. I initially recoiled. The shadows were far more friendly where no one would see my weakened self-confidence and low self-esteem. I saw no reason why he believed in me. Certainly, not from my dismal GPA by which all others professors judged me. There were times he got disappointed, frustrated, even angry, but in spite of my resistance and reluctance, he wouldn’t throw up his hands and let go. To this day, I remember a gnawing with in me, of being forced to ask myself fearfully over and over and over again, almost every day, “Why does he believe in me? I don’t? What does he see in me that I don’t?” And, as he and I discussed answers to those questions almost every day in his office, I slowly began to move from disbelieve to belief, and then I began to see. From academic untouchable to academic brahmin: “The observer affects the observed.” Ultimately, I would say each day I walked into class, “If me, why not others.” I repeat: what you believe about yourself and others, you will see; what you believe and see, you will feel; and what you feel, you will live; and what you live, you will do.
The real challenge is opening our eyes to the good news: “Thar’s gold in them that hills,” and seeing the possibilities within us and others. So, let me pose a question or two or three. If the science has proven changes in the ways which we view ourselves and the world around us–what we believe and therefore see, feel, live, and do–in fact, alters our lives and our experiences dramatically, what would happen if we have the courage and strength to change our beliefs and see differently? What would happen if we supported and encouraged, instead of fearing and castigating, those who are struggling to make those changes? What would happen if we discarded these biases of limiting, demeaning, belittling, caste-creating labels and presumptions? What would happen if we changed our language? What would happen if the most important words in our new vocabulary were “sacred,” “noble,” “unique,” “respect,” “invaluable,” “faith,” “hope,” “human being,” and, above all, “love?”
Louis