We may live in the same country, the same city, or even under the same roof, but we live in different realities.
—Brian McLaren, Learning How to See
CAC faculty member Brian McLaren is concerned about the cost of our increasingly limited ability to see beyond our religious or political points of view.
Over the last decade, I have felt increasingly alarmed about the vitriol, distrust, and destructive miscommunication that are tearing people apart everywhere I turn … in nations, in religious communities, in businesses, in non-profit organizations, in friendships, even in families.
On social media, name-calling, misinformation, and propaganda squeeze out intelligent, honest, respectful conversation. In the mass media, accusations of “fake news” fly in all directions, leaving people wondering who to trust. In the world of religion, shallow, mean-spirited, or profit-hungry preachers draw huge crowds week after week, and they consistently appeal, not to the better angels of human nature, but to our unspoken fears and unacknowledged prejudices.
In the world of politics, uninformed, dishonest, and manipulative candidates keep winning elections, telling people not what they need to hear, but what they want to hear. Because of our polarization and paralysis, major problems are going unresolved, which intensifies frustration on all sides, and leaves (literally) billions of us vulnerable to populist demagogues.
The social fabric seems to be stretching so tight that it might rip apart. That scares me. “What’s going on here?” I keep asking myself….
Philosopher George Lakoff challenges the mistaken idea that arose during the Enlightenment that it is possible to see issues clearly, based entirely on reason:
Enlightenment reason says everybody reasons the same way…. Enlightenment reason says that all you need to do is get the facts, and everybody will reason to the right conclusion, since everybody has the same reason. No. If they have different worldviews, they’ll reason to different conclusions. Enlightenment reason does not recognize different worldviews. Enlightenment reason doesn’t admit framing. It doesn’t admit metaphorical thought. It doesn’t admit the way people really work. [1]
McLaren describes how bias results when our worldviews become solidified:
Here’s the simple truth I began to see as I observed the decline in reasonableness, monitored the rise in dysfunctional and even dangerous discourse, and reviewed the academic literature:
People can’t see what they can’t see.
We all, yes, even me—and more shockingly, even you, have a whole set of assumptions and limitations, prejudices and preferences, likes, dislikes and triggers, fears and conflicts of interest, blind spots and obsessions that keep us from seeing what we could and would see if we didn’t have them.
We are almost always unconscious of these internal obstacles to seeing and understanding, which makes it even harder for us to address them. We are, you might say, blind to what blinds us. The name for these unconscious internal obstacles is bias.
Bias makes us resist and reject messages we should accept and accept messages we should resist and reject. In short … we can’t see what we can’t see because our biases get in the way.
References:
[1] George Lakoff, in Patt Morrison, “Linguist George Lakoff on what Democrats don’t understand—and Republicans do—about how voters think,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 28, 2018. Accessed October 1, 2025.
Brian McLaren, Why Don’t They Get It? Overcoming Bias in Others (and Yourself), rev. ed. (Self-published, 2019, 2024), 4–5, 9–10, e-book.
Image credit and inspiration: Bud Helisson, untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Brazil, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The lenses symbolize how our inherent biases—like favoring what confirms what we already believe or seeing only those like ourselves—can cloud our vision, reminding us that true clarity comes from looking again and being willing to see differently.
