{"id":31778,"date":"2023-03-12T16:28:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T23:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31778"},"modified":"2023-03-12T16:28:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T23:28:39","slug":"living-in-harmony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/living-in-harmony\/","title":{"rendered":"Living in Harmony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sway<\/em> is a book about biases, conscious and unconscious, but mostly unconscious biases. [1] The author, Pragya Agarwal, is a woman raised in India that later immigrated to the United Kingdom. [2] Being a woman intelligent in mathematics and sciences which is often considered a man’s realm, and also a woman of color, and a woman with a foreign accent, she has faced many unconscious biases in the course of her life. [3] She writes about these and many other biases in this book.<\/p>\n

What are Biases?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biases are preconceived ideas either in favor or against a person or notion. [4] They can be positive or negative. [5] They’re not all bad. The author gave an example in a video lecture I watched on YouTube of biases parents have toward their own children. [6] Naturally they think their own children are the best at everything. It is when we have biases concerning other genders, races, people of different ages, or statuses and so on that our biases might be negative and causes problems. Some examples are like the one mentioned in the opening paragraph – that boys are better at math than girls. Being a particular gender does not make a person better or worse in any subject. That is a bias. Passing that bias on to children can be harmful to them and their academic growth.<\/p>\n

The author also referred to our biases being something that we don’t think about, but that comes naturally or quickly to us. She talked about “system 1 and system 2 thinking” and the differences between these. [7] This made me think of the book we read last semester, Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em>, by Daniel Kahneman. [8] He would say biases fall under fast thinking. [9] It’s this system 1 thinking that gets us into trouble with our biases. [10]<\/p>\n

Why Should We Worry About Biases?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some people think that if their biases are unconscious, then they are not responsible for them. [11] That is a myth. [12] We are most definitely responsible for our biases. They can turn into prejudices. And prejudices impact real people in a real world. [13]<\/p>\n

As Christians we are called to love one another as Christ has loved us. (John 13:34) [14] We are supposed to see each other through the eyes of Christ, and not through the lenses of our own biases. Christ has no biases toward people. He loves us all, though we are sinners. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) [15]<\/p>\n

What Should We Do About It?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No one wants to admit that they have a bias. It makes you look bad in the eyes of others even though they have biases too.<\/p>\n

The book and the videos that I watched stress the fact that everyone has biases. [16] No one is immune from them. No one is perfect. Therefore, we ought to all acknowledge our biases, whatever they might be, if only to ourselves. [17] Only then can we begin to work on repairing them and minimizing their effects on others around us. [18]<\/p>\n

“Live in harmony with one another.” (Romans 12:16) [19]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

[1] Agarwal, Pragya. 2020. Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias<\/i>. Bloomsbury Sigma Series. London\u202f; New York: Bloomsbury Sigma.<\/p>\n

[2] Pragya Agarwal, Waterstones, “Sway”. YouTube Video, 4:35, Link<\/a>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[3] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[4]\u00a0Pragya Agarwal, The Royal Institution, “Unraveling Unconscious Bias with Pragya Agarwal”. YouTube Video, 1:03:05, Link<\/a>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[5] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[6] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[7] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[8] Kahneman, Daniel. 2013. Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/i>. 1st pbk. ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[9] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[10]\u00a0Pragya Agarwal, The Royal Institution, “Unraveling Unconscious Bias with Pragya Agarwal”. YouTube Video, 1:03:05, Link<\/a>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[11] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[12] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[13] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[14] Crossway Bibles, ed. 2007. ESV: Study Bible: English Standard Version<\/i>. ESV text ed. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[15] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[16] Agarwal, Pragya. 2020. Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias<\/i>. Bloomsbury Sigma Series. London\u202f; New York: Bloomsbury Sigma.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[17] Pragya Agarwal, The Royal Institution, “Unraveling Unconscious Bias with Pragya Agarwal”. YouTube Video, 1:03:05, Link<\/a>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[18] Ibid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[19] Crossway Bibles, ed. 2007. ESV: Study Bible: English Standard Version<\/i>. ESV text ed. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sway is a book about biases, conscious and unconscious, but mostly unconscious biases. [1] The author, Pragya Agarwal, is a woman raised in India that later immigrated to the United Kingdom. [2] Being a woman intelligent in mathematics and sciences which is often considered a man’s realm, and also a woman of color, and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[2244,2069,2245],"class_list":["post-31778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","tag-agarwal","tag-bias","tag-sway","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31784,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31778\/revisions\/31784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}