Emily Nguyen, Week #4: Obviously, it’s gotta be cantaloupe.
Back in middle school, my friend group conducted a school-wide (well, not really schoolwide; you bloggers would’ve heard of it then) survey amongst both students and faculty on the topic of our heated debate over the best melon species: cantaloupe, honeydew, or watermelon. Our squad of surveyors would disperse throughout the day, over the period of a week, and collect information from our classmates and teachers regarding their opinion on the melons.
Melons…are an easily approachable subject. There were some alarming people out there who did not know what honeydew or cantaloupe were—but it added to the depth of the answers as watermelon turned out to be the most popular melon. I, of course, was devastated. Because cantaloupe is obviously the best thing to have ever been cultivated by humans.
But maybe we—my middle-school-aged friends and myself—did not understand the true workings of bias.
I think about bias on a daily basis ever since rewatching Hunter x Hunter (2011) back in July. Highly intelligent people, especially those who excel at strategy games akin to chess, are exceptional detectors of bias—according to the series (it’s attributed to great pattern-recognition skills). The unconscious bias that all humans naturally hold ever so slightly nudges people to act or think a certain way, and this bias is an opening which can be recognized and exploited by an opponent.
But in the context of melon surveying, one’s own judgement of the melon’s sole utility in human lives as an object of consumption (the taste), is immediately the deciding factor in determining what the best melon is. This is an obvious case of bias, because your biased answer is all that matters in a survey like this. Its what compels you to choose something lurid like honeydew over cantaloupe. However, notice how I never asked about what YOU preferred? The question of the survey was to identify the best melon type—not what you thought of its flavor or likability. There are dozens of other factors in what “best” encapsulates. But the presence of bias changes the question in your head; your mind transfixes on a question pertaining to your opinion.
The bias you carry throughout the workings of your life—as you’re reading “incredulous” news, complaining about the unfairness of coursework, judging others—its all rooted in that preliminary, unconscious inclination to act the way you do as a result of the identity you’ve built through living your life. Image source: http://homenaturalcures.com/. I didn't want to obstruct my nice caption with a link right next to it.
Emily, first off, I want to start by agreeing with you that cantaloupe is by far superior to watermelon. I also love how you tied a survey you conducted years ago to such a prevalent topic in all our lives today. The way you explain how innate biases are in all our thought processes by giving an example and then explaining really helped me understand what you were trying to say. You emphasizing the difference between the question of which one people prefer versus which one is better does an incredible job of proving your point of how easily our brains switch to thinking about ourselves. The structure of this post really helps draw people in and then very naturally switch to talking about how this relates to a person’s identity.
ReplyDeleteYour distinction between what is considered the “best” versus what is considered someone’s favorite is absolutely crucial, and it’s a real pet peeve of mine when people get them confused. Your specific mention of criteria for the “best” containing dozens of factors is especially important; for example (and I’m very passionate about this), people tend to argue over what the “best” fruit is simply by its taste—fruits like the strawberry, mango, and of course, the cantaloupe are all brought into discussion. In fact, the other day, my father proclaimed the mango as the “King of Fruits.”
ReplyDeleteYet, for me, the actual “best” fruit is the humble coconut. I don’t just say this because I’m from Kerala (a state with a cuisine notorious for putting coconut in literally everything), but because it has a wide variety of uses that make it a highly reliable product. It can be eaten as fruit, made into oil for cooking and hygiene, and drunk as coconut water. It’s been used as a firewood substitute and fuel, and its fibers have even been used to create ropes. I say all this not because I love the taste of coconut (although I do), but because numerous other factors make it an incredibly important fruit, similar to how anything being considered the “best” isn’t necessarily a product of it being the most favored, but also the most useful and beneficial.
Emily, HECKKK YEAHHHHH I LOVE CANTALOUPE! I don't know if I'd agree with it being better than watermelon though...
ReplyDeleteI do feel like I sort of, not entirely, remember this survey, but I don't know if my brain is making that up. I enjoyed reading the various styles of punctuation as I felt it allowed me to hear, rather than just read, your blog—specifically the "YOU." Additionally, bolding "bias" was a choice that helped me understand what your text was focusing on, and bolding in general is something I want to incorporate in my own blogs, so I guess thank you for the inspiration! I also feel your mention of varying definitions of "best" is notable because it truly is such a vague word that can hold so many different meanings. I feel like overall this was an extremely informative blog woven into the context of a melon survey, creating an extremely fun read.