Media Bias ~ The Left Brain’s Domain

Is it just me, or have you noticed that most claims of bias seem to be coming from the conservative camp? If so, that would make sense in terms of the way the split brain processes information. 

The left brain gives us the details, so it is naturally focused on the finer points of where a speaker might be positioned on the conservative-liberal continuum .

The left brain, conservative in nature, is also in charge of our security, including that of our beliefs, so its job is to challenge assertions and fight for what it believes.

A liberal bias to the news is or can be viewed as destructive to conservative values and therefore, from a left-brain perspective, becomes a matter worthy of war, a war of words, a war of ideology. In those with insufficient self-control, this perceived threat can even lead to physical acts of violence. (Force is a response of the control-oriented left brain). 

Lastly, let me remind you that liberals have a conservative brain advising them, just as conservatives receive advice from their liberal brain. As a result, conservatives will sometimes act based on liberal values, and liberals will act conservatively.

Thus, we find liberals who exhibit the characteristics that I have here assigned to conservatives.  For example, although I don’t expressly remember ever hearing a liberal commentator state that the media is biased in favor of conservatives, I’m sure there must be those who think that. And in fact, I’m one of them.

Since our idea of bias depends on where we are positioned—our perspective—we can’t really eliminate it.  What we can do is consciously engage in whole-brain thinking. We can understand that we have three perspectives—a conservative perspective, a liberal perspective, and an integrated perspective—and work to better understand them.

We especially need to develop our non-dominant perspective, the one we tend to ignore as a result of our focus on our dominant perspective.  This is why I wrote The Whole-Brain Path to Peace.