Avoiding Bias as a Stoic
The Female Stoic Podcast - LIVE TRANSCRIPT
The focus of today's podcast is understanding the importance of objectivity when interacting with others, and also, ourselves.
Today’s novel is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. It has an original narrative style. One based on biased accounts of two characters: Mr Lockwood and Nelly Dean.
Rather than the Omniscient narration of say, Shirley by Charlotte Bronte where a 3rd person narrator sees all and knows all,
or the epistolary narration in the Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë – the narration related through letters or journal
entries - this is a complex dual-narrative structure with two main narrators who are both often unreliable: Mr. Lockwood and
Nelly Dean.
And I think in part this is why I struggled with the book.
So let's look at Wuthering Heights as an example of bias in a narrator's voice.
If you don’t know the story – look out for my audiobook and
Free Tracks on InsightTimer
So, Heathcliff was a poor orphan who was adopted and raised as one of the Earnshaw family alongside Cathy the daughter and Hindley the son. But this led to misfortune, hatred, and tragedy. Hindley the natural son is initially jealous of Heathcliff. His resentment turns to hatred, and after his parents’ death he descends into alcoholism and gambling, which leads to the ruin of his family's wealth. Cathy has a deep and passionate love for Heathcliff. However, she marries Edgar Linton for social status, which leads to a lifetime of regret for both herself and Heathcliff. When eventually Hindley dies, Heathcliff takes over Wuthering Heights and keeps his son Hareton as an uneducated servant, despite his rightful claim to the estate. The novel concludes with the hope of a brighter future for Hareton, as he begins to learn and falls in love with Cathy’s daughter Catherine Linton.
So, Wuthering Heights represents the decline of family, fortune, and peace due to the destructive and revenge-fuelled feud driven by Heathcliff.
Let’s look at Nelly Dean
She is characterised as a compassionate and loyal servant who acts as the novel's primary narrator, though her deep emotional involvement with the characters makes her an unreliable narrator. She is a caretaker figure to the younger generation but intervenes continually through her strong opinions, especially her eventual dislike for Heathcliff. These influence her storytelling. Ultimately, she is a complex character who is both a participant in the story and its biased interpreter.
What does Nelly represent in Wuthering Heights?
Nelly represents responsibility and sensibility. She is often the only source of stability and guidance in a story filled with destructive and neglectful parents. She tries to act as a voice of reason. But she exaggerates events for dramatic effect and presents her own interpretations as fact, making her a biased and unreliable source of information. Some critics argue her interventions even worsen situations.
Nelly is characterised by a romantic disposition and emotional involvement in the story. She uses drama and emotion in her narration, sometimes in an attempt to influence the reader's perception of events and characters. Her lifelong service to both the Earnshaw and Linton families fosters a deep loyalty to them. And this loyalty, combined with her strong opinions, shapes how she tells the story, often favouring the characters she likes.
Heathcliff has a bad tendency of revealing his entire plans to Nelly, who conveniently both hears and remembers everything he says to recite it to Lockwood. This is the kind of behaviour we would expect from a cartoon – the villain being Heathcliff, the side kick being Nelly. Throughout the novel, she seems to drop in and out of love with each and every character, and her actions reflect this.
But trouble me with no more secrets: I'll not promise to keep them she says to Cathy. This rigid stance is often seen as unfeeling and potentially spiteful, given the intimate nature of the secrets Catherine shares.
Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The world is surely not worth living in now, is it? she says to Heathcliff. This is a harsh, possibly spiteful, comment in his time of grief.
Nelly is generally a pretty hypocritical person, and I don't think we as the reader are meant to doubt that Heathcliff did any of the things Nelly says he did, but as for how transparent he was with it, I think we are supposed to notice this odd dialogue and bring into question the truthfulness of her account. She subverts the conventional trustworthy narrator type. This only adds to the chaos, which for me, also adds confusion. It is good to have at least one voice you can rely on in a narrative. And in Wuthering Heights, there is none. Many accounts are given at a time, and always through the filter of a character's opinions and biases. It is undeniable that Heathcliff is a dark character. But how dark his intention really is, is difficult to decipher through Nelly’s words alone. Through Mr Lockwood’s accounts we see bitterness and a hardness in Heathcliff, but I felt there was so much more to the character that I would have liked to be explored.
I found this dual narrative style confusing , disjointed and untrustworthy.
So what lessons can we take from this? - To stand back to try to maintain objectivity
To remain unbiased as a Stoic involves cultivating clarity of perception, managing our emotional responses, and using reason to focus on facts and the common good. It's about minimizing the impact of personal biases and external opinions on one's inner peace and actions.
We are often in our daily experiences submerged in the chaos of external situations – chaos created by others.
It is important we understand, bias often stems from a desire to control or change external realities. If we favour for example, one child’s voice over another, we are negating the value of a voice which is both relevant and of equal value, whether we agree with it or not.
The Discipline of Assent (Managing Impressions):
We must be highly aware of our initial impressions and judgments about events. We must remember, events themselves are neutral. It is our judgments about them that can create and exacerbate emotional turmoil and bias.
Obviously, this is a narrative. But as with all narratives, this is an observation of human behaviour. And this is why we read.
This is Literary empowerment.
So, what should we, as stoics, do when called to relate the particulars of an occurrence, or intervene?
We should practice stepping back, pausing, and asking ourselves "Is this a fact, or is this my opinion/bias?
As I say each week, The Power is in the Pause.
Use Reason and Logic: Actively employ logic to guide your thoughts and actions, as emotions can cloud judgment and introduce bias. Strive to be a sound, balanced, and objective thinker by seeking evidence and understanding the interconnected nature of situations.
Seek Different Perspectives: An unbiased person seeks to understand different viewpoints and is open to changing their opinion based on new information. Avoid becoming so firmly rooted in one position that you alienate yourself from an evolving understanding.
Focus on Virtue and the Common Good: Ensure your actions are guided by the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, and self-discipline. Acting for the common good naturally moves you beyond narrow personal bias, encouraging fair treatment and ethical behaviour toward all people.
Cultivate Emotional Resilience: Stoicism is not about eliminating emotions, but "domesticating" them and not letting them control your actions. A calm mind helps you make better, less biased decisions and respond with composure rather than reactivity.
Rationality, characterized by logical thinking and decision-making grounded in reason rather than emotion, is a valuable skill to cultivate. Often in our younger years, we may be inclined to yield to irrational impulses, but with maturity and accrued wisdom, we can progressively hone our logical thinking abilities. Individuals who demonstrate rational thinking tend to be forward-looking, and prepare for various outcomes, as opposed to their irrational counterparts who are more prone to impulsive reactions and externalising blame.
While formal education plays a crucial role in fostering rational thinking, the journey to achieving genuine rationality is available to us all. And this is echoed in the principles of Stoicism, which highlight the importance of the protection of our inner peace by acting as a result of informed decision, rather than emotional reaction.
And of course, Practice Self-Reflection:
Which leads us to our journal task for today:
In order to regularly assess our actions and decisions, we can adopt the use of daily journaling or reflection. This helps us identify ingrained biases and emotional triggers, and allows continuous improvement and alignment with our inner virtue.
Rationality is about making choices based on logic. It's about thinking about the long-term effects, other people's views, and what is right or wrong. It also means being open to new information and changing our decisions when needed.
So in our journals we will consider a moment when we related or gave an account of something we had witnessed.
What did we say?
What did we do?
How did we say it?
And what effect did this have on those around us?
Then underneath, how could we have come to this from a more rational point of view?
In conclusion, we must strike a balance between rationality and irrationality
We are not seeking to eliminate emotions like anger or anxiety. But we are understanding a rational, non-biased approach when relating events, can prevent negative feelings that may lead to the harmful, impulsive behaviour of ourselves and others.
We are seeking to work with what we know to be the irrefutable facts. And we understand we must learn to recognise our biases and the factors influencing our decisions, and remain open to different perspectives, in order to maintain balance.
Seneca said "Keep learning how to live as long as you live," and this, I feel, is very apt here.
So let us commit to continually striving towards the protection of our inner peace, by daily stoic exercise.