Valenti gives Michigan credit for Austin White

Brian's opinion that there is a "Spartan spin machine" is objective, but the RCMB's "Blue Wall" is hilariously subjective bullshit.

As someone with a degree in Philosophy [who now sells real estate...but that is another story] I wonder if everyone is entirely clear on the concepts at play here. As one of my graduate professors used to say, "A good distinction is worth its weight in gold." Perhaps I can lend a modicum of clarity: Bias -- the favouring of one party, group, argument over another such that your natural instinct is to favour the one over the other. Bias is a milder form of prejudice and bigotry. A reasonable case could be made that it is impossible to operate without bias. To do so you would have to operate without any formed ideas or opinions. That being said, one can argue as to whether or not one's basic biases and prejudices are clouding one's judgment and one's ability to be fair towards someone biased towards a position differing from yours. In that regard, this blog and for the most part its readership are biased towards UM Football. Subjective vs. Objective -- In our society with its bias towards scientific thinking, tends to hold in high regard the ideal of objectivity, that is someone being able to completely seperate themselves from their basic biases and prejudices to make pronouncements that are completely neutral and unbiased. Obejectivity is an idea strived towards and generally likes to use "facts" that cannot be in any way construed as arising out of the person making the case. That is they are independant of subjective biases. Subjectivity is gennerally considered to be thoughts and pronouncements made out of one's self. What is interesting as we have moved from modernism and its belief in objective thought into post-modernism is the recognition that there is no such thing as pure objective thought. The best that we can do is deconstruct our biases with hope of understanding how they cloud our perception of the world and how we form judgments about the world. Opinion -- by definition an opinion is subjective. This does not mean that it cannot be right and cannot be rooted in so-called "emperical" evidence. Ironically, it was partical physics that put to rest the notion of the "fact" as something independant of the observer and made the case that there is no neutral observer. The very act of observation itself is biased. In partical physics the observer must choose whether to determine position or the vector of the partical and that choosing to measure one precluded you from measuring the other. The observer and the observed are intimately linked in the process of observation. At best, one can surface and be public about one's biases and prejudices and that with cogent, careful and honest research and analysis one can make a cautious attempt at attaining something akin to the truth. In that regard, we need to recognize that no matter how careful we are as a community, how sensitive we are as researchers and analysts are towards the material, and how conscious we are of our biases, no matter how much insights here might aspire to the truth of the matter, no matter how much they are accurate analyses of reality, they will forever and always have a UM "bias." There are no "objective" conclusions here. None. It simply is not possible for any of us who are historically, materially, and temporally bound to fully escape our circumstances to stand outside of our selves, our our society and our era to look at the material from "outside" of ourselve and be thus "objective." No matter how careful we are we cannot escape ourselves. That said, this is an intelligent community that offers smart, albiet biased and prejudiced thought about the Michigan Football program.