maybe the future resides in nuance
“The poets will see to that. They have a way of adding nuance to the meaning of things.”
Pip Williams
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“Practice of nuance means asking painful, difficult questions—questions that might reveal something new or bring a position into different relief or otherwise illuminate our perspectives.”
Sarah Stewart Holland
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“Debate is great for sharpening the mind, but I worry that really skilled debaters might internalize the idea that the point of discussion and debate is victory, rather than truth. In debate, if you encounter a compelling counterargument, you just try to find a way around it.
But you should argue for truth, not for victory.
Really good debaters run the risk of ignoring valid counterarguments.”
constitutional-law professor Robert George
At the rate we are going we are, well, going nowhere. Some things are improving, but, generally, progress is happening in fits and starts and we seem consistently dysfunctional (which impedes real progress). It seems to me rather than gnash our teeth over the dysfunction (real or perceived) we should all be sitting back and asking why. Why is it happening? Why can’t we agree on things? Why are the solutions we do come up with so flawed? All of these why’s should be viewed in context. What I mean by that is that we have public leaders espousing simplistic solutions and simplistic narratives. One after another after another we get bludgeoned with simplistic shit to such an extent it feels like we are missing something important, maybe making things more complex than they really are, or we are just not capable of dealing with what’s happening. I would argue the only important thing being lost is nuance.
I first wrote about nuance and subtlety in 2016 and in that piece I said:
“I worry that literalness ignores the nuances which dictate the truth. I worry because literalness is certainly easier to grasp by people. And I worry if they grasp a literal untruth and believe it, it becomes a perverted truth.”
I am not suggesting there are absolute truths and I will also admit that it is true you can arrive at a perverted truth just as easily through reasoning, and instincts, as if you accepted a too abstract idea or lean in on some unwavering ‘rule’. Let’s just say ‘perverting truth’ is a bad thing and non-perverted truth is most likely found in the ‘gray*’, i.e., nuance and nuanced thinking (*more on gray later). Anyway. Discussing nuance without context or framing sells the importance of nuance short. I thought about framing after reading two great books. The first was a re-read. 2007’s Liquid Times: living in an age of Uncertainty by Zygmunt Bauman. The second is a book by Tony Fish called decision making in times of uncertainty. And while uncertainty plays a role in nuance, I would suggest that uncertainty is a flawed foundation. What I mean by that is uncertainty is an outcome, it is a reflection of the environment. Of course, that environment is complexity. And while complexity and navigating complexity and complexity theory has become the topic du jour, I would suggest a nuanced simpler thought: complexity is the natural outcome of progress. Yeah. As civilization, communities, society and even business progresses, complexity naturally/organically increases. The resources to drive progress become more complex, the distribution of resources becomes more complex, and the connectivity between people – complex beings in and of themselves – increases, so, inevitably, everything becomes more complex. All of this increased connectivity only enhances complexity, increases uncertainty, and makes nothing simpler. Within that the key to unlock the complexity, if there ever could be a key, is nuance.
Which leads me to say what I really wanted to title this piece today was if we want a sane society and a healthy society in the future, we need to become significantly better at embracing nuance.
But that was too long a title. That said. If anyone ever wants to get me going all they have to say is we can’t do something. The implication with “we can’t” is that the world doesn’t work that way. That’s nuts. The majority of the time the world works exactly the way we think it does, we just don’t want to do the hard work to work that system or do the hard work to grasp the system as it is. Nuance is a prime example. I often find myself in the maddening conversation of ‘simplicity is all that matters because that is all people have time for.’ That’s nuts. People need to make more time for nuance because that is where the true value resides; not just with systems, not just with products, not just with services, but with regard to the issues that society and communities face day in and day out. We’ve become so comfortable with reducing everything down to some simplistic meaningless hollow place that we are becoming comfortable actually living in some simplistic meaningless hollow place. That doesn’t mean that we don’t invest a lot of energy convincing ourselves that we don’t live in a simplistic meaningless hollow place – just that we are there. But that’s where we are now. In a meaningless hollow comfortable place without nuance. We are increasingly encouraging ourselves to not only make everything black and white, but to live in a black and white world. Inevitably this translates into envisioning a black and white future. That’s also nuts. So, this is where nuance comes in. Because gray, which gets the shit kicked out of it on a daily basis, is actually where colors reside. It Is where the rich and royal hues of life and ideas and thinking can actually be unearthed. For neither black nor white holds color, It is only within gray that all the colors are gathered lurking in the background just waiting for someone to pluck it out. Uhm. But you have to work to pluck the colors out.
Which leads me to the work of nuance.
One of my most popular pieces that I’ve ever written is called the bastardization of Occam. Occam is used to shave nuance down to a nub. I purposefully used shave not just because of the razor thing, but because nuance has layers. What I mean by that is that most ideas and thoughts and thinking are made up of a depth and breadth of different beliefs, knowledge, and opinions. The truly important nuance is found in what I would call the tectonic information plates of the world. If you truly want to impact how somebody thinks or an idea, you need to dig down deep to the structural level and nudge a tectonic plate. Or maybe just simply make people aware of the tectonic plates that exist. Either way you’re increasing awareness of something subtle people haven’t paid attention to. By paying attention to it minds subtly reshape the ideas and thoughts and attitudes and beliefs that they already have. That is the power of nuance. That takes work. What doesn’t take work is simply playing with people’s existing opinions, beliefs, and attitudes. You’re simply hijacking what they already believe they know (even if they may know nothing). Ok. Nothing is a harsh word. I purposefully used it here to suggest that even the most enlightened minds admit they truly know nothing. So, it seems to me in my pea-like brain that if the truly enlightened minds can admit it, certainly we should be thinking that the everyday schmuck is exactly the same. They know nothing and they need to become more aware of the somethings in life and the somethings in life are found in nuance. That takes work.
Which leads me to a note on gullibility.
Gullibility has a strong correlation with simplicity (or simplistic). In other words, in a non-nuanced black and white world it becomes easier to be gullible. That said. I get a little grumpy when people start bitching about how people <but never themselves> are more gullible today than in the past. I don’t think we are any more gullible than we were yesterday or the day<s> before. Nor do I believe we are any stupider or more ignorant. In fact, I tend to believe most of us are owners of more information and knowledge than ever before <albeit it may be parts & pieces of information>. But I do believe we are becoming lazier thinkers. Some of that laziness is condition-driven, i.e., in an onslaught of never-ending information it takes too much work to sift, and some of that laziness is, well, just that; lazy, i.e., its just easier to believe the ‘simplest’ thing, like “common sense,” and call it the ‘end of thinking day.’ Now. I do believe we face some things which maybe make people think we are more gullible.
– 1. A desire for more black and white
– 2. The loss of subtlety or nuance as a basic communication tool
– 3. The embrace of literalness.
First. The black and white thing. People, in general, love the concept of things being black & white. We want it, try and believe the important things are and tend to distrust things that cannot easily fall into a black or white box. Well. While we may want black & white truth and things to be black and white in Life most things are best captured in subtlety and nuance. Metaphorically black & white (and grays) are easily missed, but colors capture the eye.
Second. Subtlety and nuance. The engine that drives effective subtlety and nuance is the ability to use metaphors effectively. As a corollary, the ability to understand an effectively communicated metaphor, i.e., an effective ‘listener access point,’ is needed to ensure subtlety and nuance can thrive. In other words, subtlety and nuance needs both an effective deliverer and an effective receiver. Someone needs to be able to paint in colors and someone needs to not be color blind.
Third. The embrace of literalness (absence of color). We just seem to bludgeon each other with sentences stripped of adjectives and any glimmer of color. That literalness begets a warped version of gullible. I say that because far too often ‘gullible’ is associated with ‘not intelligent.’ That is not so. In today’s world gullible is being driven by the death of subtlety, nuance and metaphorical speak.
Tying those three things together are savvy communicators who recognize this and therefore revert to using simple bludgeoning words & thoughts. Yeah. They bludgeon us with simplicity. Or, well, at least what they construe as simplicity, but as it comes to life in its hideously insipid quasi-truthful simplistic form it does more damage in its effect than if you had said nothing at all. This all suggests that it may appear like being gullible is running rampant amongst us all and, yet, it isn’t, its just environmental. Let me explain. The most effective tactic a literal communicator uses is through discussing ‘knowledge’ by fitting an explanation after an event … uhm … which is actually kind of easy. In addition, it makes it easy to literally bludgeon everyone to such a point it appears simple (in hindsight). In addition, the simplicity can often be doubled down on with passionate rhetoric. That passionate rhetoric doesn’t cut through truth like a sharp knife; it smothers it. I imagine my point here is that people are not gullible, but the lack of nuance generates some fairly gullible-looking thinking.
the big issue with linear time is that when there are a few minutes until some event and they aren’t enough minutes to do anything with, you just lose those minutes. I think you should be able to save them for later and then combine them into a chunk of leftover time that you get to use at the end of the day, like bonus hours.
Which leads me to contrarians and contrarianism (I made up that last word).
The heroes of nuance tend to be called contrarians. I am not sure it is the correct, or best, label, but let’s stick with it for now. It is quite possible contrarians should focus on ‘how they play the game,’’ or how they debate, because I frankly don’t give a shit what you preach nor whether you eventually benefit from what you preach as long as what you preach is grounded in integrity & fair play & truth, what you actually do and how you behave is grounded in integrity & fair play & truth and what you preach isn’t just preaching but rather a thought which inspires additional thinking <which means the original thought will most likely look pretty different at the outcome than it did at the onset>. If you do it right, if you debate it right, then you, and the idea itself, will benefit in that if the idea & thinking gets adopted in some form or fashion you will have done so as an outcome of what you preached, what you debated and how you behaved during the debate. I just used a lot of run-on sentences, but that seems like a good thing. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the best, most effective, contrarians wield nuance well. That said. Contrarianism (as well as nuance itself) is like a drug. When you have a contrarian idea and it is actually a good idea <and not all contrarians can tell if their idea is actually a good idea when being contrary> you can get caught up in the debate. You can start getting what I sometimes call “horizon blindness.” Horizon blindness is when you are so focused on the end destination and getting to the end destination you treat almost anything said, and any objection, as simply an obstacle to getting to the horizon, even to the point you ignore any of the value being offered within the debate. Even the best contrarians can get horizon blindness. Nuance lovers fall into this same trap. Nuance is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. So, be a contrarian carefully; and wisely.
Which leads me to effective nuance builds trust and destroys cynicism.
If there is any place where our binarism has truly wrought damage, it is in media or let’s say “publicly available information.’ Wrong or right, biased or not, has stripped all information of trust baring a stark cynicism for anything and everyone – even the best of the best journalists and fact finders. We do not critique, we simply offer cynicism (not even skepticism). “Increasingly, it appears that constructive criticism and cynical attacks are being conflated. And perhaps it’s nowhere more apparent or more troubling than when it comes to criticism of the news media (the Ethics Centre).” This is where nuance needs to battle if it is to win and if it wins it will bring forth trust. This isn’t a linear relationship, i.e., effective nuance = trust, but rather it is, well, nuanced. Effective nuance offers depth to simplistic binary mindsets thereby shifting the sub-structure of beliefs and attitudes. Nuance offers a bit of gray to the black and white and, remember, it is within those grays that colors can eventually arise. So maybe I should say effective nuance plants seeds of enlightenment beyond simplistic thinking. Suffice it to say, nuance is the enemy of cynicism.
Which leads me back to the beginning – the future of shared spaces.
If we don’t get a grip on nuance, we will increasingly exist in a world of myths. Basically, that would mean an amorphous future where people hold on to false certainties. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this is a future guaranteed to be fraught with unfulfilled expectations.
“The best mythologies are the ones that manage to explain a complicated world in a clear, compelling way. All questions have answers, and all answers are black and white. What a comfort this is, instead of having to deal with the ambiguity and nuance of real life.”
What I mean by that is the greatest dangerous myth is oversimplification, i.e., “simple is smart” and it sets incredibly unrealistic expectations. The future need not reside on myths, but rather the complex & nuances of things which offer us not only the rich & royal hues of Life, but also the potential within the future. Marshall McLuhan said this about technology, but it is actually true of everything:
Technology gives us the simplistic (easy and quick to grasp) yet takes away the depth and obscure and nuance and the invisible, unless sought out, that gives the intellectual depth to apply effectively in the future. It makes the advantages easy to see and the disadvantages more difficult to see.
The way out of a myth-bound future is found in the shared spaces which make nuances visible and okay. But before I dwell on the positive of this idea, shared spaces, let me take a moment on the negative aspect of shared spaces. It is absolutely true we hide in some shared spaces and hide within some unimaginative mythology.
“The ‘hidden curriculum’ of schooling is dependency on the institution of the school. The pupil is thereby ‘schooled’ to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. The student’s imagination is ‘schooled’ to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. The institutionalization of values leads inevitably to physical pollution, social polarization, and psychological impotence: three dimensions in a process of global degradation and modernized misery.”
Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich
I begin with this to point out if we seek a future where nuance is embedded, we will also need to seek to redesign, if not even deconstruct, institutional systems of shared space learning if not shared spaces themselves. So let me move on to the positive side of shared spaces and shared nuance.
“If we can have spaces where most of us feel invited, so you’re not in their space or they are not in your space, but everyone is in our space, then we have this possibility of meeting across different layers of society, different ‘users’ with different lifestyles. Being in an urban environment has something to do with being able to cope with the meeting of perfect strangers.”
In the end. Let me say “do not go gentle into the good night.” Nuance doesn’t mean not being tough and speaking out and standing for what is right. In fact. Nuance demands a clear, strong, voice. Ponder.
“You go from simple black-and-white thinking, to complex and nuanced thinking, and from there to finding new simplicities in the form of underlying, universal guiding principles: towards what you might call a ‘second simplicity’.”
Hanzi Freinacht
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