Keeping Things Simple
TO EXPLAIN IS NOT TO JUSTIFY. How astonishing, that in 2022 so few people appear to grasp this simple truth. It’s as if expending the mental energy required to understand what is happening in the world will, in some mysterious way, rob us of the capacity to make judgements about it.
And, herein, lies the problem: judging the world is now much more important than understanding it. Complexity has become the enemy of clarity – especially moral clarity. That “Keep it simple, stupid.”, has become the motto of the modern politician is proof of just how dangerous complexity is perceived to be. This fetishization of simplicity certainly explains that other great political motto: “Explaining is losing.”
If the world really was a simple place, then the demonisation of those who attempt to explain it would not be necessary. It has always been a problem for those exercising authority over us that the longer we live in the world the more obvious it becomes that it is very far from being a simple place. The more ordinary people begin to appreciate the world’s complexity, however, the harder the job of ruling them becomes. While philosophers may argue that to know all is to forgive all, most rulers take a very different view. In their experience, the more people learn about the reasons behind the rules, the angrier they become.
Perhaps that is why it was generally considered wise, by the rulers, to bolster the authority of the state with the authority of organised religion. Nothing beats organised religion for whittling down the awesome complexity of the world to a few hard, fast, and – most importantly – simple rules. Moses made do with just ten!
Enslave people to the simple “truths” of their faith, and any need for them to come to terms with the complexity of human existence is averted. Omniscience is restricted to God. Only He is able to comprehend the entirety of His universe. Men and women need only know that the Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. Keep his commandments and all will be well. (Oh, and it’s probably a good idea to keep the commandments of your earthly rulers as well!)
A partnership made in heaven, you might say. Or else, that heaven is the partnership’s most successful invention. Works either way.
The problem with organised religion and its simple truths is that the human imagination, combined with human species’ insatiable curiosity, are forever throwing up individuals who refuse to believe in the comforting fictions of their secular and religious rulers. They can, of course, be suppressed. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!) But the irritating thing about these seekers after knowledge is that they all-too-frequently come up with ideas and techniques that are simply too useful to ignore. Organised religion takes a hit. Living gets more complicated – and so does the whole business of governing an increasingly complicated population.
The answer turned out to be relatively simple. Replace the voice of the priest in the pulpit with the voice of the teacher at the front of the class. Replace the wonder of God’s creation with the “nothingbutism” of science. Human-beings are “nothing but” the product of millions of years of evolution. Morality is what works. Evil is what works in ways that make no evolutionary sense. Bad equals broken. Good is the absence of damage – and difference. The best thing to be is the same as everybody else. Uncomplicated.
The Internet makes simplicity easy. Thanks to social media, the voice of the teacher at the front of the class can be retired in favour of the voices on the individual’s Twitter feed, Facebook Page, Instagram or Tik-Tok. Sophisticated algorithms ensure that most of these voices are saying exactly the same thing – keeping the conversation as simple as possible. Never has it been easier for people to know what they think. Never have people had less cause to be tolerant of those who think for themselves.
Attempting to explain to others why they may be mistaken in their thinking is fast becoming a dangerous exercise. For many people, being wrong is an outright impossibility. How could it be otherwise when everyone they know is telling them that they’re right?
Introducing the concept of complexity: the idea that in any given situation there are a host of competing factors at work; is interpreted by an increasing number of twenty-first century humans as a criticism of both themselves and their friends. Moreover, since they and their friends are always right, the person “explaining” can only be trying to justify being wrong. And pretending to be right when you’re not right, doesn’t just make you wrong, it makes you bad.
A complex world is incompatible with a simple world. Explanation is incompatible with acceptance. Refusing to equate the majority view with the correct view is probably the most vital adaptation in human evolution, it’s what drives the species forward.
Unfortunately, it can also get you killed.
It’s even simpler than that – we are deliberately split in to “believers” and “non believers” for political purposes- climate change, vaccines, vaccine mandates,, Maori co-governance,
1080 poison- you either have total belief in the good of these things or you are a heathen.
It is ,as you say no different to the religion of old, it’s now science that is being misused to make black and white from shades of grey.
You make a very good point Chris and there are a couple of logical extrapolations of your thoughts that deserve mentioning.
I think politicians would do themselves a big favour if they expressed some humility in the face of complexity. Instead of adopting the pose of the strident authoritarian as we’ve seen with, say, Ardern and Trudeau, might they have done better if they’d be more open and said “Hey, there are a lot of unknowns but we’ll muddle our way through this thing together”? As it turned out ‘The Science’ of the pandemic was not carved into a stone tablet that was carried down from a mountain by priests in white lab coats. It was just a series of guesses based on a raft of unstated assumptions. If that had been more thoroughly explained we might have come out of this thing as a more united nation.
Complexity in natural systems has largely defeated the computer modelers. The local non-linear interactions of the individual elements are just too numerous to replicate. These interactions culminate in a higher order of emergence greater than the sum of the parts, meaning that we cannot model a pandemic, a stock market or the thermodynamics of a cloud and obtain practically useful results. The cloud thing is particularly important when we bear in mind that water vapour provides 95% of the greenhouse effect and clouds govern the albedo of the earth (the amount of sunlight that gets reflected rather than absorbed). So when you hear a scientist on the podium referencing climate models as if they were the aforementioned stone tablets, you have good cause to chuckle. We simply don’t know what the earth’s future climate or sea level will be – it is literally unknowable.
Well said Andrew, I concur.
The tendency to believe and promote whatever aligns with our chosen ideology is a human frailty we should be careful not to fall into. Confirmation bias it’s called, sounds innocent enough but it’s deadly dangerous.
“Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence.”
― Jordan B. Peterson,
Jordan Peterson lol
Some clarification for you Andrew. No reputable scientist presents any model as a “stone tablet”. That’s counter to the fundamental philosophy of science. What we have is our best current understanding of the available evidence backed up by interdisciplinary verification – operative word being “best”. If you want to understand something then perhaps you should consider what those who have the best understanding are saying. By the way, the change in water vapour content in the atmosphere is a passive response to a change in temperature. Simple physics, as the air warms, it carries more moisture. It is not a driver of the warming. And yes, clouds affect the earth’s albedo. I think the climate modellers know both those things.
Its easier to fool someone, than tell them they have been fooled.
While overall I agree with Chris he has made a big mistake by confusing organized religion with true religion. History tells us that whenever church & state combine persecution is sure to follow. The problem with human nature will not be fixed by self-help lessons, it requires a renewing of the mind or being born again in a spiritual sense, the problem with organized religion is that it sets up its own rules while bypassing our creator’s plan for us.
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken”
It’s apparently not appropriate to be religious in this day and age but I cant help thinking, that if more people had a personal relationship with their God (however they frame that) and were inspired through that spirituality to follow a credo of socially beneficial behaviour, then the world would be a better place. And I think the distinction you make between ‘personal spirituality’ and organised religion is a big one.
People go on about science as if its infallible and spirituality is just a joke but I keep having this thought that what if you could take an average town and get people to meditate for one hour a day on their religion if they have it, or just on personal improvements they can make in their own lives, their community etc. And those people actually did it, every day.
I would dearly love to see if there was a change in that town at the end of a year. I am absolutely certain there would be. As well as differences at a family level and a personal level. We are currently missing a connectedness and a mindfulness of who we are and what we are a part of and its contributing to the decline we are in.
Rather than deriding religion or other social structures, we should seek to better understand how we can encourage these ways of living (be it buddhism or christianity) to the betterment of society rather than superciliously announcing, I’m educated and above all that crap and the social control it brings. Kind of like Maori and Tikanga, many are connecting with it because it speaks to them on a spiritual or societal connectedness level. All good stuff in building a vibrant connected society.
We need vision from our leaders but at the end of the day, we need to be the change we want to see so why not start with spirituality or similar.
“People go on about science as if its infallible ”
No they don’t, They just make the point that science is based on evidence and upon that which can be demonstrable. Religion is dogma, almost universally based on non-verifiable claims and assertion (i.e. belief), whether it is organised or not. Scientific understanding can change with regard to best evidence, that’s what makes it always superior to dogma (religion) as a means of determining nature of reality.
I think Bonnie proves your point Chris
Try Buddhism…
“Complexity has become the enemy of clarity”
“baffle them with bullshit”
has always been one of my favourite quotes
Vision, leadership, consensus, humility is what our politicians need and they must have a system that supports this. The reason people are going here there and everywhere seeking answers is because they feel the void in our society and they see that our leaders have no vision.