Of Systems and Simplification

A few days ago, I wrote about the economy (everybody's favorite topic) as a problem that had to be viewed and addressed as a system. You can read that post here. Yesterday, I ran across a very interesting article that also bears (if tangentially) on solving the problem of the economy ... it deals with the problem of simplification.

Author Norman Manea's article Against Simplification appeared on the Project Syndicate website. His particular argument dealt with the oversimplification of culture and its effect on the human condition. He begins by noting that we Americans "have a genius for simplification," and that this quest for simplicity and the desire to avoid disturbing, overly complicated ideas is spreading around the world ("...conquer(ing) new territories, just as blue jeans once did"). Here's the key part of his article:

"Culture is a necessary pause from the daily rat race, from our chaotic and often vulgar political surroundings, and it is a chance to recover our spiritual energy. Great books, music, and paintings are not only an extraordinary school of beauty, truth, and good, but also a way of discovering our own beauty, truth, and good – the potential for change, of bettering ourselves and even some of our interlocutors.

"If this respite and refuge is gradually narrowed and invaded by the same kind of 'products' as those that dominate the mass market, we are condemned to be perpetual captives of the same stunted universe of “practicalities,” the ordinary agglomeration of clichés packaged in advertisements."

I like that last part: the ordinary agglomeration of clichés packaged in advertisements.

Mr Manea was speaking specifically about the negative impact of oversimplification on culture, but his observation applies more broadly than that. The causes of the current economic crisis are many and complex, and the tendency on the part of our elected reprehensives is to dumb down their approaches to a few oversimplified bumper stickers: the problem is too much debt, or job-killing regulations, or too-high taxes on business or the wealthy. Anything more complicated than that makes single-issue political partisans' brains melt.

Oversimplification of culture leads to dullness of thinking and a diminishing of the spirit. Oversimplification of politics leads to ... well ... the mess we see around us.

Think critically. Look beyond the bumper stickers. Avoid the desire to go for the satisfying, but overly simplistic explanation. Challenge yourself. Remember Bilbo's First Law -

Never let anyone else do your thinking for you.

Least of all me.

Have a good day. Think. And come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo