We should be allowed to think

Problems

I don’t like to solve my own problems, nobody does. It’s always nicer when something just happens and then the problem isn't there any more. Except when I know how to do it, or when the process of learning is a reward in itself. Everyone likes to solve their own problems when they can, because of the feeling which we get when we succeed.

That’s two opposite assertions, but I think they both feel more or less true. We have two different categories of problems. One is those which are ours, which we can take control of and solve, and whose solution will make us feel better. And then there are other problems, about which we don’t even know how to begin; problems that are so hidden in piles of confusion that we aren’t even sure what really is the problem. It’s pretty natural to think that that second type of problem really isn’t for us to solve.

Stories

There is a common thread in many stories, about a saviour who appears and somehow knows just what to do. Fairy stories have princes and kings who can arrive at the right moment and just naturally act in the way that makes everything better. Some stories have magical characters who literally appear from nowhere to save everyone. Most religions, and certainly all cults, are built around the idea that there is someone in the world or in the universe who is just naturally able to solve problems. The leader has the power and the secrets, and will use those wisely, if only there were some way to let him know that he is needed.

There is also matching tendency in those stories, to have somebody who denies that saviour. There is often someone who just doesn’t believe that the saviour is really who he claims to be, and will fight for something much baser and less noble, resisting the perfect solution that is just sitting there. That person is the bad guy, and will eventually be seen as the enemy of everyone, for his willful failure to believe.

Belief

Belief in magic pervades in the world, although it has been rebranded many times. People believe in all sorts of things that they should know to be unreal, but they prefer to imagine otherwise. The idea that there is some force that can be directly harnessed, without recourse to the complicated business of interacting with the world and with other people. It should probably be noted with some irony that such people can fall in deep obsessions with these promises of easy solutions. When the first potion doesn’t bring immediate beauty as promised, then research must begin to find out why the magic didn’t work. Perhaps there is some baseline that must be met, perhaps the potion will only work if the user drank enough water the previous day. A sort of primitive science occurs, trying to solve a problem of why the magic didn’t work.

Nothing that is built on belief can last, because belief is too changeable. It might appear that belief can go on through even the most terrible trials, but the belief itself is constantly changing. The thing that lasts is the idea that there might be a simple solution, a single unifying solution to all the things that don’t seem to be right.

Hope

A sidenote: I use the word “belief” to describe something specific. The idea that a thing that doesn’t seem to exist might be real.

I suggest the word “hope” as a different concept. Hope is the feeling that something might be possible, despite evidence that it doesn’t exist now.

Dependency

Humans can do very little in isolation. The only humans who are truly independent are those who have no contact with others, who live disconnected from the networks of society. That might be an appealing life, but it’s one that rapidly becomes a problem in the face of even a small change in health, the weather, or a million other things.

For an ordinary person, everything depends on a mass of other people. We are generally unable to produce the food that we need, and instead buy it from others. Even this most basic human necessity is only possible because of a web of interactions across the world.

As for technology, there is nobody in the world who can know everything, and nobody who can make everything, that we consider to be needed for our modern lives. I’m writing this on a computer which I can conceptually understand, but could never build even if I dedicated my life to that task.

Our modern world is a created by interwoven actions. Different people know different things, do different tasks, manage different flows. We can’t escape that unless we become a very different sort of animal.

Simplicity

Nothing in this world is simple. Humans have only a limited understanding of the natural world, and that understanding is not shared by everyone. Even less we manage to understand each other, or else we would spend a lot less time fighting. Understanding of complex systems is itself complex, although perhaps it’s possible to frame it in a simple way:

To understand something complex, one must remain aware of the complexity, while concentrating on specific parts of it. Strip away that which is certainly not important, but accept that nothing exists in isolation.

That is not a solution to anything; two sentences cannot be the solution to anything complex. Perhaps it is a useful thing to remember when a situation appears to be overwhelming.

There are people who wish that complexity would not exist - they are those who believe in magic, and think that perhaps there is simple answer waiting for them. There are also people who want to encourage that, in order to have control over those seekers of simplicity. A man who can offer to be a saviour, to have the solution in his hand, can do terrible things.

Exclusion

When people are affected by belief, they will tend to slip away from reality. A person who is seeking simplicity in a complex situation will often not be inclined to see how things really are, because that can lead to despair. It’s easier to maintain the belief in simplicity when they are fewer challenges to it.

In order to exclude ideas, one must also exclude people. A group of people with a belief in something unreal cannot invite in people with other beliefs, or listen to the words of someone who can disprove those beliefs. Listen perhaps isn’t the right term. The words may enter the ears of the believers, but then they must be immediately turned around and sent away. There must be an automatic response that keeps the belief safe against the incomers. There cannot be a human-level dialogue, only a standardised response and a change of subject.

A group of people that is defined by a belief will be exclusive, a monoculture of ideas. It might be possible that the belief is not about simplicity, but I fancy that to be the standard basis. Belief is primarily about creating isolation from the world, and the thing that we don’t like is complexity. We don’t like the idea that nobody is in control.

Politics

I would like to suggest a simple idea, without suggesting that is somehow a magical solution. It is just a way of thinking that might be a useful basis for more thinking.

There are two types of politics. One is progressive, and hopes that humanity and society will develop, that we will discover new things, go to places, and find a way to live that makes us happy as humans.

This group is expansive, and accepting. It has to be accepting because if something exists in reality, this group of people must accept it, learn about it, and learn how to live with it. No idea can be automatically excluded, and no person also, because we don’t yet know the answers; we are always looking.

I might call this ideology “functionalism”. The goal is to think about humans in terms of what they can do, and about what society can do when all the people join together.

I will call the opposing ideolgy “essentialism”. Perhaps the name is more obscure, I will try to explain. The defining feature is that it considers people based on what they are. The goal is to create a society not of everyone, but of those who are essentially connected to each other.

There may also be a plan towards progress, but that is not progress for everyone, it is progress for a single group of people. The essentialist argument is that it is not possible for everyone to be happy; for someone to win, someone must lose. The goal of each group member is to never be excluded from the group.

Inclusion

To be part of a group, knowing that the group will attack anyone on the outside, one must always demonstrate one’s membership. Questioning the membership criteria would show that one did not recognise the merit of the criteria.

Suppose that a group was defined by white-supremacy. The criteria are fairly evident - to be a member one must be white, and believe that whiteness is inherently a good thing. To suggest otherwise, for example by noting that a non-white person had achieved something significant, would be to demonstrate an essential diversion from the group.

If a person were ejected from a group that intended to gain power, then that person has lost their chance to gain that power. More frightening to an average person is they have become a target of that group. Not only have they lost their seat at the table, they have also set themself up as one of the people who must lose so that the group can win.

The functionalist counterpoint can perhaps be understood entirely in opposition to that example. If a group is defined by considering the abilities of each person, it must be inclusive. To exclude someone would be an essentialist act, it would make the functionalist group essentialist by definition.

Nations

I think it’s no stretch to mention in passing that a nation is an essentialist concept. The principle of a nation is that there are people who are a part, and people who are not a part, and that birth is somehow an integral part of the decision.

To become a citizen of a country is perhaps a functionalist idea, since a candidate must demonstrate their value, but this is clearly an exception to the norm. Most people have citizenship by birth, and this by nothing more than a undefined idea of being essentially of that nation.

Leadership

A person often becomes a leader by promising something, and being believed. It might be useful to compare the leaders of essentialist and functionalist groups.

For a functionalist, the goal is to provide a way to handle an uncertain future. This is so far from an absolute, that any promise is likely to be futile, beyond “we will try to plan ahead”. Such a leader cannot be a strongman, with an answer to every question, because they must be honest about their limitations. Nobody can see the future, everybody must participate in order to survive and succeed together.

The essentialist has a very different task. His primary goal is to maintain the integrity of the group, to define its essence, and drive out those who do not adhere closely enough. The most involved planning will be in deciding when to loosen the criteria to create a more massive group, and when to tighten them to concentrate power.

It seems to me clear that the functionalist leader has a much harder task. They cannot promise simplicity, because they know that complexity exists. They probably won’t have slogans, or chants, or battlecries. The goal of functionalist leader to keep people thinking about what is important. The essentialist leader’s goal is to distract from it.

Environment

I’m not going to talk about the natural environment, other than one statement which should certainly be clear to everyone: We depend on it.

Navigating modern life is mostly a task of navigating the human environment, the structures of society. Some of those structures are explicitly designed to ease our lives, to help us collaborate with other people, and reduce the amount of time we spend thinking about unimportant things. They don’t always work as intended.

But many other structures are not designed for that purpose. Some are designed to capture our attention and make us unhappy about things that should not matter to us. I put almost all types of advertising into that category.

Others are designed to exploit the useful structures, extracting value without providing anything in return. Think for example about high-frequency trading, a mechanism for “making” money by tricking the markets that are (in theory) there to provide efficiency in useful work.

This artificial complication prevents us from concentrating on important matters, and hides the information that we need to make good decisions. The people who are involved in these system are essentialist, in that they are trying to arrogate value alongside others who are similarly willing to exploit others; they are a class defined by their acceptance of their own exploitative actions.

Participation

A more functional society can only be built by people who wish to do so. If it turns out that people are fundamentally only interested in gaining power or value for themselves and their friends, then we might be approaching a dead end. It is true that if society chooses to continue running on limited resources, then we will descend into a fight to take those resources away from others. In such a situation, it will make sense to ally oneself to a group from which one cannot be excluded, and eventually humanity as a whole will cease to progress.

A different sort of participation is the basis for a functional society. A participation by choice, in which people recognise that they are both individuals and parts of something bigger.

A small paradox might seem to be present in that. A collective future does demand that we accept a role in a whole, instead of being an individualist. But it resolves very quickly when we think of the alternative. In an essentialist society one’s identity must completely disappear, in order to become part of the group. To genuinely be an individual, one must accept the limits of individualism.

Back to the topic. To participate, one must understand one's relation to the world. The first step must be to expose the real complexity of the world, by removing both the false simplifications and the artificial complications. Actually, the first step is perhaps to prepare for what will come after that:

Planning

Belief in simplicity is perhaps the only thing that allows many people to live happily, albeit in a fantasy world that cannot last. We need to help people see that they do not need that crutch, that they can live in the real world. We need to strip away the invented complications, and let people see what is real.

When there is less pointless activity going on, we should have some more time to think. Making decisions in a split second is not a good way to run a society. If something will have consequences for centuries, it should not be decided in one day.

We come around again to the myth of simplicity. A strongman leader will like to say that he has the answer, we just need to obey. A magical saviour might say exactly the same thing. Judging by history we can be pretty sure that they are both wrong, and we shouldn’t be seduced by the easy answer.