A serious curiosity derived from something I’ve noticed more and more often lately:
What the hell has happened to nuanced thought? It seems every day- more and more, it’s either this or that, with us or against us, black or white. What happened to the complexity of thought? Why have we come to be so polarized about every single thing that exists? And it seems it doesn’t matter the subject! The moment a topic is brought up. Sides are immediately taken in the War of Being Right.
It used to be that we considered things. We were rational. Logical. Contemplative.
Now? Everyone seems so quick to arrive at hastily constructed arguments that have to be either for or against- where no argument was necessary or even called for to being with!
It seems to me, that we need to relearn what was once so easily understood, and it’s that life exists between the boundaries of one and the other.
Almost forty years on Earth, and I’ve never once experienced that. Humans have always been irrational, judgmental creatures, given to tribalism and social pressure. Maybe we’ve gotten more vocal about it as a result of the Western world being mostly peaceful for four generations, or maybe social media has made us more likely to interact with more people than we used to. But when were we rational? When our ancestors hanged or shot people over horses? Were they being contemplative while they burned people (or otherwise killed them) at the stake because they didn’t conform to the tenets of a book?
Was it rational and logical to force whole societies to perform certain tasks, and then deride them and try to harm them for performing those tasks?
It’s always been a crab bucket. It’ll always be a crab bucket. All you can hope is that you’re high enough up to keep your shell intact but low enough down that you don’t get grabbed for the stewpot.
Yeah, for me some of it is that I got more nuanced and forgot the places I used to be black and white / aim for a harsh burn. Not that I’m not still ignorant with plenty of black and what thinking.
And I think that besides people chasing upvotes, there is also more organising of movements online and by pushing issues into ethical framings that demonise the other side you create anger that keeps a movement going and can be directed but then large groups lose the ability to talk with nuance about that topic