Well known writer Douglas Murray is fond of pointing out that things we all knew up until last week we have suddenly forgotten. I remember as a new parent reading or hearing somewhere that you should never tell your child they are naughty but instead you should tell them that they are being naughty. This seemed like good advice to me and I always tried to follow it. Apparently one of these ways of speaking sends a message to the child about what kind of person they are (naughty, bad, selfish, etc.) and the other simply tells them that their current behavior is not ok. I think the distinction being made by this piece of good parenting advice points to one of the key mental pathologies which is causing so much tension and division today – which I am going to call the simplicity fallacy – the treating of a complex dynamic system as simple and static. While I think the simplicity fallacy probably has broad applicability, here I am concerned with people who commit this fallacy in relation to other people. To put it crudely, it is the idea that a person is entirely (or largely) just one thing, and that they have always been and will always be that thing.
Consider the currently very fashionable claim that someone (living or dead) is a “racist”. Leaving aside the fact that few people these days seem to stop to consider what the word “racist” actually means, it is a perfect example of the simplicity fallacy in action. It seems so obvious that such simplistic characterisations of people are utterly ludicrous that I hesitate to spell it out – but in these times where nothing that seems reasonable and obvious can be taken for granted I feel compelled to do so.
Each of us is constantly thinking about things and constantly experiencing the world, and consequently our opinions and beliefs are changing all the time – perhaps mostly in small and subtle ways and sometimes in large ways. What we say at any given moment in time is an attempt – almost certainly imperfect – to express some thoughts we have at that time, which may or many not accurately reflect our beliefs. We may or may not think the same the next minute, hour, week or year. We experience many things, we do many things and we have many beliefs and interests. In short – we are complex and dynamic. We are a work in progress. So even if we sometimes think or say something which is racist (or whatever descriptive word you choose), that does not make us a racist, any more than saying something mean makes us a bad person, or saying something brilliant makes us a genius. This does not mean we are not responsible for what we say, but it does mean that we should all be careful about how we interpret what people say in any given moment, and how we judge people.
To qualify as deserving of the term racist requires sustained consistent behaviour of a certain kind. Of course those who like to call people racists might claim that this is the case whenever they make the accusation, but appearances strongly suggest that they rarely if ever have such evidence – and that the number of people in Western societies who would actually qualify as racist is far far less than is currently being portrayed. It is very ironic that the simplicity fallacy should be so widespread at a time when we have a greater understanding of the human brain and the complexity of individual and social behavior than ever before in human history. Consider the trend in movies and books toward more nuanced and multi-faceted character portrayal – surely this is a recognition of complexity and rejection of simplicity? Yet so many in the media and in the community today seem all too willing to permanently condemn someone living or dead as “racist” at the slightest real or imagined provocation. It is also ironic that for decades it has been fashionable to discourage “judging” of others – I overhead a parent the other day reminding their young child not to be “judgy” toward some other child, yet rushed judgement seems to be the default position – at least in the media and by those who are most publicly vocal.
In my opinion the simplicity fallacy – failing to recognise that people are complex and ever changing, and rushing to judgement without objective evidence, are key factors in the breakdown of civil debate and increased political polarisation. In particular, social justice activists and those who have embraced modern social justice ideology have created a caricature enemy – the “racist” (or some alternative such as “far right”, “white supremacist”, “fascist”, “bigot”, and so on). They have no need to see people as complex dynamic individuals who can look at things from multiple points of view, they have no need to understand and engage with the arguments, to exercise charity or good will – all they need to do is to judge whether or not the cartoon character in front of them is a racist. The solution is that we need to stop teaching young people to see everything and everybody in terms of race and gender and instead remind them that we are all individuals – complex and ever changing.
darryl.betts 