Nuance

I recently began reading George R. R. Martin's fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, after reading that HBO has optioned the books for a series. The series is notable in that a) magic and magical creatures enter the story late and have smaller roles than is normal in your typical Dungeons & Dragons novel; b) the story weaves individual character perspectives over several thousand pages without interrupting the pace of the story; and c) there is a distinct lack of "good" characters and "bad" characters. No matter how much you may like a character, he or she will eventually pull some ignorant move that makes you question your devotion to him or her. This is called "nuance."

Americans, on the whole, enjoy viewing the world in "black" and "white." Why else would we have such a need to hang on to a two party system despite obvious evidence that it doesn't work? We engage everyday in a useless butter battle. But the world is a giant grey area and nothing is ever completely right or wrong.

It is far easier for Americans to call terrorists "evil" than to think that, while their tactics are abhorrent, they may actually be legitimately angry with the U.S. After all, would we tolerate the presence of another country's military in our land without fighting? And we can't act like we haven't harmed innocents in the name of "defending freedom." If you need examples, take a good look at Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, or people attending a wedding in Afghanistan. Believing we are righteous, we commit sin after sin after sin.

You need evidence that Americans can't stomach nuance? Look at evolution. What were they saying during the "intelligent design" debates? It's "just a theory." Everything in science is a theory. Even gravity. There is no such thing as "scientific fact." Nothing is ever "proven." A theory either has evidence to support it or it doesn't. When I tell this fact to most people, they argue it with me. Why? Because it makes people scared when the lines are blurred. They need delineation. They desire to be told that x is true and y is false and it will always be so.

Behaviors such as categorizing, labeling, and stereotyping are all behaviors which have served animals (and this includes humans) throughout our collective evolution. If I know a grizzly bear is dangerous, then everything that resembles a grizzly bear should be avoided. If I avoid all organisms that resemble a grizzly bear, I survive to pass on my genetic material. Those who do not die out, thus ensuring that only the strongest survive. So the behavior has a purpose...to an extent.

Where it fails us is when those categories are not true categories but are based on false or inconsistent data. Certainly, all catogories are hypothetical constructs and are subject to context but it is not this that should make us question their usefulness. Where we run into a problem is that these categories, these stereotypes, become a pro forma, allowing us to move forward free of any speed bumps. Therein lies the problem. In ignoring nuance and using these stereotypes, we free ourselves from thought. We free ourselves from doing that one thing that separates us from our closest animal relatives: the ability to think rationally. We use the category to handle problems in a blanket fashion and move on about our day, free to look only ahead and never back...or even around.

We label criminals as bad people. We say all black people are loud and have no manners. We say all Asian people are good at math and have a better sense of family. We say all white people are rich and have no rhythm. We say that gays molest children and the only politicians we can elect are straight, married men. All women love domestic behaviors and all men like football and meat. All poor people are boorish and all rich people have the skills to solve the problems of the world. The outliers are "weird" or "freaks." Of course, they are. That keeps your truth intact and frees you from thinking.

So, what does one need to accept nuance? to celebrate nuance?

There are two things one must accept in order to accept nuance: 1) it is okay to be wrong and 2) it is okay to not know. Often, we cling to obsolete beliefs and practices because to change is tantamount to saying one has wasted one's life believing something that is wrong or engaging in behavior that is wrong. Making mistakes is not wrong; engaging in that behavior repeatedly when an effective alternative is known to exist. The world is uncertain. We seek concrete truths to which we can cling in what we see as a raging ocean of chaos. The reality is that we are born from chaos into chaos. The one sure thing in this world is that you know nothing. Socrates stated he was the wisest man because he knew nothing. When you think you "know" a thing, you cease to look for answers. When you accept that you have some information, but not all, you free yourself to accept data which runs counter to your beliefs or which alters those beliefs and to incorporate that data into your belief. You become adaptable, a characteristic which is necessary in evolutionary progress.

Humans, and, perhaps, other animals, are nuanced creatures. They are not hard-wired, immutable, or "flawed". Accepting that people are neither good nor bad but that people engage in behaviors which are appropriate or inappropriate frees us from destructive behaviors such as hatred and allows us to address and, most importantly, correct the problem behavior. There is, of course, much more to changing an organism's behavior but we must first be willing to accept that a person can change and be willing to accept that the person who needs to change may be us.

Doing this, the grey area in which we live becomes one of myriad, subtle color and far more interesting and enjoyable than that boring black and white.