Clarity is not Simplicity
I think it’s time we just call an apple and apple and an orange and orange.
The royal We of intellectual Poseurs and Ligits alike, the great liberated mind of thinking all things possible just do not like to be political incorrect. Let’s just face it, y’all. We love to be the emotionally used.
I heard a commentor the other day on the radio, he just put things so clearly matter-of-fact. He wasn’t pulling any punches. He wasn’t trying to make everything equitable and equanimous. I think there’s a certain justice in equity, even beyond the political social justice movement: were so equivalent in our understanding of things that last sentence probably brought up an emotion that was quickly put-down by out intellectual preeminence to argue that equity is a political idea when applied to society.
Anyways; we’ll leave the cognitive constipation to your own chocolate and psyllium.
The commentator called Trump a kind of representative of a strident simplicity. His point was that what we’re seeking is clarity, but what people are resorting to, and what Trump really capitalized on, was a reaction to the confusion between clarity and simplicity.
Clarity can be complex, but complexity can be simple if one merely takes the initiative to think about things in a reasonable manner. Hold on: put in check that call to pure relative postmodernity for a minute: Trump does not do that, use his human ability to be reasonable in order to find what is simple. And a lot of people don’t do that. Rather,they understand simplicity as individual opinion, as though all rights, thought and thinking is equal as all human beings are equal. Yes, and.
My commentator’s point goes right to this: while all humans might be equal in as much as we all deserve respect for our being human, thinking and opinions themselves are not automatically valid or equitable in that same way, that is, as a social right; hence the confusion that makes people reactive in their version of simplicity that is unclear.
It is due to the ethical existential mandate of being human that we have our democratic institutions; through the domain of negotiation is where we find the equality in society. This is based upon the maxim that you are human and so deserve to be heard, and in the hearing you get to use you sense of reason to open to the real social world, for your sake and others sake, so we can all live in relative peace, go water skiing, have sex, have family gatherings, walk the sidewalks, without having to worry about having to kill my Nieghbor because they might kill me.
This kind of simplicty comes when one is reasonable about what is actually happening, how, indeed, their own freedom is upheld such that they can have their own opinion. The other way around is called violent war. In the mental health world, we call this emotional and cognitive inflexibility, and it is a cause of many mental issues.
In the overall sense, this doesn’t mean that it’s equal or equitable to let people that don’t want to think about the subtleties lead us, though. People that just want clarity only by the demanding of their own opinions really want to reflect upon their own ethics of the reality of their lives. That’s fine and all, but for leadership — for even the most narrow minded of groups, the leader must be reasonable. Yes, we must consider all people as having valid opinions, but that doesn’t mean we want all people as our leaders. Simply, by the fact that in order to be a leader, you have to think about subtleties, else you wouldn’t lead. That’s just a fact of what happens. Especially in our modern times.
It is a certain willingness to be open to other people’s as ideas that the simple is clear. Many people want to resort to simplicity meaning that if you disagree with me, then you must necessarily be telling me things that are unclear, as indeed I then feel confused because I am offended because I dont want to be reasonable. The unclarity, the lack of clarity there, the person who is unwilling to consider what this other person has to say, and talk together and figure it out, is updating a faith in the ideal that strident simplicity is ethical. And it is indeed a kind of religion, so to speak, because it is a way of being that stops communication.
The simplicity and clarity of what it is to be free is that being reasonable doesn’t mean that I have to give up my ethics and my morality or what I believe is right. Rather it means that I have to be open to think that this planet actually has human beings in it that think differently, and have different values than I do, but ultimately, that we just all want to be able to eat, sleep, have sex, and make a living without having to carry a gun or feel threatened in my everyday life.
Is that not simple and clear at the same time?
Your valid opinions come after one of two things: ordered society, or war. Not the reverse.
What is clear and simple does not matter what political ideal or cultural norm you ascribe to. It is simply reasonable in the very general sense of what we all think when we think about what “reasonable” means.
Think about that!