In today's world, and probably throughout time, people are always trying to live in the world of black and white. Are you Republican or Democrat? Pro-Choice or Pro-life? Every position is one side of a dichotomy. I used to be the same way, but I've been trying to train myself to leave these simplistic generalizations and live in the world of the grey.
There are seemingly very few absolutes in this world, so few that I question the concept of "facts" itself. Most people will claim this to be ridiculous, however other than pure math there are no examples of these types of absolutes. The best absolute I can think of takes the form of: 1+1 equals 2 (in a base 10 system in our universe), however this is comparatively a very rare thing and must be defined rigorously.
It's funny that "grey area" is a pejorative in today's parlance. I find these areas to be the most interesting ones, and in fact I find people that trying to look for black & white solutions to be intellectually immature (i.e. not wise). What else is the mark of unsophisticated thought but being uncomfortable with complexity and uncertainty?
The distinction must be made as well between thought and action. We must think in the grey, but in the end decisiveness is essence of action. It may be that disparate actions spread resources or it could be that humans in general view you as a risk because you're unpredictable due to the complexity of your position.
This is one reason sound bites are de rigueur in today's public discourse. No one wants to actually think about positions beyond us and them or right and wrong. This seems like a systematic failure of the market of ideas. It's a veritable bubble of improperly valued thought-forms (i.e. sound bytes) - at least if you believe the market of ideas if supposed to value thought by its correctness. Instead, it seems the market works on the virality of the memes themselves - which of course brings the discourse down to the lowest common denominator.
Is not the real problem then how to live in such as world - one valuing easy thought over rigorous thought - while still trying to use such rigorous thought to make more correct decisions? Such is the realm of informed pragmatism (pragmatic realism?) long term reflection and short term decisiveness.
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