Simplicity is comfort

Simplicity is comfort.
The comfort one finds in simplicity, while appealing, is a lie.
The cost of simplicity is polarization and alienation. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It all started with talk of paper vs. plastic straws. After coming home with take-out, I scoffed at the paper straws provided by the restaurant and expressed how poor an alternative they are to plastic straws. “Yes, but plastic straws are really bad for the environment”, replied one of my loved ones.

True, I’ll give her that, single-use plastics are bad for the environment. I don’t disagree with that statement at all, and I considered providing a fuller view of my reasoning at the time but I thought better of it because the food was warm, my stomach was grumbling, and it would have made me a suboptimal host to make the others wait. So we ate and forgot about it.

But I just ate a satisfying meal, my guests departed many days ago, and I just remembered having wanted to flesh out my views on this topic so here it goes!

In short, I scoff at the increasing distribution of paper straws at fast food restaurants as an expressing of my disdain for the kind of simplistic but ineffective solutions people (myself included) tend to accept as sufficient without realizing how little they do to address societal ills.

Most people will do the right thing when given the opportunity, and this gives me hope for our society, but I am regularly disappointed to notice all the ways in which good people can be made to feel content that they’re remediating a major issue without the need to inconvenience themselves to any significant degree. Isn’t that convenient?! Yes, plastic straws are bad for the environment but when you take into account all the waste generated within households in developed countries, straws play such a small role as to be considered insignificant.

It’s better to reduce waste whenever possible, so using “greener” alternatives makes sense, but what if these simple changes provide people a false sense of comfort, of security, that stops them from taking a more critical look at their habits and recognizing that they could do a hell of a lot more? I’m not trying to preach environmentalism here, just to point out that if you think you’ve done a righteous thing, you may be tempted to feel good enough to stop paying attention to an issue that may actually need a hell of a lot more consideration.

So you see, my concern is not that people aren’t doing enough, it’s that they are often being lead to believe that they are doing something of substance when they might do a lot more if not for the self of comfort imparted onto them by the simplistic social norms that inform their automatic actions and suppress their need for independent thought.

With the previous example of the paper straw in mind, you might be better situated to understand why I’m annoyed by the false sense of meaningful action we often see following major gun crimes. Here is a simplified explanation of the usual pattern of events:

– A firearm is used to harm someone, usually by someone not legally entitled to own a firearm and who acquired it through illegal means (smuggling, theft, etc.)
– Politicians from certain parties react by immediately pointing the finger at the “gun lobby” (which is mostly comprised of firearms enthusiasts, like me; the class of people that is statistically least likely to commit a violent crime). “Guns kill people”, they yell, “and there is no place for them in our society!”.
– The politicians take executive action (as in the May 1st 2020 order-in-council by Justin Trudeau) and/or push for legislative changes to further restrict the types of firearms civilians can possess, the manner in which they can be used, and things of that nature.
– These politicians make enthusiastic public announcements. “Something bad happened”, they claim, “and we did something to make sure it never happens again!”.
– Their supporters cheer them on, they feel good knowing that the people they support are doing something meaningful to address violent crime.

… except that nothing of substance has been accomplished; the politicians have used an unfortunate event to gain political capital, members of their voting base have been comforted by the idea that they’re now safer from gun violence, and violent criminals are either not affected or they may even be better off, for example if the price of smuggled guns increases.

To be clear, I find violent crime abhorrent and cannot imagine how much pain it causes in the communities where it occurs. It’s a terrifying problem and we just wish it would go away, but there’s no easy solution because the people at fault here are already circumventing the law and will do whatever is needed to maintain their illicit activities.

We have to recognize that as much as we want it to be so, we must reject the platitudes expressed by politicians and instead hold them to higher standards, such as putting themselves in the uncomfortable, and perhaps politically inconvenient, position of examining the full extent of the problem and having honest conversations about the best ways to address them. I understand that the average person cannot contemplate the extent of every issue facing their community, but they should not be content with “feel good” words that, conveniently, always seem to be aligned with and reinforce the simplistic views of their voting base.

Paper straws seem to be a step in the right direction in reducing pollution but those among us who hold strong environmental values must not allow themselves to be made comfortable with such a minuscule step, they should instead recognize the vast complexity of the problem and allow the discomfort it causes them to find more effective ways in which they can contribute to the cause.

We see a similar phenomena when people who seem to mean well react to gun violence by enacting mostly ineffective and incorrectly targeted gun control measures. It’s easy to claim you’re doing something to address an issue when the narrative benefits you and those on your side of the political spectrum offer you no resistance but it’s a lot harder to actually consider the complexity of the issue, identify the major contributing causes (even when deeply politically inconvenient for you, and do something meaningful about it.

Question the narrative.
Embrace complexity.
Be uncomfortable.

Wait, what did I intend to write about before I started writing instinctively, distracted by my disgust for misinformation?!…

Oh, yes! My initial idea was to compare the idea of paper straws being a simplistic, largely ineffective, solution for a complex problem to the increasingly common phenomenon of using a single characteristic or opinion to categorize someone as being undeserving of attention, consideration, and empathy. That it’s easier to call someone a “nazi” or a “snowflake” than to have an honest conversation, to show our vulnerabilities, and accept that the issue on which we seem to disagree may not allow for a simple explanation or an easy solution. We shouldn’t feel too comfortable in thinking that we’re right and they’re wrong when, in all likelihood, everyone is wrong on some aspect and we would gain from continuously questioning what we accept as truth.

I zoned-out while writing this and I’m sure I could make it a lot clearer if I reviewed it at a later time but I’ve been meaning to write something longer than a Facebook post for over two years so I’ll just hit “publish” and hope some of you find value in what I wrote. This first rough draft will have to do for now as I’ve pushed my concentration to its limits.

Toodles!