Why do we get so upset when told that a situation is "complicated"? I saw one protestor today in Israel with a sign that said "It's NOT complicated. It's Ethnic Cleansing!" Israeli missiles have killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. Bad guys, right? Well...the Palestinians have been firing thousands of rockets at Israel too. Okay...so they're bad guys too? Well no - because only a few Israelis have actually died. So...Israel is mostly the bad guy, and Palestine is mostly the good guy?
It sounds kind of silly. And yet we do this all the time.
Saying a situation is "complicated" sounds like we're trying to appease everyone by not assigning ANYONE as the bad guy. Well, how would we feel about someone responding that way to...
Rape? “It’s complicated”
Slavery? “It’s complicated”
That feels insulting, doesn’t it? Fundamentally though, it points to the fact that we don’t deal well with nuance. We assume that the word "complicated" removes responsibility from the "bad guys", or somehow downplays the awfulness of the situation. Or, worse - "complicated" means that we think some blame should go to the victim.
Are these the only two options?
When thinking about various social evils, most of us come from a perspective grounded in conflict theory - the belief that society is fundamentally us-vs-them. Who are the good guys and bad guys in this situation? Who is fundamentally the victim and the oppressor? Seeing society as a series of dichotomies makes us feel better. It makes for a nice narrative (and great for fundraisers, headlines and tweets), when a situation can somehow to boiled down to the forces of good and evil pitted against each other.
But assigning roles like oppressor and victim doesn’t actually solve problems. Like, ever. It just makes everyone angry and unwilling to listen to each other. The one who gets to be the “victim” is given free license to unbridled indignation, the “oppressor” is resentful for being misunderstood and feels unfairly demonized.
The song "Officer Krupke" from West Side Story makes light of this. Who’s fault is it that this kid is messed up? Why, it’s his parents! No, it’s his society! No, it’s biology! No, it’s just bad luck! - There’s no solution in the song, but as the baton of blame is passed around, it’s apparent that playing the blame game is about as silly as it sounds.
Even making this point will anger some people - again, because the assumption then is victim-blaming and victim-shaming, which are the last thing we want to do. THE PROBLEM IS that this assumption still fits into the same mindset - conflict theory demands we assign blame, so if it’s not going to the oppressor, it must go back to the victim (or, Officer Krupke, we’ll have to find some other designee).
How can we let go of blame? How can we drop our moral obligation to be offended on behalf of "marginalized groups"? Doesn’t this minimize the problem being discussed? How is it possible that saying “It’s complicated” doesn’t diminish the trauma, the horror, the social destruction that occurs because of these horrendous actions? Doesn't it let the bad guys off the hook?
I’m so glad you asked. Not at all.
The trick is to reject the entire paradigm. Replace it.
Good heavens Kindra - with what?
A paradigm of social UNITY.
Choose to see a problem - whether it is war, rape, slavery, racism, domestic violence, child abuse, homelessness or whatever (regardless of how clear the issue is to assign blame) - with a paradigm founded in social unity instead of division.
If we believe society is like a soccer game with two opposing sides, then even if we play fairly, only one side ever really gets to win. It’s a permanent zero-sum game. But if we really believe the soccer game is ALL OF US against PROBLEMS and SITUATIONS, then suddenly we all get to work together to solve the problem. What if we talked about working together against racism like we need to work together against cancer? Does that minimize or downplay the problem at all?
It doesn't matter whether one party clearly seems to bear the brunt of responsibility (like slavery) or the responsibility may fall on multiple sides (like political polarization). Frankly, if our goal is solutions instead of blame, we will empower EVERYONE to help understand the nature of the problem and solve it, which of course includes individuals taking responsibility for whatever role they play, as well as identifying other contributing factors. By discarding our narrow blinders of blame, we will be better able to see larger social forces, institutions, norms and social patterns that play a significant role in creating social problems. It’s harder to bash social norms on Twitter than it is to bash some guy, and maybe not as satisfying, but the approach is a whole lot more effective.
For example: during the 90’s, child abusers were talked about like serial killers. Child “predators” were treated as unspeakable monsters of unknown origin who roamed the streets, looking to inflict harm on any child in their path. Watch out for those people, we used to say. Then, in the 2000’s, we looked at the data and started to shift and think about child abuse as a social problem that was potentially influenced by lots of different factors. People who hurt children (usually their parents) are often frustrated and stressed out - they are often struggling with legal, health, relationship, and financial problems. Maybe, we thought, if we focused on solving child ABUSE instead of removing child ABUSERS, we would widen our scope of inquiry and improve our solutions. Should child abusers still go to jail? Um, heck yes. But is jailing child abusers the sum of the solution? Not even close.
I don’t think this approach minimizes the seriousness of child abuse at all, but even if it did, I would frankly rather enjoy the awesomeness of solving abuse than magnifying its horrible-ness. Wouldn’t you?
Gaza is no different. Is it more important to us to point fingers or solve problems? Are we willing to let go of the us-vs-them paradigm so that we can effectively work together to end war and suffering? Can we sacrifice some of our anger so that our desire for unity overcomes our desire to be the “more righteous” person? I hope so. Then, instead of accusatorially insisting "You are the problem" we can ask "How can you and I solve this problem?" And just maybe...if we adopt this mindset ourselves, we can encourage others to do so as well.
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