Nuance Doesn’t Sell

Right-wingers are fascists. Lefties are communists. The free market will solve everything. Trump supporters are racist. Abortion is baby killing. What do all of these claims have in common? Well, quite a lot, actually. But aside from the fact that you may have heard these claims uttered countless times by various individuals on either side of the political divide, all of these claims are decidedly crude, and offer a very low resolution picture of reality. In other words, they lack nuance.

It is an unfortunate reality that, while nuanced ideas do a better job at conveying a true and accurate picture of reality, it is the crude that tend to circulate. Simply put, crude ideas are far more mobile than the nuanced, and thus enjoy a far greater influence than they deserve.

First, it might be worthwhile to define what I mean by nuanced and crude ideas and why it matters. As we all know, the world is a place of extraordinary complexity; indeed the complexity of the world and its inhabitants is practically infinite. In contrast, our minds and our perceptions are limited. Due to the limitations of our minds, our ideas and impressions about the world will invariably be less sophisticated than the reality they seek to convey. In other words, abstraction is necessarily less complex than reality.

To get an idea of what I mean, try this quick experiment. Stand in front of the nearest wall and get a good look at it, taking in as many details as possible. Then, close your eyes and try to recall that same wall as best you can. Take as much time as you like conjuring the richest mental rendering of the wall possible. When you have that image in your mind, open your eyes once more and compare your mental impression with reality. Inevitably, you will notice that the real wall is far more complex than even your best abstraction, and there will be a lot of nuance and detail your mental impression failed to pick up on.

Nuanced ideas are those that are more keenly aware of the complexity of the real world. They give more faithful representations of reality and strive to include as many details as possible. Going back to our experiment with the wall, a more nuanced idea is one that does a better job at representing the wall in its complexity. Crude ideas are the opposite. Rather than seeking to add detail and attempting to paint as accurate a picture of reality as possible, crude ideas simplify and strip away subtlety. Such ideas do not portray reality as accurately.

So if nuanced ideas do a better job at depicting reality, why are crude ideas so widespread and readily shared?

As mentioned, nuanced ideas are not as mobile as crude ideas, that is, they are far slower at transferring from person to person. There are a number of reasons for this. First, nuanced ideas are necessarily more complex. Thus, by nature they are more difficult to comprehend and harder to memorize. Consequently, such ideas aren’t always grasped and tend not to remain in people’s minds for quite as long. Additionally, they cannot be explained as easily and are therefore more likely to be misunderstood or misconstrued.

To get an idea of what I mean, consider the following two statements:

1/ Abortion is baby killing

2/ Abortion is the termination of a fetus that would otherwise have developed into a baby, and that shares characteristics of a baby dependent on the length of time in which it has spent developing in the womb

Now it’s true that neither of these statements convey the reality of abortions perfectly, but number two is clearly the more accurate depiction. However, it will also be obvious that the more nuanced second statement requires a little more time to process, and doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as its crude alternative.

In addition to being less mobile, nuanced ideas are far less satisfying than their cruder counterparts. This is because our simple minds are forever keen to divide the world into crude binaries, eager to forget the pesky nuances that hinder such a task. It is more satisfying, for example, to be able to classify an individual as either good or bad, rather than looking at all of the details and coming to an ambiguous mix.

The media is keely aware of our mind’s preference for the crude, and our love of simple binaries. They know that unsophisticated ideas are adept at arousing our emotions and appealing to our tribal instincts. It is for these reasons that one-sided headlines making bold claims are far more likely to attract our attention than more nuanced, long winded ones. Unlike the crude, nuance doesn’t sell.

So what does this mean for the world? How does the immobility of nuance affect our everyday lives and shape our society?

For starters, the tendency of crude ideas to spread leads to greater division. When we eliminate shades of meaning we are left with the black and white. Thus, we are left with two groups with starkly opposing views who find it almost impossible to find common ground. It is only by introducing nuance, or shades of grey, that mutual understanding is possible.

Additionally, our aversion to appreciating nuance means that progress is slow. This reality is old news, as philosophers throughout the ages have long opined at the inefficiency of societies to change for the better. Hegel, for instance, famously described society’s progress as moving in three steps known as a ‘Hegelian dialectic’. This process begins with a ‘thesis’, in which one idea is played out; then, an ‘antithesis’, in which its opposite takes over; until finally a ‘synthesis’ is reached, in which a balanced medium between the two extremes is found. Our preference for the crude seems to support such a portrait of progress, in which nuanced ideas are only adopted after much trial and error.

So be mindful whenever you are tempted to omit nuances in your communication, as our tendency to transmit the crude over the nuanced only impedes progress and pushes us further apart. Nuance may not sell newspapers, attract attention, or help create memorable political statements, but it is necessary if we are to carry out productive conversations, and build a better world.