Nuance or Nothing

a natural remedy for polarization

At the rate polarization is driving us apart these days, (re)union might end up out of reach sometime soon. As the planet is heating—a POLARizing issue of ALL CAPS magnitude and humanity’s most pressing challenge—it feels like we’re all heating with it: families redraw the Thanksgiving table’s seating chart according to vaccine schedules while politicians on TV oscillate between shouting and screaming as the aisle widens into an chasm. In our panic, we’re dropping all sorts of things into that abyss: empathy, dignity, and a whole bunch of compromises.

It is a natural remedy for polarization that works almost everywhere, and lives in words like “almost.”

Left or right, right or wrong—why don’t we practice a bit more this and that? Nuance—the relative truth between the absolute truths we claim so obnoxiously—is the glue that keeps arguing parties from drifting beyond a reasonable distance. The middle between extremes. And not everything is nuanced—because that would be an extreme, and this is nuance right here—but most things are. In a colorful world, the largest part of the spectrum is between black and white—even if black isn’t a color. Nuance, again. And I love em dashes, but I hate when I overuse them: nuance—yet again. Too much nuance—just like too many em dashes—becomes nuisance, but as an overthinker I just can’t stop talking about nuance, must finish this sentence with nuance, and start the next one with nuance.

Nuance is a way of seeing, a way of balancing, a way of admitting. Nuance is differentiation and pragmaticism, helps along understanding, reasoning, and diplomacy. You can put it in conversations and hypotheses, extract it from philosophy and even science. Take philosophy: utilitarians theorize that only the consequences of our actions matter, while deontologist claim the same for intention; but common sense dictates that you need to calculate both to arrive at the correct final result, if there is such thing. Duh, the outcome matters even if you screw up with the best intentions. Duh, the intention matters if you succeed by shitty means. Now take science: yes, light is a particle; no, light is a wave. No way it is both. Yes way it is both! If even reality doesn’t know what’s what and struggles with perfect truths, how could we not? And so we replace Newton’s gravity formulas with Einstein’s gravity formulas, until whoever comes next postulates whatever comes next, as we inch onwards—supposedly towards final clarity, but maybe that’s just a human longing and concept, corresponding not even remotely to a round world which has us inching in circles. So, until we get there, nuance is a solid middle ground to inch on.

It is a natural remedy for polarization that works almost everywhere, and lives in words like “almost:” from diffusing emotions that aggravate personal conflicts to aligning the rationales that keep academic theories from practical implementation. Take the historic debate around the truthfulness of photography—summed up and decided decisively in my article Photography Is an Honest Lie—suddenly appearing in a new (artificial) light in these algorithmic days: certainly, the camera reflects reality; but it is certainly not an instrument of truth if you put it in the wrong hands.

Nuance is a chisel. If you sculpt with a sledgehammer, you might break the whole construct.

The crux is that theorists have neither the ability nor the ambition to accurately capture reality's nuanced complexities in their entirety. Schools of thought are built on radical intellectualism by design, because only extreme positions stand out. Everybody in those halls wants to be somebody, wants their name attached to some academic paper or book or statue. You have to be an fundamentalist to revolutionize old thinking and pulverize bedrock institutions.

However, where theory ends and practice starts, middle grounds take center stage. Nuance is a chisel. If you sculpt with a sledgehammer, you might break the whole construct.

Nuance isn't as glam as sensationalized mega-hyper-ultra extremes. But it’s sexy like nonchalant understatements. It distinguishes empathetic rationales from populist polemic: facets against fascism.

Speaking of politics: neither communism nor capitalism work perfectly, neither liberals nor conservatives have it completely right or wrong, and while dictatorships have a bad rap for good reasons, democracies aren’t without fallacies—a benevolent dictatorship might beat an ignorant democracy (and without the literal beating).

Looking at political orientation, I usually think that the left is right, but I believe the right can’t always be wrong even if the how mostly eludes me. One thing I can think of is how liberals perceive conservatism’s clinging to traditions as regressive at home, but the conservation of indigenous cultures and their wisdom as progressive when traveling abroad. Nuance par excellence.

In a polarized nation, the political pendulum swings forth and back, forth and back, every time the clock strikes election day. Because we attribute the country’s wellbeing—and with it our personal wellbeing—to those in charge of it, oblivious to the fact that we are all in charge of it. And something always bugs us, whether that is actually a politician’s fault, our own fault, or due to something less blamable, like circumstance.

The world is complex. A globalized world more so. Invisible dynamics and unforeseeable circumstances complicate political decision making as they factor into the things that go right or wrong, the situations that turn out well or not so well. Politicians are responsible for a country, but not solely responsible. They are dealt cards by the times they preside over. And those aren’t tarot cards, and politicians aren’t psychics. Nations aren’t steered by clairvoyant navigators, but fallible human beings.

Give nuance, give truth. Give me nuance, or me give nothing.

Without nuance as a force of balance, we lose the ability to lean one way or another without falling over and landing on one firm side. Humanity’s digitalization enforces these binaries because algorithms reward sensationalism with engagement, and punish moderation.

Nature knows extremes, but it lives of balance. Nuance is natural. A natural remedy.

In an ever-more digitalized and polarized world, we need more nuance and not more yelling to reach across the aisle, academic hallways, and the dinner table. Give nuance, give truth.

Give me nuance, or me give nothing.