Empowerment Through Thought

So many people in this world want to make things black and white. There are the good guys and the bad guys. The ones who operate on love and the ones that operate on hate.

Its human, I suppose, to want to know who to root for and who to condemn, but its also deeply unrealistic.

The world is full of nuance. There are few folks in this world who we can say are or were truly 100% bad and even fewer that we can say were 100% good.

That isn’t to suggest that people should get a pass for doing morally wrong actions simply because they themselves are not 100% bad. Even in a world as morally complex as this one, we can still hold people accountable for the harms they have caused.

And at the same time, we can hold space for the fact that even those who have caused harm have also experienced harm at some point along their journey.

This is nuance. And my goodness some people simply cannot tolerate it.

Some folks strive to rewrite these very human stories into something so simple, so black and white, they no longer seem to be human.

I believe complexity is one of the core things that makes us human. Each and every one of us are many different things all at the same time. We are not simply *good* or *bad.* We are nuanced.

One thing that endeared me to philosophy is that it helped me connect with this nuance. Philosophy, as a toolkit, allows you to look at complicated issues from many different perspectives. It helps you resist the temptation to slap a simple label on a nuanced situation. You have to spend time with the situation, examine it with fresh eyes, and explore all the ways the circumstance may be different than your initial gut response led you to believe.

And sometimes that careful examination of all the nuance leads you right back to your inital gut response, and sometimes it doesn’t. In both cases, you are richer for tromping through the many shades of nuance. A conclusion that is made after such an exploration is so much stronger than just a gut anaylsis. It is built on a rock solid foundation, one that is unlikely to crumble should anyone question you.

Holding space for nuance, exploring nuance, it makes us more human. It makes our conclusions stronger. It keeps us from falling into the trap of seeing the world as the good guys and the bad guys.

And folks who have the apetite for nuance will definitely have an apetite for philosophy. So my nuance lovers, I am so glad that you are here.