Enough – simplicity and simple answers!

Stuff is bloody complicated. Everything. All stuff. Single-celled organisms are complex. Individual atoms are complex. The more ignorant one is, the more one can become convinced that simplicity is available and if everyone would just do and think ‘the right way’, all would be well. Thank God we’re here, here to save the world. Now to figure out how to put across our message so everyone gets it, and all will be sweetness and light. It’s all SO simple, why is everyone SO stupid?

I’m guilty of this.

I was in a great online group today in which we discussed… what did we discuss… well it began with the end of the world and ended up with humour. The idea of (I think this is what it was called) complex science (bottom-up) vs. top-down economic behaviouralism came up in a breakout. The imposition of a set of behaviours rather than understanding that stuff really is complex, and we need to continually “do the work”. It’s what caused the thinking to begin for this edition of enough.

For example.

Cards on the table, I think behavioural psychology and behaviouralism is basic, clunky stuff that we’ve moved past, or should have. It has its uses. For me the lay world, and unfortunately much of ‘western’ positivist science-rationalism thinks ‘behaviour’ is equal to psychology. If you can just get people to behave in a certain way, all will be well. To which I say piffle!

The cognitive self is a range of possibilities that shift and stretch constantly, always, moment to moment. We are shifting constantly as we experience and the significance to us, at any given moment of those cognitions and experiences is in a constant flux between being “present-at-hand’ (we are considering something intently and purposefully), “ready-to-hand” (being available for our ordinary everyday use), and receding into shadow, but available. So, behaviourism is a useful observatory discipline which at best informs our cognition.

So, there we are, simply put, behaviourist and behaviourism, it’s a silly over-simplified thing – I HAVE SPOKEN!

Not good enough. I know that I’m not getting away with that. I know it’s MY best thinking, but I also know that my best thinking has constantly been bettered throughout my life and I can now appreciate that this is likely to continue the more I put myself in the way of learned and deep thinkers. Also, relatively ignorant, and ill-educated people actually, according to my academic idiom. There is wisdom out there by which people live very successfully and have done for thousands of years. There will be a lot of people out there with floppy hats who are further up the academic ladder than I who have built their academic careers and reputations upon things I think (like behaviourism) are really pretty flimsy. I’ll argue that with them too and do!

Back to how wonderful I am.

My current (notice, current, I’m learning…) best thinking, my worldview, is interpretivism. I am a follower of a particular philosophical strand and methodology which does not support the Cartesian rationalist view that in terms of psychology and therefore humans, small (or however large) datasets can be generalised absolutely. In my world, there is only the possibility of contributing the being I give to the world and my analysis of aspects of it. This is because I work in psychology, and I work with people. There are no right answers, but there must be well put and thoughtful contributions. An idea cannot be ‘wrong’, but it can be poorly explained and without sufficient support. So, this idea of complexity and doing the work rather than the imposition of ecological and economic dogma held interest for me.

So here I am being right about stuff being complex and espousing, although thinly disguised, my Heideggerian, hermeneutic, and phenomenological thinking. A paradox, is it not?

Coming back to the online discussion today concerning the end of the world and humour… and a fascinating concept called a hyper-object (something that’s there but too big to see all facets of at once and variously revealed about which I have some extremely yummy Heideggerians thoughts). Can we first agree whether we can all agree that there is going to be a point at which humans will not be able to expand their number as they wish and there will always be a good enough place for them all to exist? No, we cannot.

There are people that think we’re already beyond saving the earth for human habitation (like me) and need to plan how we’re going to cope, if at all. There are people that can take a view over several thousand years into the future and see that we will survive as a species and there will be a “thousand-year clean-up”. Others are creationists or have some other closed thinking religious affiliation (which includes an affiliation to technology) who think that ‘God’ or technology will save the chosen ones.

It's bloody complex.

Everyone is bringing their best thinking. Everyone is doing their best here. That might be the view that people should just damn well accept that they know best and anyone that doesn’t is an idiot, but it’s the best thinking some people have. Everyone needs to be accommodated… or do they?

‘Something I shared this today in a breakout – in rehab I was told that my best thinking had “got my ass to rehab”. The only possible solutions for me then were to be dead, or to do what I was told by people who’d already done the work. There was a cusp. So, do we continue to accommodate everyone until there is a cusp, and then it’s “ok everyone, playtime over, this just got dangerously serious”?

There are people whose family fortunes are tied into property in what I consider the most ridiculous places. Beaches. Cliff edges. Flood plains. They are going to be either a little concerned or in complete denial. They will have formulated a battery of reasons why it’s all going to just fine. The more people they can get to agree with these ideas, the more comfort they take. They have a personal stake in not having their gamble turning bad, however well they think they’ve calculated. Oh, look, you can get in the car and get squashed and killed, life is like that… etc… These places are expensive. These people have a lot of money, or a lot of debt placed on an expensive place. These people run companies and are extremely influential in Government circles. Just saying, as the saying goes…

There are also a lot of people, most people, who have done the people thing and procreated and have a responsibility to a family group which outweighs all and everything, utterly. Their ability to live the best life they can in their own circumstances are everything and anything else is a ‘nice to have’ once their own stuff is covered. Reasonable, if we are to accept that people will continue to do as they always have and find reasons why increasing their line is non-negotiable. Controversial? I don’t care, I’m just stating facts, not giving an opinion. I have chosen not to do this but hey, maybe the right thing is to keep going with burgeoning human population?

So, look, there is not a simple answer. There will be point in time when the chickens go a’roostin’, at home, but then there will be a whole waggon load of reasons put up for why someone’s $multi-million house is currently in a million bits mingled with other houses, all over certain bays. There will be other reasons why some places in which for millions of people, it has become too hot to exist. People will be utterly convinced this has nothing whatsoever to do with human activity and it’s all part of a natural cycle, or it’s God’s idea, or both.

It's obvious that I side with the experts that have dedicated their intense scientific careers to the subject of climate change and human habitation. The vast majority of them, not the one or two (relatively) gobby mavericks who infest radical social media groups. HOWEVER, there ARE a few scientists that are making valid scientific points outside of the mainstream. They are usually rightly questioning the simplification of the science. If this isn’t useful, it is often academically correct. This is pounced upon as the secret sauce XYZ Government or Bond-villain like corporation is keeping from us.

I’m saying, it really is complicated, until people are physically threatened, themselves. Even gross misjustices visited upon other people, somewhere else, doesn’t cut it, not really.

Back to the idea then that simplicity and simple answers… are not the answer. This is me being a bit cheeky, a bit ‘tongue in cheek’, my idea of ironic humour to make a point. I admit it, I’m being mischievous. However, my higher point is that people should be prepared to engage in elevating their thinking to more difficult things. People should be prepared to take on learning and debate ideas in a situation of wanting to make pursue the most beneficial outcomes. Especially those in positions of high influence.

Hugely different agendas should come together, but it needs rules. No physical danger. Not ever. No threats. Bring all your subplots and let’s get ‘em all out there but expect to be challenged. Speak robustly but expect to have to explain. Bring your religious and academic stances and ideas, but also bring the guiding principle that everyone is actually, for whatever reason (and it might be personal and selfish), doing their best. In this always be willing to strive for the most expedient (best) outcome and for that to change too.

OR… wait until the cusp hits ye and do what humans do – they let powerful wealthy families persuade us all to fight and kill each other on whatever spurious pretext works for them. Simple!