Things are More Complex than they Seem on the Surface

The other day I saw a humorous sketch on Instagram with the point of view of two European mainlanders cringing at the idea of a Brit washing dishes and then putting them to drain without rinsing. As you'd probably expect there were a plenty of comments agreeing that this was gross, but I was surprised how many went to the extreme of saying that this just concludes that all Brits are disgusting, horrible people. And there I was wondering why people still go to war against each other. I guess if people can villainise an entire nation on how they think they all wash their dishes I guess we have no hope of a war free world. Of course the likelihood is that they aren't actually villainising a country on how their dishes are washed, but rather using that as another reason to dislike a people they already dislike. However, it illustrates how easy it is for leaders of a country wanting to go to war to rally their people against an enemy.

People have a propensity to simplify. In this way if a problem exists then they want a simple solution to fix it, but when it comes down to it, few problems have a simple fix. Recently there was a conversation on Instagram about whether transgender women actually had any real advantage at competetive levels in all sports. Someone pointed out that regardless of your gender, you still can't make competitive sports fair for all because so many other factors play a part in what you can achieve like money and genetics. I liked the comment and gave a tongue in cheek response of: "it's almost like life isn't fair." I got a response to that comment from someone saying that life would absolutely be fair if we got rid of racism. Initially I'd thought maybe she was responding to someone else and I'd been tagged accidently, but she then added another comment saying that as I was white I also needed to check my privilege.

One would think it would be glaringly obvious that getting rid of racism wouldn't make life fair for everyone when the conversation itself wasn't even about racial discrimination in the first place, but if combating racism is her cause then I guess a little bit of mental gymnastics would be all that is needed to attribute every injustice to racism. By only having one problem to solve all problems it makes a solution much simpler and either makes you feel like you can do something about it or puts the problem somewhere outside of your control so you can blame that and not do anything to help yourself. Making assumptions about others also helps because you can then pigeon hole them all into 'bad' on one attribute alone. That's so much easier than weighing up the balance of all their attributes, deeds and experiences, just disregard the fact that judging someone on their skin tone is in fact counterintuitive to an anti-racism cause.

I find the saying: "The more you learn the less you know" quite appropriate. In my younger years it was easy to form opinions, convictions and beliefs from what I knew and from the sources available. As I've gained more life experience and met more people from across the world and from different demographics I realise that things aren't that simple. We can't know what is going on in someone else's mind or what their lived experiences have been. Different cultures have different ways of doing things which aren't wrong or right merely normal to them. We can't help making snap judgements of others from the societal norms we experience around us, but I've learnt to take the approach of waiting to hear why someone behaves the way they do before forming an opinion, even if I don't agree with it. I can choose where my own moral compass sits, but I can't make that choice for others. If the way they do things and what they believe brings no harm to others then what does it matter if it's not the same as my approach?

We have a tendency to believe the things that we want to believe, even if it isn't realistic. Therefore we will use whatever evidence we can bolster that belief. This very often plays into the hands of those in power when they want war. If they can blame all the country's problems on one group of people and make their people believe that wiping them out will solve those problems then people will jump to that cause. But the reality is that a country's problems can't be solved by a single solution and no matter what solutions are implemented you can only really try to balance things to try and get the best outcomes with the least harm caused for as many people as possible, a concept that is not palatable when we want a simple, 'one size fits all' solution. It's also not a comfortable concept that two contradicting seeming things can both be correct and incorrect at once. I have known people to get aggressive when this is pointed out.

Something I try to do is listen to viewpoints from both sides of a story or debate, even if I don't agree with them, which isn't always easy. I'd rather listen to someone talking about things from the viewpoint I agree with, but that's not always helpful in understanding things fully and certainly doesn't help to implement solutions.

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover or a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes and this is so accurate. Some of the best people I've met are those who are often dismissed by society and some of the most judgemental people are those who are considered upstanding. Often those who loudly profess to be virtous, caring and inclusive or champions for a cause will surprise me that they are less accomodating than their claims would profess them to be if someone doesn't meet the critia they want. It's the quieter ones who don't shout about their good deeds who are more likely to keep an open mind.

If you want to claim superiority then don't be surprised when you get push back from those you deem inferior.