Simple Thinking in a Highly Complex World

One of the defining characteristics of conservatives is that they expect things to be basically simple.  They think that once you figure out a problem, there is usually one identifiable cause, and the problem gets solved by doing one thing.  But that doesn't work out too well in a world that is highly complex, in reality.

There is plenty of research out there that says that with the conservative mindset comes the belief that knowledge is fixed, that it is basically simple facts, and that it will be mastered quickly, or not at all.  The liberal mindset, on the other hand, is that knowledge is changing, that it is NOT simple, and that it may take extended work to master.

But it turns out that health care, terrorism, the federal budget, military defense, the economy, social services for the poor, and almost everything else you can imagine government doing is highly complex and not amenable to simple fixes.

These things are called "Complex Dynamic Systems." They are so complex that when the entire system operates, things happen that are not predictable from examining the component parts.  This is sometimes known as the "Butterfly Effect."

Thinking that there are simple solutions is a logical fallacy because it assumes that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of causes operating together.

"Ban the Muslims and we solve the terrorism problem."  It doesn't work that way.

"Tax cuts for the rich solve the economic problem."  It doesn't work that way.

We see this fallacy of oversimplification all the time from the Trump administration, but outside the realm of politics, we see it to, whenever people with a bedrock of the conservative worldview engage in problem-solving.

In his cult-classic science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein coined the term "Grok" which means to consider a subject from all perspective so fully as to completely understand it.

We need a lot more groking and a lot fewer simple solutions to complex problems.