Ode to Simplicity

Personal Identity

At Harvard, I took a philosophy class in Personal Identity. We studied theories of time, theories of memory, papers on psychology and psychiatry, the physical construction of the brain, and all sorts of thought experiments. The papers were so complicated that at one point, one of our essay assignments was to explain in five pages what one paragraph in a paper meant (I made an A). It turns out that what makes a person one single individual, and not another, is extraordinarily complicated.

Unless, of course, you believe in a soul. Then everything becomes incredibly simple. But that was “outside the scope of the course.” My TA didn’t believe in the supernatural. As it turns out, when you don’t believe in souls, finding a reason to believe in humans becomes incredibly convoluted.

Sophisticated Stupidity

There is, it turns out, a certain brand of stupidity that requires a great deal of intelligence. Any child can put the round peg in the round hole; it takes a professor to make a convincing case that the square peg ought to fit in the round hole. Any child can see when the emperor has no clothes; it takes someone educated to come up with an explanation for their being invisible.

The older I get (and yes, I realize I’m not that old), the more I appreciate the value of simplicity. I particularly want to mention what is known in philosophy as the “law of economy” or “Ockham’s razor,” which makes the case that truth and simplicity go together.

In Praise of Simplicity

Take punching. Punching with improper form can be complicated; the proper technique for a punch is simple – difficult to learn, but simple. Deceiving people – weaving tangled webs of lies – is complicated; telling the truth is simple. Hard, but simple. Manipulating people is complicated; caring about people is simple – exhausting, but simple. Flat earth theories are complicated; taking a picture of the earth from space is simple – not easy, but simple. Utilitarian calculus is complicated; integrity is simple. Incredibly hard, perhaps even impossible, but simple.*

I have a Harvard degree in Moral and Political Philosophy as well as a Master’s in Theological Studies. I’ve studied philosophy and religion in Texas, Massachusetts, Israel, and England, with people from all different backgrounds. I’ve read extensively, from Romans agnostics writing thousands of years ago to German atheists writing in the nineteenth century. And the more I study, and the more I read, the more settled my opinion on complicated ethical theories becomes. They’re nothing but complicated ways of hiding from the truth.**

The Point is to Change it

I can spend hours pondering metaethical theory, utilitarian calculus, cultural relativism, and moral anti-realism. But if in the middle of my musing, a group of men come up and start to gang-rape a 12-year-old in front of me, the only question I need to ask myself is whether I have the guts to do something about it.

Suddenly, the answer to the question ‘what is right,’ which seemed so inaccessible before, thrusts itself in front of my face, and all the talk in the world cannot silence its shouting. Integrity. Justice. Honor. Compassion. Courage. When push comes to shove, they are revealed to be radiantly, terribly, unrelentingly, blindingly simple.

It is not enough to sit silent. If we are among the so-called good men who sit by and do nothing while evil thrives, we are part of the problem. Evil is not always a crashing thing; it is often a creeping thing. It will continue gaining ground, silent but ever-growing, until someone takes a stand against it. Entropy will always take its course unless we make a constant and conscious effort to put the broken pieces and people of this world back together.

One day, when all is put right, and all the wretched of the earth rise up and cry out against their oppressors, all the theories that protected us from our consciences will be startled into silence, and we will be left naked before the truth. Will we be ready on that day?