In Praise Of Nuance
Poor Michael Ignatieff. See what happens when you buck the trend toward the cretinization of political thought?
Last year Ignatieff annoyed and confused the Liberal convention by not adhering carefully to Liberal orthodoxy in his speech. His own observations and experience led him to conclude, somewhat reluctantly, that American military intervention overseas was, in some cases, desirable. If you’ve read “Empire Lite”, you understand how painfully he got to that conclusion: but he was compelled to it by his own intellectual honesty. I disagreed with his views, but there was no doubt in my mind that he reached them through rigorous thought, not through adherence to anyone else’s ideology.
Now he’s done it again – published an essay in which he discusses the use of state-sanctioned torture.
His conclusion is crystal clear:
So I end up supporting an absolute and unconditional ban on both torture and those forms of coercive interrogation that involve stress and duress, and I believe that enforcement of such a ban should be up to the military justice system plus the federal courts. I also believe that the training of interrogators can be improved by executive order and that the training must rigorously exclude stress and duress methods.
But en route to that conclusion, he discusses some of the reasons that others have used torture, the negative implications of NOT using torture, and the difficulties he himself has had in justifying a complete ban.
And because of that, he’s been taken to task by a number of thoughtful bloggers, many on the left. His crime seems to have been that he openly admits the moral complexity of his position, and discusses some of the negatives inherent in his belief. And because of that, his essay is being criticized as being too “nuanced”.
I’m no Liberal, and have rarely voted Liberal, and I personally don’t think Ignatieff would be a very good Liberal Party leader (wrong skill set and experience). But I think his essay was thoughtful, articulate, and clear. The merits of his argument are for another discussion . But what disturbed me was the notion that there was something wrong in the notion of a argument being “nuanced”.
“Nuance” is one of those words successfully poisoned by American conservatives, like “liberal” or “feminist”. Originally a term of praise, suggesting an intelligent consideration of the many sides and shades of a complex issue, it’s now a term of mockery. Dick Cheney sneers it really well, makes it sound like a construction worker mocking a gay Parisian.
The problem is, some issues ARE nuanced. Some ethical and moral decisions are nuanced. Life is nuanced, unless you’re very young, very stupid, or an irredeemable idealogue of some persuasion. (Those qualities are not mutually exclusive.)
That’s why ideology, be it neoconservatism, Maoism, fundamentalist Christianity or Taliban-style Islam, is such a useful thing. Ideologues simplify things. They refuse to acknowledge those nasty nuances. There’s a simple for answer for everything: you just have to consult the revealed text (be it the Koran, Das Kapital, or Fukuyama’s “End Of History”), and there’s the answer. As long as it’s derived from or consistent with your chosen revelation, no further thought is required. Nuances don’t exist.
And best of all, you don’t don’t actually have to engage with any ideas that challenge your stance. If they are not in consistent with your truth, then they are self evidently wrong, because they’re – well, they’re not consistent with the Bible, the Koran, the Little Red Book or the Thoughts of Chairman Tom Flanagan. So they’re wrong. End of story.
Unfortunately that has increasingly become the tone of public discourse. We talk less and less about the merits or flaws of an idea idea: we simply parse it for compatibility with our respective dogmas, and spit out our reaction based on its compliance to spec. The simpler the better.
The problem is, that doesn’t lead to very robust moral conclusions: it leaves us dependent on external authority for our judgements. A neoconservative president or a radical Imam can declare that X is “evil”, and the followers have only to agree. Neither the president nor the Imam want you to do what Ignatieff does; start from first principles, examine their assertion on its own merits in the light of your own wit and experience, and reach your own conclusions. In fact, they count on you NOT doing that. And too many of us oblige them.
That’s why we need writers who remind us that those pronouncements from on high, or even our own unexamined moral assumptions, need to be hauled into the light and scrutinized. We need to value those “nuances”, and those who are honest enough to identify them and explore them with us. One very astute commentator at Sinister thoughts observed that Ignatieff’s essay and position, while academically admirable, was politically unwise. Excellent. So be it. I have nothing but admiration for a writer who puts honesty, with all its attendant nuances, ahead of politics. We’ve all seen what happens when those priorities get reversed.
You can have all the nuance you want in Highbrowdonia. Academics usually aren’t that good at politics or policy.
“You can have all the nuance you want in Highbrowdonia.”
I find this sudden spasm of anti-intellectualism on the left depressing. I’m hoping it’s simply a political response to Ignatieff’s Liberal leadership candidacy (which, I said above, I don’t support), and not a surrender to the rising tide of stupid.
Balbulican, I really don’t have the time or the energy to read all of this, so can you just sum it up and tell me what it all means?
Heh. Very funny.
But as it happens, yes, I can. Thinking good: not thinking bad.
The problem with nuance, though, is that people use it as an excuse to straddle the fence on issues. If every answer you give to every question is nuanced, then people start to wonder what you actually believe.
In the end, that’s what the GOP capitalized on in the 2004 elections; the fact that John Kerry’s answers to everything were nuanced to the point where people were reporting in the newspapers (at least in New York) that much like Al Gore, he was too smart for the average American to understand due to his use of nuanced ideas as compared to George Bush’s black and white world.
There is room for nuance in the world, and everything truly isn’t black and white. However, when everything you dish out is nuance and you seem unable to take a clear position, it can hurt your credibility.
Sorry to go off on a tangent.
We also have a media that consumes and distributes news in a fast food kind of mentality.
There are few MSM outlets that will delve into a topic in any more depth than the obviously apparent and repeat it ad nauseum. They deal in sound bites. Short, quick phrases that grab a reader or a viewer’s attention.
I am not justifying the practice but it makes nuance and discussion of ideas impossible in the political context. Image trumps intelligence and the former are largely contrived by huge political machines, while the latter is something that a person has and can articulate or not.
“However, when everything you dish out is nuance and you seem unable to take a clear position, it can hurt your credibility.”
Your comment is not tangential at all, it’s right at the heart of it.
The key word here is “seem”. Ignatieff’s critics say his position is not clear, because he says things like “not torturing MAY reduce our ability to extract critical information”. And he’s right. It may. But his position is perfectly clear: DESPITE that possibility, we must ban torture.
His critics are suggesting that even to acknowledge and discuss a possible downside to a position is to be too “nuanced”. I say bullshit: NOT to acknowledge that downside is dishonest.
“Image trumps intelligence and the former are largely contrived by huge political machines, while the latter is something that a person has and can articulate or not.”
It may be, sadly, that we’ve moved past the time when an intellectual can lead our country. Or an honest person.
There’s a difference betwen anti-intellectualism, and saying a square peg does not fit in a round hole. Intellectuals are very worthy people, but they’re not the gods some hold them out to be.
RP, you did note that I said I don’t think Ignatieff would be a very good Liberal Party leader?
I’m talking about the way the notion of “Nuance” is being toxified, not about intellectuals as politicians.
Perhaps I’m being a bit too cynical but I don,t quite see it the same way as you balb. this isn’t about being nuanced on Ignatieff’s part, its about covering his ass. For 3 years he has been on the side of the Iraq war and been seen to be OK with torture. Now, as he attempts to run for the leadership of the Liberal party, he writes a peice that can seemingly be interpreted as both for and against torture, depending on where you sit.
He’s not being nuanced, he’s trying to play both sides of the fence at the same time for political gain. If he lost in January and was not a serious contender for the Libs, I doubt very much he would have written that piece at all.
Or perhaps its just me.
BTW, you should have come down for coffee.
“he writes a peice that can seemingly be interpreted as both for and against torture, depending on where you sit.”
Please tell me how the blockquote in my post can be interpreted as being “for” torture.
Watch the following paragraph closely.
Capital punishment unquestionably ensures that murderers will not kill again. However, I believe that the incorporation of state-sanctioned executions does irretrievable damage to our society. I am therefore opposed to capital punishment.
Is the preceding paragraph “for and against” capital punishment?
Yes, I caught all that. I wasn’t suggesting that you were a worshipper of intellectuals, or of Iggy in particular.
Let me put it this way: Leaders of all sorts have to be good communicators. Good communicators know how to talk to their audience. If you audience is fellow academics and students, who have the time to read and really work at what you’re saying, nuance away. If some of your audience can’t or doesn’t want to be bothered discerning nuance, and you still rely on it, you risk having what you say misconstrued, thus making you a poor communicator, and a poor leader.
Difficulty: Even if you’re doing a good job communicating now, and in the past you were making clever and tricky nuances, they may come back to bite you in the ass.
I am referring to the entire peice from which that paragraph was lifted.
That is the problem. that paragraph and that paragraph alone is clearly against torture, but the rest of the peice from which it came is a non-critical regurgitation of the excuses used to justify torture.
I also think its convenient that this paragraph gets tacked on now. In the past 5 years, such an unequivicable statment has never been made by Ignatieff, even though he had plenty of oportunity to do so.
The only difference is now Iggy is considering a run at the Liberal leadership.
But like I said, I’m cynical.
Mike, you didn’t respond to my second question, with the paragraph on capital punishment. The first sentence is a “non-critical regurgitation of [an]excuse used to justify” capital punishment. Is the paragraph therefore ambivalent in its condemnation of capital punishment?
No.
Come on, folks. If you want to dismiss Ignatieff’s leadership run, do so. But I’m talking about the dismissal of intelligent argument, solely because it acknowledges and addresses other views or problems with the speaker’s position.
Don’t make me start up another thread called “Dismissive Comments On Ignatieff’s Leadership Bid HERE!”
“Unfortunately that has increasingly become the tone of public discourse. We talk less and less about the merits or flaws of an idea idea: we simply parse it for compatibility with our respective dogmas, and spit out our reaction based on its compliance to spec. The simpler the better.”
Exactly. What is more depressing to me is the assumption of so many that, for various reasons, it has to be this way or that we have to accept it and embrace ever more shallow and divisive soundbites to “win”.
Balbulican:
EXCELLENT, SIMPLY EXCELLENT!
Thank you very much for this post, I suspect I will be using it as a basis for a post of my own on this matter. While I agree that being overly nuanced in a political leader can be used against them we have seen first hand by watching the GWB Presidency the dangers of eliminating nuance from political discourse entirely. I mean really, when everything comes down to binary configuration (with/against terrorists as a stock answer to any question dealing from military deployments to press access/freedoms to civil liberties about search and surveillance without warrant or probable cause, etc) it becomes impossible to have any real discussion of the underlying issues.
There are very few, if any really, issues regarding human beings that can be summed up in such absolute stark terms and still be fairly/accurately describing the elements of that issue. This is why context stripping and demonizing nuance is so dangerous and damaging to any open democratic society regardless of structure of governance. The world we live in is complex, and human beings in particular are what make it so complex. People are made up of many different positions and beliefs, many of them in what at the superficial binary perspective looks inherently contradictory but upon deeper examination proves out to not be so contradictory as it initially appears. Where human beings are concerned I am absolutely convinced there is always at least one negative within anything positive and at least one positive within anything negative and it is because of this reality that nuance is so important and must be defended.
In my case for example the problem I have with Ignatief is not these writings it is the fact he has lived outside the country for three decades and suddenly comes back and goes from his first election as an MP to running for the leadership of a party that may well be a government within his tenure as leader. I think he needs to do some more “time in grade” as it were before he is elevated to party leadership. He needs to show through his actions as an MP that he really does get current day Canada its needs and issues and how to properly deal with them within our Parliamentary government structure as opposed to the environment of an academic institution.
What I have read regarding his torture position is consistent with your interpretation and his position on Iraq is one he had consistently. Indeed the only issue regarding his Iraq position is that he was willing to overlook the damage to international institutions and the American ability to intervene down the road in other humanitarian messes because of the deceptions to get into the war, the arrogance of America in dealing with any nay sayers, and the already clear if one looked for it evidence of gross incompetence in executing matters as opposed to politicking them. That is where I have to question his judgment for, and I think that is reasonable and allowing for the nuance of his positions in these issues.
Why is that appearing to be so hard for so many on the political left as of late? Like yourself I find the apparent anti-intellectualism that has entered our politics very worrisome and the fact that it is corrupting the left now as it has already corrupted the political right is *NOT* in my view a positive/healthy development and something to try and counter.
Thanks again for an excellent post Balbulican.
>If you audience is fellow academics and students, who have the time to read and really work at what you’re saying, nuance away.
Which is why, as B noted, there’s a problem in the blogosphere, because presumably bloggers want to present as people who have the time, energy, intellect, and education to discuss complex issues. Otherwise, why should anyone pay attention to one’s screeds except as a horrible warning?
Nuance as Nemesis.
The flurry of articles for and against Ignatieff, based on his writings and speeches, means he is in the headlines in bloggerdom more than any other candidate right now.
But there is my CatForecast:
• His newness, coupled with his nuanced positions, added to the fact that he is a fresh face in the Liberal Party, will mean he runs for leader as a frontrunner, and will do well on the first ballot.
• But the second ballot will see him facing fast, as Liberals at the convention decide he is not the leader to beat Harper.
• By the third ballot, he will be signalling to his supporters which person he wishes to be leader.
And this brings us to the inevitable question: Who will Ignatieff choose to support as leader once his own star fades?
Will he choose a practised politician? Or a fresh face? Or someone highly intelligent?
Fairly easy to predict who he will not choose; less easy which one he will choose.
There’s another interesting trend in discourse emerging here.
My original post was essenttially about a rising resistance to critical thought in the blogosphere. I was commenting on a tendency to mock writers who tried honestly to examine every side of an issue, and draw conclusions based on their analysis rather than any party line.
It’s interesting that about a third of the respondents are turning this into an opportunity to attack Ignatieff’s candidacy. Not that I need even MORE reasons to get depressed about dialogue in blogdom…but guys, not EVERY post is a covert message supporting or attacking a political figure. Sometimes writing about an idea is just about the idea.
This is a good post Balbulican, and I certainly find it discouraging that people think that there is no place in politics for someone who is willing to acknowledge the complex nature of life and the problems we face. I also agree that one of the hallmarks of the ideologue is someone who reduces complex situations to crude rhetorical positions.
On the other hand, I am sympthetic to those who have an instinctive distrust of someone who would approach a question which seems so morally clear-cut and try to tackle it from a nuanced intellectual perspective.
I am reminded of Vietnam War architects such as Robert McNamara whose intelligence and willingness to think through and apply ‘rational’ solutions to what seemed like moral rather than technical questions ended up causing a lot of harm.
Imagine if you were choosing who to have watching your back in a dangerous situation – you wouldn’t want someone prone to making long nuanced arguments on the pros and cons of helping you out in any given situation. You’d want someone who you knew would just come to your defense instinctively without hesitation.
Or, to put it another way, while I agree with most of what you wrote, I think there is more nuance to the situation than your post suggests.
Declan, I’m not talking about who I would want at my back (although the image is intriguing…two opposed stealth debate teams suddenly meet in the jungle, whip out their flipcharts and their Roberts Rules of Order, and furiously began to fire syllogism at each other in the steaming heat…); I’m talking about not mocking intelligent analysis.
By the way, have you noticed that if you add the word “IS” to the word “NUANCE”, you get “NUISANCE”? And they say there’s no God. Hah.
“It’s interesting that about a third of the respondents are turning this into an opportunity to attack Ignatieff’s candidacy. Not that I need even MORE reasons to get depressed about dialogue in blogdom…but guys, not EVERY post is a covert message supporting or attacking a political figure.”
Like I said balb, I’m cynical.
My point was closer to Declan’s second point. I am not trying to bash Ignatieff’s candadacy – I could care less since I’m not a Liberal – but rather what you ascribe to “nuance” I ascribe – fully with the knowledge that I am being cynical when doing it – to political opportunism. Perhaps my cyncism should reinforce your depression. Iggy seems to have made a very nuanced and well balanced arguement at a very opportune time. And after years of failing to make that arguement after making the very arguments he addresses (and claims now not to support).
I think we might both be right – Iggy made a very nuanced and good arguement just in time to serve his leadership drive.
See what happens when the CPC breaks its promises about integrity and doing things differently? Even us lefties get cynical and discouraged (I knew I could work a CPC bash in here somewhere).
In all seriousness, I think we are looking at different levels – you look at this arguement and I look at the continuum of all his arguements.
Really, Balb, was the conservative hit necessary in your post? Or did it just supply the greasy satisfaction for the salad?
Thinking that the “American conservatives” are the enemy of the English language? I don’t see that as a PROGRESSIVE way to spread your point.
Cheers,
lance
Hmm, I’m not sure I got my point across, but I don’t want to be a nuisance…
What I’m saying is that on some topics I put more trust in someone who just won’t go there vs. someone who is willing to apply a rational analysis – no matter how intelligent the analysis is. It’s tough because there are far more situations where the opposite is true – we’re in desperate need of some good analysis and all we’ve got are people who can’t speak/think in more than 5 second soundbites and people who mock/deliberately misinterpret anybody who tries to.
I don’t know about “nuance” but I would argue that, at least large L Liberals poisoned that word, as did feminists kill their own monickers.
Besides, if, as many like to say, conservative thought is in the minority (in Canada at least, because “63% voted against (CPC policies)” is all over the ‘net, how did Conservatives (or conservatives) manage to poison those words?
Mike:
I guess I shouldn’t have used Ignatieff as my example. He was handy, and the most recent. Pretend I’m talking about someone else who wrote a “nuanced” article about capital punishment or something.
Lance:
As a matter of fact, I do think that American conservatives have been much better than American progressives at loading certain terms with negative associations. An intelligent rebuttal would be to counter with some formerly neutral descriptors that the left has poisoned: I’d be interested to hear them.
Declan:
I understood your point, and my response was unclear. I disagree with you. In the field of policy, I trust a conclusion reached through hard and honest thought and self examination much more than I trust someone whose ideas are unexamined and ideological. I find the latter prone to sudden and massive shifts of POV: the former is more inclined to make incremental adjustments in their view.
Candace:
I was referring to the small “l” liberal, and its toxification in the US goes back quite a while. During the Dukakis-Bush campaign, it was referred to as the “L” word, and Dukakis spent most of his campaign denying that he was a “liberal”. When he finally acknowledged it, it was almost as though he was coming out of the closet.
Fair enough Balbulican – I agree with you 99 times out of 100.
Well, I was hinting at the term ‘progressive’.
The first definition of progressive is to move forward. The antonym, regressive is to revert or return.
To attach that word to a political ideology, and conversely the connotation that anyone who thinks otherwise is regressive is poisoning the word.
I am not sure where the bastardization of that word started, but I think in relation to tax policy.
Cheers,
lance
Your logic is way too convoluted for me to follow, Lance.
The word “progressive” hasn’t been poisoned yet; quite the opposite, to the point that in Canada a number of conservatives are trying to appropriate it.
The term “regressive” has never been viewed as a positive or neutral descriptor.
Ask yourself _why_ conservatives are appropriating “progressive” as a term. It’s a defensive mechanism.
You say “nuance” is the new “liberal” in that it takes on a negative connotation with the general public along with anything associated with the word. I am saying that “progressive” does the same thing in reverse, anything _not_ associated with the word must therefore be “regressive”. Same result, different tactics.
Cheers,
lance
Oh, I see. So those liberals are cleverly trying to promote a positive connotation for a word used to describe them?
Nope, Lance. No points for that one. Here’s the challenge, again: find a positive or neutral descriptor that’s been poisoned by the left, the way that “liberal”, “feminist” or “nuance” have been poisoned by the right.
Oh, so you’re looking for an example of the tactics instead of the results. (And we’ll disagree about the point of the connotation in using “progressive”, BTW.)
How about “Nazi”, “war-monger”, “agenda”, “torture”. . . See, it’s easy. Just think of the words used when person/group/party a is trying to insult person/group/party b.
Pointless exercise. Talking heads (and yes that includes us) will always grab a word and overuse it to the point where meaning is lost, positive or negative. It doesn’t matter who or what ideaology we’re talking about.
By next year the general media (and not just conservative blogs) will be using “progressive” as catch all phrase just like liberal and nuance. Meaning will be lost and then you’ll have another post to write about the evil American conservatives poisoning the word with nasty inflections.
Hey, I can do that already. Small smirk, raised eyebrow, enunciate the word in a slightly syllabic form, followed by a snicker.
Meaning is already lost, so it’s halfway to being just another label.
Cheers,
lance
Way wide of the mark, Lance. You’ve cited three words (Nazi, warmonger, torture) that have for all practical purposes always been negatively loaded, and another one (agenda) which only gains meaning when combined with another modifier like “hidden”, “tax and spend”, “socialist”, “Islamist” and so on. It’s a stretch to accuse non-conservatives of poisoning words that _were already poisoned_.
Please insert a quarter to try again…
“How about “Naziâ€, “war-mongerâ€, “agendaâ€, “tortureâ€. . . See, it’s easy.”
Nope, you still don’t understand. None of those terms were positive or neutral to start with. Sorry.
This is actually interesting, and I hadn’t thought much about it until Lance challenged me. But can anybody out there come up with a term that was positive or neutral, that has been toxified by the left so that it’s now negative?
Balb-
How about neo-conservative?
Ummm…..ok I’ll bite. These two are a stretch, but how about “Reform” and “Alliance”? Both were neutral or positive until the Liberal spin machine was able to just slightly manufacture their connotations into something “scary”.
And very possibly the term “neocon” could fit the bill too.
I’ll buy neo-conservative: good call. I don’t think the words “reform” or “alliance” have been poisoned – just the party.
How about “American Style” as in healthcare?
I don’t think righties tarnished “nuance”. I think John Kerry did that by making “nuance” synonymous with “politically expedient”.
By Jove, TH, I believe you’ve got it.
Here’s another one: “Fundamentalist”.
This is interesting. I think it deserves its own thread. Hey! Let’s MAKE one!
I remember John Kerry saying at one point that the war needed to conducted more “sensitively”. It was clear from the context what he was saying: that more attention had to be paid to local realities and traditional alliances (an observation which has proven to be tragically accurate). He was mocked off the map by every right wing blogger in the States, and later that day by Dick Cheney, who stopped just short of lisping and mincing when he referred to Kerry’s “sensitivity”. (This was all around the time when the right wing bloggers were on this very odd streak of subdued homoerotic mockery of Kerry and Edwards).
Curiously enough, about a day later, the leader of the Canadian NATO force in Afghanistan made exactly the same point, and used the word “sensitive” – and no-one mocked or lisped any derisive commentary about his observation.
I am thinking Kerry did a worse disservice to himself by being unable to explain quickly and coherently why a change of heart might be practical or even necessary – “for it, before he was against it” became associated with “nuance”.
Harpers’s Magazine had one of their “forum” discussions about six months before the Democrats picked Kerry as their leader. I’m really sorry, I don’t remember names or dates, so you’ll have to trust me on this one. But one of the participants was a Republican communications strategist who admitted with complete candour that it didn’t really matter who the Democrats chose. The Republican strategy would be the same.
a) The issue foremost on American minds was 9/11, and the perception that the US was at war. The President was perceived as strong and resolute.
b) The opposite of strong and irresolute was weak and irresolute.
c) The Republicans would simply mine the voting and public speaking record of ANY candidate, pick out changes of heart or changes of mind, and brand the Democratic opponent as a wishy-washy flip-flopper.
Other panelists pointed out that any candidate for Presidency would have had a long political track record, and thus would (hopefully!) have changed their mind on some issues over the course of a career (I mean, these people do think and listen, at least a little, right?) The Republican strategist acknowledged that of course that was true, and that the same thing could be done of Bush: BUT in terms of branding, Bush had already captured the “Strong And Resolute” slot, and ANYONE could be made to appear less so than him.
And lo…it all happened.