A building destroyed in Gaza, this Tuesday.MOHAMMED SABER / EFE
In a recent interview, the playwright Nieves Rodríguez Rodríguez, defends complexity as a generator of possibilities.
This statement is, to say the least, provocative.
It comes at a time when simplification is the essential requirement for effective communication.
The simplicity of any operation, especially those related to the intellect, is rewarded over any other option.
The effort terrifies us.
In education, we teachers are alerted to the number of minutes that students can maintain their attention, despite the fact that a constant change in activity also implies the inability to introduce ourselves into a “complex” topic, we should not overload the students. Cars tend to drive themselves. Electronic devices have to be "intuitive", whatever that word means. We see infants able to use a mobile phone before learning to speak.
Complexity is rejected as a drag on the past. Of those years in which, still, the capitalist system had to justify itself against other models that, although not desirable, were possible. In Spain and in Europe, in general, we cling to the last blows of the battered welfare state. In other places and situations - as in the case of the besieged population in Gaza these days - complexity begins at the moment of birth. They do not have the luxury of compartmentalizing their concerns.
The centenary philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin has been warning since the 1990s of the need for complex thinking as a method to face the various events of the future of existence. Complex thinking tries to consider the different dimensions of reality and opposes the segments in which scientific disciplines have limited knowledge. For Morin, the parts cannot be understood without understanding the whole, our lack of global perspective explains our inability to understand the world. Complex thinking is not intuitive, it requires preparation, training, and effort. The immediate thing is to think that when two terms are raised in opposition, these terms are exclusive. For example, unity versus diversity.We could think that the unity or cohesion of a group is only achieved with the elimination of diversity. However, a more leisurely reasoning would offer us the possibility of arguing that the diversity of the components favors their interdependence and, therefore, the unity of the group.
The most direct thing would be to think that the United States supports Israel because of the pressure of its Jewish population, however, the reality is that the vast majority of American Jews are critical of Israel. Evangelical American Christians massively support the Israeli state for its belief in the second coming of the Messiah in the Holy Land. The hegemonic powers develop strategies to thwart any attempt at critical thinking. Explanations that connect our well-being with the violence that is experienced in other parts of the world are branded as
conspiranoids
.
What to say about the pairing economy versus health?
I am not just referring to the pandemic, there are other examples such as measures to limit pollution in highly polluted cities, where hundreds of pollution-related deaths could be prevented each year.
The myths of the capitalist economy, of infinite growth and of the free market, have been imposed as unbreakable dogmas and today - paraphrasing Yayo Herrero - it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
Since
On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense
was published in 1886
,
from Friedrich Nietzsche, we know the power of metaphor as a creator of knowledge. Truths are illusions that have been forgotten that they are. The relationship of similarity from which it was born is lost and only the identity relationship is considered. The formation of metaphors corresponds to a fundamental instinct of the human being. Through them he gets to know himself. The metaphor not only belongs to the field of the text, but it also shapes reality. The metaphor permeates everyday life, thought and action. The way we experience the world is largely metaphorical. Changes in our conceptual system change what is real for us and affect how we perceive the world and act on these perceptions. We categorize the world to understand it. When making an assertion we make a choice of categories.We focus on one specific aspect and not another so that the experience is consistent. Using a metaphor is to illuminate a certain part of a certain concept to the detriment of others. The darkened parts do not disappear. Lighting them is a complex but worthwhile exercise. It offers us new possibilities to face our reality and no one is aware that we are desperately in need of alternatives.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, ideologies have not ended, a single model of thought has been imposed and anti-intellectualism has also triumphed.
However, inaccessible reality and experience do not abandon their complexity.
We have the right to complexity, because as my dear playwright says, complexity is not hermeticism, it is the opening to new worlds.
Mar Gómez Glez
is a sociologist, writer and doctor of Philosophy from NYU.
His novel
A Happy Couple
(finalist for the Nadal Prize 2021) has just been published in the Tres Hermanas publishing house.