The Big Lie
People prefer to exist in the stark simplicity of unrelenting duality. Perhaps it is soothing to frame an uncontrollable world around a less complicated lens, but it no more changes the material nature of that world than it absolves us of using our brains to attempt rational comprehension of the actions we see and choices we make.
A president whom many people dislike deposed another president whom many people dislike. In an objectively illegal manner, he removed an objectively illegally ruling criminal and tyrant. In contravention of international law, he extracted and put an end to the reign of terror of a serial contravener of international law.
People believe they cannot simultaneously dislike a politician or administration while also approving of a particular act that that administration takes. We tell ourselves and each other that an individual is so innately evil that no good could ever come of them. Perhaps it makes life easier. We do not have to challenge the political bubbles we construct around our social circles. We do not have to live a morally fractious existence. We cease having to question our instincts, battle our own consciences, or – heaven forbid – change our minds.
Has our intellect become so reductionist and our moral capacity so stultified that we cannot hold space for or fathom two not entirely consistent truths simultaneously?
Reality isn’t simple. It isn’t straight forward. It isn’t easy. Neither is life.
It can simultaneously be true that the war in Iraq post-9/11 was a fraught conflict based on flawed intel while it is true that the world is a far better place without Saddam Hussein in it.
It can simultaneously be true that there is a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and the majority of Gazans prefer war to acknowledging their Israel neighbors’ right to exist beside them.
It can simultaneously be true that your pro-Palestine activism stems from a place of good intent while also exposing historical ignorance and making your Jewish friends less safe.
It can simultaneously be true that the extraction of Maduro contravenes international law and that his removal is an objective good worthy of the joyous celebration and hopefulness we see in the millions of Venezuelans flooding the streets to mark an end to his iron grip on their homeland.
So many of our societal ills today stem from a preference for intellectual and emotional laziness. A childlike need for stark simplicity in the moral world order that yearns for black and white choices and refuses room for subtle shade. Internal debate, self doubt, and iterative questioning help us to hone our understanding of the complexities that compose the fabric of our existence. When we teach our children at a tender age that there is a right and a wrong, we know implicitly that life is usually not so simplistic and that one day they will be faced with choices that question the effectiveness of that neat, dichotomous framework.
Shouldn’t we also then teach our children how to grapple with such complexities as they grow and struggle to navigate them? Such is a dying art, so much so that many so-called top academics eschew nuanced thinking and instead insist upon preaching politicized, one-sided propaganda.
President Trump can be an unsavory, grotesque person at times. That does not mean he cannot also be the only person who was able to save the lives of the remaining hostages starving to death in Gaza. He may be flexing American muscle to revive the Monroe Doctrine for a modern age as he seeks access to Venezuelan oil reserves. That does not mean that it also is not in America’s best interests to end the foreign footholds in Venezuela of Iran, Russia, and China that threaten our national security.
The generation that loves to march, scream and hurl slogans they do not comprehend missed some vital portion of their education that would enable them to think critically, see more than one factor of an equation, and make mental space for incongruous facts. They were sold a lie – whether it be in college or grade school or at home – that if they stand consistently on one side of an equation they will always be in the right. They believe they need not question their logic or good sense if a stance feels good or the right people are taking it against a predefined group of always-wrong people.
If you have been yelling that resistance is justified when people are occupied, then you should be thrilled for the eight million Venezuelans just freed from two decades of brutal occupation by drug lords and dictators. If, however, you cannot fathom doing so because you so despise the president who took the action that freed them from the grips of cruelty, then you are not doing your intellect justice. It is possible to dislike the president and to question how the act came about, but also to acknowledge the good that is the act of freeing Venezuelans from tyranny.
When we lie to ourselves in order to fit a messy world into our pre-baked constructs of right and wrong, left and right, liberal and conservative, we omit the space for critical thinking that results in the current world order in which we shout at each other without hearing the other. When we are so mired in loathing for one man that we deafen ourselves to the voices of actual Venezuelans who have lived through the hell of Maduro and Chavez before him, we lose whatever perceived moral high ground we think we occupy.
Don’t fall for the Big Lie. Morality isn’t strictly dual. Sometime Jean Valjean needs to steal bread to feed his starving nephew. Sometimes dictators need to be forcibly removed for the sake of millions, and the means of doing so are never clean or easy. Sometimes innocent people die to save other innocent people.
Perhaps if we find it within ourselves to release the self-righteous and create room for the ambiguity of real life, we might all stop shouting at each over the widening chasm. We just might grow that much wiser.
