Remember a decade or two ago when it was our national pastime to complain about email? More recently, as I’ve reassessed this blog, my social media presence, and our centralized digital platf…
"Maybe the best way to pass along a feel for this kind of thing is to do what people have always done when they've got a great deal of complicated information to convey, and that's tell a story. Stories are never the last word on the subject, they don't pretend to tell the whole truth, but there's often truth in them, truth you'd never see just by lining up all the facts."
"I think we should repurpose the word ‘simpleton’ into something that isn’t so pejorative. There’s something to be said for circumventing the needlessly complicated. And to consider oneself a simpleton reflects a healthy sense of skepticism about the comprehensiveness of one’s knowledge."
I think this is wonderful!
The definition of simpleton is: "a person lacking intelligence or common sense" but what could be more sensible than doing away with the needlessly complicated? What could be more intelligent than realising the extent of one's knowledge?
I was hearing on the Philosophize This! podcast about Erasmus and his humanism and how he rejected everything corrupt about the Church and wanted simplicity and love for your fellow man and a move towards less ritual.
One of the things mentioned was how he believed that ignorance cannot be a sin (he also didn’t like philosophers and their ‘lazy’ dawdling about looking for the truth being the most important pursuit of life; what needs to be understood, of course, was that Erasmus was just after the black plague and the hardships of that time must have felt more important than looking for a higher truth, you know, Maslow’s…) because we’re born into ignorance and never in our life does it happen that we are suddenly NOT completely ignorant.
Stephen then goes on to link this to how ignorance is a bliss and I started thinking about how ignorance is something people nowadays strive for. The book some of my friends are reading nowadays – The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – is all about staying within your own self, being more confident about what you are, and not constantly feeding yourself the news, or information.
Stephen ends the episode with a quote from the Bible – “The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is.” – and says that Erasmus thought this to be the key to happiness.
Well, it seems that humanism and simple-ism and being ignorant is making a come-back. With more books such as this one above coming out, with an increase in the noise in the signal, with every social network trying to capitalize on outrage as a means of increasing discourse, it seems that people are pushing back by finding their own corners in the world, focusing on what makes/keeps them happy, and by being more ignorant.
Colin Walker linked to a post by James Shelley recently, talking about how the word ‘simpleton’ needs to be repurposed from a derogatory term to someone who “reflects a healthy sense of skepticism about the comprehensiveness of one’s knowledge”.
I believe this is an important point in the current discourse, but instead of taking that one word, I’d rather use the word ‘simpleism’, simply because it’s something I do not already see as a pejorative.
To say, “let’s be simple”, to pursue simpleism, then, is to focus on reducing the noise, reducing the constant barrage of notifications, and news, and outrage, and even the implicit trust we have in our own knowledge and understanding.
This doesn’t mean one should simply stop looking at the news, or always be unsure. No, it means one who is willing to say, “I dunno” and being comfortable with it.
Now, if you ask my wife, I’m NOT one of those people. She asks me a question, and if I don’t know the exact answer, I regurgitate what I do know with something half coherent. The next moment she’ll ask Google and I’m completely wrong.
This surety is not something we should aspire to. It’s actually harmful. Now, that’s on a micro-scale, the personal level. The same doesn’t truly apply at the macro or the societal level. At that level, what quacks like a duck, walks like a duck…
Is simpleism compatible at a societal level? I dunno, James and Colin, you tell me.
Hi Nitin,
Thanks for the note in response to the posts by Colinand I.
I like the intent and motivation behind the word ‘simpleism’, but I’m not sure if it, well, simplifies anything? I wonder: what does ‘simpleism’ denote that is fundamentally different than what is meant by ‘simplicity?’ Unless there is a distinction between them, does a new word risk complicating the point?
The reason I want to co-opt/redeem ‘simpleton’ is precisely because it has a pejorative connotation that discredits the literary ‘face value’ of simplicity, at least in a linguistic sense. I don’t suspect adding more words moves us closer to simplifying the concept (or the practice) of simplicity itself. Simplicity, so far as I can tell, has more to do with eliminating things than adding them.
Yes, I realize that it is absolutely ridiculous to redefine a word of a language (i.e. impose a new definition of ‘simpleton’ on the masses) — and only chaos would ensue if everyone took it upon themselves to rewrite dictionary entries at whim! — but the fact that ‘simpleton’ isn’t a compliment seems in dire need of correction. ‘I don’t know’ are three incredibly important words, and we shouldn’t stigmatize their use or their users. This is why I want to repurpose ‘simpleton.’ The negative connotation itself is the target.
How seeking to live a simple life as individual relates/positions one to/within their society is a question I have been thinking about a lot recently. I need to wrangle my words some more, but I’ll be posting what I’ve got here shortly.
I am absolutely no expert on any of this, but thankful for the opportunity to chat about it with people like you and Colin. Looking forward to hear more of your thinking.
@colinwalker I've been thinking a lot about email recently. This is a great piece. Thank you.
Source: In Praise of Email | Dan Cohen He’s right. We take email for granted, but it “just works”. Can’t do better than that. Hat Tip: Colin Walker. Also on: Related