Adrian inspires
Adrian Reynolds
'IN ADDITION TO A YES AND NO, THE UNIVERSE CONTAINS A MAYBE' Robert Anton Wilson
A lot of people get upset about grey areas, wanting there to be a definitive yes or no to the questions that concern them. Only, more often than not, life has complexities beyond the options of Stop or Go - the number of voters saying they'd vote differently if asked about leaving Europe a second time is a good indicator.
Whatever impetus went into people voting to leave, the consequences of doing so went way beyond what anyone envisaged. Not long after, we're wandering round dazed wondering where the Prime Minister went. And what happened to Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage? They were all about rallying the public before Brexit, and have gone strangely silent in the aftermath.
Owing to our tendency to believe that people either think this or think that, it's possible that you believe I'm a fan of the EU following that opening. And it's not that straightforward - I voted Remain, less out of a passion for a wildly bureaucratic institution that exists primarily to perpetuate its own growth, than because on balance I'd rather have stuck with a not-so-super superstate than risk Britain's chances free of that shelter.
What's this obsession we have with there being two choices? It's factored into so much of what we do. Our default is to think in terms of two political parties, even though there are more - as if the big issues those parties have to get to grips with conveniently sort into two piles, each side standing on top to be clearly identified.
More than that, it's implicit within the way we code our perceptions. People are either male or female, black or white, straight or gay, freshly labelled for your convenience, to avoid having to expend energy on more detailed consideration.
Only, that's not remotely how it is.
Our binary tendencies might have served us reasonably well in a simpler world, but aren't at all adequate for the 21st century. Scratch that...it's only 2016 in the Gregorian calendar. In the Assyrian worldview it's 6766, in Korea it's 4349, and if you're Burmese it's 1378 - the year is a function of where you landed when you were born. Same with gender - we favour male and female as the poles, some other cultures suggest three, and more and more biologists are inclined to favour that perspective.
We're wired to think in either/or ways, and can get outside those limitations. Hard to believe, when you see people like Donald Trump banging the drum for whatever hate-filled stuff he knows will strike a chord with his supporters, who having been fucked over by successive governments are willing to grasp for anything that looks like an easy answer and fits with the hurt and bewilderment they feel at a world that no longer seems to need their services.
Yet up the road in Canada, Justin Trudeau shows off some of his yoga moves to reporters, and demonstrates equivalent mental flexibility when he tackles a question about quantum computing, giving a succinct explanation of what it means to have digital systems that rather than choosing between 0 and 1 have a third option available. And it's the third option we need if we're going to make the most of the futures available to us.
Just 0.2% of the British public will get to decide who our next Prime Minister is. That's the number of people who as members of the Conservative Party get to make that vote, and they're a gerentocracy: the average age of this pro-authoritarian, anti-EU bunch, is around 60. Many people that age evidence suspicion about the naivety of the young, but my experience is it's exactly that kind of openness that will shape a brighter time to come.
Now, what I'm going to say is purely anecdotal, but it's very much the case that the young people I know are switched-on in ways that amaze me. I come across teens and sometimes work with 20-somethings, and what I encounter for the most part is people accepting of difference in all forms, and who actively contribute to furthering that awareness in their communication, work, and choices.
While silverback politicians gesticulate and point to the imaginary differences between people as evidence of evil to distract voters from the structural causes of injustice, a new world is being quietly created. Its distinguishing characteristic is people who when confronted with something they don't understand, approach it with curiosity and openness, rather than assuming that 'unknown' is synonymous with 'threat'.
Tagged: politics, millenials, diversity, binaries
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adrian@adrianinspires.com