The Importance of Nuance
Between light and darkness there are many shades. Without them, we can’t make sense of either ourselves or our world.
Good vs. evil. Light vs. Darkness. These are easy narratives that are both easy to create and easy to understand.
Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple. Heroes by definition must face a challenge significant enough to prove they are worthy of the name. This makes the opponents and obstacles that they are attempting to overcome as essential a part of their heroism as their goodness and courage.
The ability to see value within opposition requires an appreciation for nuance. Recognizing subtle differences between two or more ideas, images, things, or people is one aspect of nuance. So is an understanding of complexity. These enable us to transcend simple us vs. them and other either/or narratives that are preventing us from seeing anything of worth in people and ideas contrary to our own.
The truth is, we are all wrong to one degree or another. As the science fiction writer Issac Asimov once pointed out in a response to a university English major who had written to him expressing his conviction that Asimov’s faith in science was misplaced, right and wrong are not absolute.
