In our increasingly complex and technological world, politicians, executives, and voters are confronted more and more with problems that have multiple causes and complicated interactions. Most of these problems didn’t just occur overnight, nor will solutions be quick or simple.
Unfortunately, because of that reality, a great majority of people, including all too many Americans, are grasping for quick, simple “magic answers” and embracing simplistic slogans.
Build a wall! Deport ‘em! Tax the Wealthy! Free College for Everyone! Medicare for Everyone! Black Lives Matter! All Lives Matter! The Three Steps to Success! Three Strikes and You’re Out! Freedom Dividend! Pro-Life! Pro-Choice!
And those are just the some of the “magic answers” flying around, largely courtesy of the internet, and the politicians, charlatans, and unrealistic idealists who employ it to get their messages across, a welter of simplistic slogans purveying everything from impractical idealism, commercial hucksterism, political bullshit, pure deception, to malevolent hatred.
The problem is compounded by three factors. First, there’s no effective way to remove inaccuracies, untruths, and patently false assertions and claims, and, even if there were, such a mechanism would soon be abused. Second, there’s no cost to those who purvey them. Third, too many people believe things that are not in fact so because, with the huge access to information, a smaller and smaller percentage of people actually are capable of analyzing that information, and the human “default” is to judge by feelings.
But when the medium is the message and can influence feelings, feelings become less and less accurate in making judgements, particularly when they become overwhelmed by the complexity of modern problems.
That’s when people fall back on magic answers… but magic answers don’t solve problems. What they do accomplish, however, is to empower the demagogues, politicians, and dictators most adept at employing such simplistic slogans.
The simpler and more appealing the slogan, the more likely it’s either totally unworkable or impractical, if not both… or outright wrong… yet very few people seem to understand that… or want to.