It's only natural, for the human mind, in it's infinite quest to make things simple, to try to reduce complex and intricate problems into black and white issues. But the truth remains, as hard as it is to swallow that there is no black and there is no white, just a million shades of gray.
Look at the terms we use, good and evil, conservative and liberal, light and dark, right and wrong and even mine and yours. No issue is so simple it can be summed up in one single word, no human so transparent that a one-word moniker such as evil can even come close to describing them. But yet we try to, we try to avoid seeing the complexities of life for whatever reason it is.
Maybe it's because our minds aren't capable of seeing in so many colors. Maybe seeing things in black and white helps us stay sane. Perhaps, we do it to avoid taking our share of the blame. After all, if we saw everything in it's infinite shades of gray we would realize that we are all at fault for the things we try to blame on others. Suddenly we might see our own fault and things in which we pushed squarely on the shoulders of others would once again fall at least in small part, on our own backs.
But perhaps the most compelling reason, the one that is the most likely culprit is that we are simply, as a race, too lazy. We're comfortable with our black and white world and it would take a lot of time and focus to view things as they are. Why should we expend all that energy just to make ourselves more uncomfortable and to make life more complicated? At least that's the excuse we use.
However, it's our duties, the intellectuals of the world, to stop thinking in such a fashion. We must at least try to get the full picture, to see the details and to see things as they really are. If we don't, who will? I challenge everyone who reads this, everyone who understands this, to try and see the grays in an issue that to the world seems cut and dry. Try to find the hint of light in the sea of darkness.
Because if we don't, the world will forever be a 2-D, 2-color planet. Where the edges are sharp, but the minds are dull…
