Oversimplification

64 Oversimplification

Dan Burkett

Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.

Proverbs 10:4

The fallacy of oversimplification occurs when we attempt to make something appear simpler by ignoring certain relevant complexities. We are bombarded with oversimplifications on a daily basis: poverty is the result of laziness; wealth comes from hard work; meat is murder; the global financial crisis was caused solely by corporate greed. Perhaps at some point, you’ve found yourself in a heated political debate and heard a friend blurt out something like the following: “That party is anti‐immigration – so if you vote for them, you’re a racist!” In saying this, your friend commits a very blatant act of oversimplification. Specifically, she assumes that immigration policy is the most influential factor in deciding which party you’ll vote for. Suppose that you do vote for the party. Perhaps you are racist, but it’s also possible that you strongly disagree with the party’s views on immigration while nevertheless endorsing its progressive positions on many other issues.

This is an oversimplification of human motivations, but we can also oversimplify the way in which certain systems function. In 2014, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe carried a snowball onto the Senate floor, effectively arguing that since it was snowing in Washington, climate change must be a myth. In doing so, he ignored a number of relevant complexities – including the important difference between local “weather” and global “climate.” We can make oversimplifications about human‐made systems too. The philosopher John Stuart Mill (1843) notes that there are many doctrines that “ascribe absolute goodness to particular forms of government, particular social arrangements, and even to particular modes of education, without reference to the state of civilization and the various distinguishing characters of the society for which they are intended” (553). The claim that the single best form of government is provided by communism, fascism, democratic socialism – or any other ‘ism’ for that matter – will undoubtedly involve a number of gross oversimplifications.

Sometimes oversimplification makes sense. The world can be a convoluted place, and we may need to ignore certain factors in order to get our heads around certain thorny ideas. But in other cases, oversimplification can be used deliberately to deceive or divide people. Politicians are particularly good at this, such as when – only nine days after the September 11 attacks – President George W. Bush claimed that “either you are with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” This oversimplification (also a false dilemma, discussed in Chapter 81 of the source) left out a number of nuanced positions that individuals might hold toward the “War on Terror.” Clearly, it was possible to object to some elements of the United States’ foreign policy without necessarily being “with the terrorists.”

Mill (1843) notes that a specific kind of oversimplification – “the fallacy of the single cause” – occurs when we attempt to “explain complicated phenomena by a simpler theory than their nature admits of” (552). Put another way, this version of the oversimplification fallacy involves assuming that a particular outcome has only one simple cause when in reality a number of complex causes may have been involved. These are sometimes referred to as “jointly sufficient causes.”

Suppose, for example, that a severe thunderstorm washes away my cliff‐side home and leaves me destitute. I might find myself saying something like the following to my friends: “I’m homeless and broke because of that storm.” The storm explains the immediate damage, but other circumstances help explain why it left me destitute: (1) choosing to build my home in such a precarious location, (2) ignoring the advice of engineers and local officials, and (3) opting to forego comprehensive home insurance in favor of other purchases. These factors have different causal roles. Lack of insurance did not cause the house to wash away, but it affected the financial consequences.

Why does this matter? Well, suppose I wanted to prevent the same thing happening again. If I identify the storm as the single cause of my destitution, then it seems there’s not a lot I can do. “Storms are acts of God,” I might say, “and there’s nothing I can do to stop those.” But if I recognize the wider set of sufficient causes, it becomes apparent that there are many ways in which I could avoid the same tragedy occurring a second time: I could insure my home, seek expert advice on its construction, or just build it somewhere safer.

This is where the real risk of oversimplification lies. Our understanding of relationships of cause and effect allows us to reason about – and interact with – the world around us. In fact, it’s vital to our survival. I know that eating causes me not to starve, and that exposure to extreme heat or cold causes me to suffer harm. Understanding causal relationships is just as important on a more global scale. Understanding relevant causes can help us prevent conflict or respond to a crisis. We do not need complete knowledge of every factor before acting, but omitting a factor that changes which response is likely to work can be costly. The same problem arises when addressing climate change or migration: an explanation that ignores important environmental conditions or human motivations can lead us toward an ineffective response.

Avoiding the fallacy does not require making every answer longer. It requires asking whether the simplification leaves out something that matters to the question. Suppose, for example, that we were faced with the question: “What caused World War I?” One short answer is “the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.” That names a precipitating event but leaves out the conditions that allowed it to lead to war. A fuller account would examine domestic political factors, growing nationalism and militarism, and the system of alliances between nations. Those factors matter because they help explain how the assassination led to a wider conflict.

Before choosing a remedy, ask which omitted factors could change your understanding of the problem or the likely effects of your response.