Is Nuance a blocker to Progress?

It’s fairly undeniable that the problems we face in society these days are increasing complex, with multiple, reasonable perspectives and endless trade-offs.

A natural conclusion to reach from this, is that resolving these problems in an effective way, requires paying attention to the details, taking care to find the right balance among the trade-offs, having a nuanced approach.

I recently came across this interview of a VC from Andreessen Horowitz, where they argue strongly against nuance, proposing that it gets in the way of action and progress - especially when building companies. This is an easy point to empathise with, it’s a callout of the inefficiencies of bureaucracy that everyone loathes, the endless debates nitpicking over the small differences, the need for perfection,, to accommodate everyone that leaves everyone unhappy and actual progress in the doldrums. Especially when applied to the current political deadlock in the US, it’s natural to feel that some progress, even if not perfect, even if it does discriminate against some parties, would be better than the lack of any. And it’s natural to feel that we’re being blocked by this attempt for perfection, to satisfy the nuances and address the complicated perspectives of everyone involved.

The very opposite of this however, is very evident in most congressional hearings. US senators exhibit a frustrating lack of nuance, or even reason, repeatedly demanding YES or NO answers during hearings on complex topics, answers which wouldn’t be representative or simply can’t be given. One simply has to look at the number of memes generated by it for evidence of how far from reality it has become. This approach prevents those testifying, or even those watching, from getting a full picture and ultimately makes it a circus for senators to push their personal agendas.

I think at this point, most of us have come to realise that we as a species really do not do a good job of accepting differences, we tend towards populist ideals when under threat, and create arbitrary groups (there’s even a whole part of social psychology dedicated to how irrationally we do so). With this in mind, if we do bias towards progress, does it come at the cost of nuance? Can we accommodate all perspectives, and build an inclusive society without taking into account the individual nuances? Could we segregate the areas where nuance does not matter? Can we say that building companies is a very different prospect compared to building a society - when our societies are so influenced by those very companies? (This has spawned into a new thread about companies vs societies in my head now…)

After all, the very epitome of disregard for nuance would be the old Facebook Motto - Move fast, break things. And whilst they’ve definitely made progress, they might have also broken democracy in the process…..