Tokenism

Stories like this one on the BBC website set me off something chronic. Let us not dwell on the particular details in this case, but focus on the wider concerns.

We live in a very, very shallow world. Complex issues must be brought down to black & white, right & wrong, in an instant to capture the fleeting attention of the fickle masses before moving on to the next story.

But we're adults, we're intelligent beings. We can observe the world and what goes on and understand that most things don't have simple yes/no, right/wrong positions. There's a bit of truth in both sides of a position; positive things to be said even for the views of those most unlike us.

And yet we've taken this yes/no 5-minute-debate-and-the-problem's-sorted, boiled-down-to-a-10-second-soundbite presentation of all the world's various troubles and it's become institutionalised. If the problem's only presented as a shallow face-value issue, then we only need to take shallow face-value steps to resolve it, right?

Bankers take risks and get big bonuses? Oh, legislate the bonuses away and the problem's solved. Never mind tackling the risk-taking culture that underlies the industry, or the fact that the industry is able to take such rewards without contributing much back to the society that enables it in the first place, that's hard and requires thought and effort. The news picks out a 1-in-a-million brutality and blurts it at us for days? Well, all adults are suspect and we'll legislate their access to minors at all times. Never mind that most bad things that happen to kids are caused by people they know and trust - that would require a functional society to support families in trouble and provide guidance and assistance instead of blame and hate.

And then we get to the fluff.  Population Sub-Group X are under-represented in Power Structure Y.  So we'll just mandate that there must be "n" members of X promoted / appointed to Y. Never mind whether there are better candidates with more appropriate skills & experience. Never mind whether Group X has been empowered and given access to the resources necessary to make a good fist of being in Y.

Never mind what the longer term consequences are for a society which is learning that you don't need skills, or experience, or intelligence to solve complex problems. You just need a transiently plausible Issue, a loud voice, and access to Media to sort it out.



I really, really should know better than to let this get to me. Aren't I old enough and cynical enough to just let it pass me by and get on with my taudry life?