Clickbait title: A simple world with no contradictions.

It is no secret I believe the desire for a simple explainable world is responsible for many ills from conspiracy theories to abuse of power. I also believe that the heightened competition in the attention economy is partly to blame for this. Nowadays you need to sell people a good story that instantly fits a comfortable framing. And of the most comfortable framings we have is one of causality and “deserving”.

The Robbers

One of my favourite classical books concerns a familial succession of two brothers. An eldest brother who is beautiful and a younger brother who is ugly and all the more jealous for it. Drama happens and the younger brother betrays the eldest, securing the family inheritance and a beautiful woman. Easy causality, someone is ugly so they do bad things out of jealousy.

Alright, so we are primed for our comeback story. The older brother is rejected from his family, but he shall redeem himself! Well. He falls in with criminals. And not people with a heart of gold forced in crime, simply heinous people. He pillages, kills and does not repent when given the opportunity (Incidentally, the scene between him and the priest is one of my favourite pieces of writing).

He does return to the family home, more by chance than will. Karl is showing signs of innocence again. Is there hope? Turns out that no there is not. He may redeem himself morally in the end, but he dies all the same. It is a tragic ending. Despite the fact that he was the beautiful son who deserved the inheritance and was tricked by his evil brother, the tragedy was that he was too far gone into the bad part.

The Heart

With the Disney era of mass-media, I think our children’s entertainment has achieved some additional level of complexity. Complexity, in our children’s media? Terrifying for my parents.

Our heroes may now be ugly, they may face some social ousting, but they have some heart of gold. It’s the inner value that counts etc. And the inner values are indeed what will bring our heroes the win. The villains may now not only be betraying liars, but they may also be in positions of power or god-forbid attractive. But they have to be rotten, they have to kick the dog.

“The Robbers” is an interesting book to read for modern audience, because it follows the alien concept of a moral downward spiral of the protagonist. Someone trapped in the whirlpool of depravity, trying to hold on to the raft of innocence. Nowadays we prefer stories of growth. Maybe less of a whirlpool, but someone who can’t swim climbing themselves out of a shallow pond.

Despite the fact that they are socially ousted, the protagonist manages to come out on top, due to innate qualities.

The 60 second video

Here’s the problem with stories which include a “despite”: They take time to develop. Notably it’s not the same as a plot-twist. Plot-twists are fast and punchy enough they even fit into Vine. “Despite” needs to set up a moral situation and then show how deeper forces at play pull you out of it. Even worse if you are going somewhere that the audience can’t predict, then you need to justify every step you take.

Now the internet does love non-sequitur humour. I think it’s one of these things best helped by visual media which can punch you in the face with something unexpected. Wow so random! But that is not a “despite”, that is a “but then suddenly”.

Really, “despite” tends to be deeply serious. You need an apparent contradiction in cause and effect. And that can be unsettling. Long-form media can deal with that, it can expose deep moral quandaries. Short-form not so much.

The Tweet

I’ve talked a lot about stories, fictional stories. But we also tell a lot of real stories about other people. We often call it drama. And the thing I noticed that drama cannot handle above all is “despite”.

In the world of drama, bad acts have to correspond to people with rotten souls who have always been bad. A bad action coming to light gets backsolved into something that has always been true.

Here’s some uncomfortable sentences:

  • Despite their horrible opinions, they made great contributions to the field.
  • Despite the fact they did this bad thing, I think their existence in the space is still a net benefit.
  • Despite their position in the community, they have their flaws.
  • Despite the beauty of their art, they should not be idolised.

Now I purposefully mixed sentences in where they put the despite. I neither want to promote fatalism nor be apologist. My entire point is that it is very uncomfortable to acknowledge both sides here, so we tend to force one side.

And yes I am somewhat tired of people trying to force nebulous connections. People’s demeanour affects the people around them, and that means that no their behaviour cannot be locked away in isolation. If they are popular and mention just horrible opinions publicly, that affects society and should be counted towards their legacy. But it also does not imbue all art they ever make with a spectral hatred.

I think in the end “despite” sentences are scary, because they can go either way. Here’s all the sentences from above, flipped:

  • Despite their great contributions to the field, they had horrible opinions.
  • Despite the fact that their existence in the space is still a net benefit, they did this bad thing.
  • Despite their flaws, they deserve a position in the community.
  • Despite the fact that they should not be idolised, their art is beautiful.

Feeling uncomfortable yet? I think most people reading a tweet like that would be. Why? Because we are weighing souls now. We are trying to somehow figure out how much good can weigh the bad. And this is not how you get many likes and retweets.

And I think it sucks. It leads to excusing horrible behaviour, because we want to keep dreaming about great accomplishments. Or it leads to us discarding important achievements, just so we can burn all association with someone who was a horrible person.