We Need Nuance
Tena tātou katoa e te iwi mīhana… (Greetings to all the people in mission),
This month’s whakataukī (proverb) is: “He aha te kai ō te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero.” (What is the food of the leader? It is conversation [knowledge, wisdom, communication]). I cited this whakataukī back in February 2020 with regard to consultative decision making. Here, I take another angle on talking, or conversation, as something that should nourish all leaders. Conversation creates depth in our personal (and, by extension, organisational) narratives. It expands our empathetic understanding and adds nuance to the way we view and interact with the world around us. Sadly, in today’s polarising world, nuance is becoming a rare commodity.
When we speak of polarisation we often imagine the separation of opinions into two camps on opposite sides of a chasm, with something like dominant magnetic fields pushing each other apart. Right now, it seems like there is a ‘hardening of the attitudes’ that strengthens the magnetic fields of opinion, thereby amplifying repulsion. This manifests in increasingly opposing perspectives, which we call polarisation.
We need to shift our thinking away from a binary world of black and white certainty.
But if you think of the earth’s two poles, you quickly realise that, rather than a chasm, there is a large diverse world between the two that we can explore. We need to shift our thinking away from a binary world of black and white certainty, in order to minister effectively in a polychromic world.
If you force repulsing poles together they create heat from the friction. In this time between times, diverging views vying for dominance is doing a similar thing. From my perspective, the values and philosophies of Enlightenment modernism, having reached a zenith in neo-liberal globalisation, is crumbling around us but it is not going down without creating a lot of heat. Industrialised nations returning to war could be seen as indicative of this end-of-epoch destabilisation at a macro level. Identity and values clashes at a national or even more micro level are similar indicators.
We double down on our own convictions, without necessarily understanding why we hold them.
In volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times, the temptation to withdraw into the echo-chamber of the like-minded (your preferred pole) is overwhelming. It is an easy route to take and social media algorithms serve as rocket fuel along that highway. There, we double down on our own convictions, without necessarily understanding why we hold them. Instead, we grasp a handful of simplistic propositions (seemingly unassailable universal truths) and hunker down, weaponising them against or for the challenge of change. The more activistically inclined become zealots, with little regard, let alone compassion for the ‘other’ that is perceived as a threat to their way of life and being.
Arguments and accusations are lobbed across the divides from both sides. Meanwhile, there are real people in real situations trying to make meaning from the changing and challenging situations they find themselves in, buffeted between opposing opinions. When the wellbeing of people and societies are at stake, decisions (choices) need to appreciate nuance as locally and personally as possible. With reference to the whakataukī, nuance emerges from talking, talking, talking—from conversation, consultation, exploration, consideration, investigation, assessment, input. In other words, listening before choosing/deciding/acting. This is the food of leaders and it is not fast food, it takes time to grow.
Leaders who appreciate nuance will navigate us out of the chaos we are currently experiencing.
Leaders who appreciate nuance will navigate us out of the chaos we are currently experiencing, but because society is still adjusting, it will be some time before they are given the opportunity to do so. Right now, people want certainty and clarity when neither are possible. Still, there are plenty of salespeople posing as leaders who will offer followers certainty, which they won’t be able to deliver over time. The most they can provide is a numbing salve for the moment.
Jesus was no salesperson, neither was He a friend of the Zealots, although he welcomed them as readily as anyone who chose to follow. His Way was not black and white, much to the discomfort of the judiciary of His day. He frustrated echo chamber members. Jesus did not offer certainty or clarity, he asked for trust. In doing so, he provided coherence. Jesus spoke of a new ‘social imaginary’, a new way of being in the midst of chaos and disorder, with a far more compassionate narrative of life in God than the dogmatic world of religious (and legal) formulae.
Jesus knew that what we might experience as ‘order’—when ‘our kind’ happens to be dominant—is merely a brief bubble of reprieve against chaotic forces, It cannot be trusted for it does not last. He was the anti-zealot, a bringer of peace and reconciliation rather than defenciveness and division, even to the point of giving His life to pull poles together. In Christ, we do have certainty. Certainty of eventual rescue from the sin-induced volatility this side of eternity. His reign is coming and it will be right, good and stable. In the meantime, any empire that emerges out of the chaos of our time will be little more than a pale imitation of what Christ will establish.
Living as witnesses of Christ’s eternal order, we need to avoid identifying with one pole or another. Instead, we must listen to the suffering, hurting and hopeless caught in between, and let the complexity of their stories nourish compassion while we minister for Christ in this world, committing to #stayonmission.
Arohanui ki a koutou e haere ana ki te ao (love to you all as you go into the world),
Jay
