“The Simple is False; The Complex is Unusable”

“Relatively simple political ideologies are satisfying because they are consistent and easy to assimilate into one’s understanding of the world. It would not be too much to say that American politics is characterized not by two dominant political parties or philosophies but by two competing enemies lists. A master villain supports a master narrative. But a theory of everything is a theory of nothing, and theories that rely upon the dark operations of secret malice (by left-wing radicals, the Christian Right, corporations, the elites, the 1 percent, the 99 percent, the 47 percent, etc.) are inconsistent with a great many facts that are well documented and widely understood. The only real attraction that these theories can retain after even a cursory examination is their simplicity.”

“What works in theory often does not work in practice, and angrily insisting that it should work does not make it work.”

“To the contrary, I will argue, among other things, that the desire to design a perfect society (or a perfect health care system- my addition)  in theory is one of the main obstacles to achieving a better society in fact, and that the very desire to design human communities is itself destructive. The fundamental political problem is politics itself: not liberal politics, not conservative politics, not politics corrupted by big money or distorted by special-interest groups, but politics per se—the practice of delivering critical goods and services through the medium of federal, state, and local governments and their obsolete decision-making practices.”

“Everything simple is false. Everything complex is unusable.

—PAUL VALÉRY”