Binary Focus Syndrome

Fed up with the over-simplification to which we are subjected? Fed up with Twitterati requesting Yes or No responses to complex questions? Then this is just for you! Intellectual laziness abounds in any adversarial system which contends that the way to find the truth is to examine two opposing narratives, and that anyone who advocates any other alternative is a troublemaker!

Binary Focus Syndrome

 

Why are we so often asked to choose

Between those who should win and those who must lose

Why can there be no middle ground found

Where each side’s opinion be deemed reasonably sound

So that choice is more than mere innocence or guilt

With no single foundation on which rationality is built

 

Can we be expected to answer “no” or “yes”

When the reply to the question is a reasoned guess?

Is it not more honest to not be sure

Or is “plus or minus” what we must search for

Or “left or right” or “up or down”?

Imaginary numbers a mental breakdown

 

Those who tell us someone is always wrong

Or that morality is a Party to which they belong

Stretch credibility far too far

As if belief in one tribe were an exemplar

To which all humanity must bow to pray

For all man’s confusions to just fade away

 

Like magic, into some universe

Where truth can be only that which is terse

Devoid of nuance or interpretation

Infallible, eternal and beyond disputation

So reality is some sort of divine revelation

That applies to all, no matter what nation

Regardless of wealth or hierarchical station

That needs no further contemplation

For them, the rest is sheer speculation

But truth’s not revealed ‘neath some pleasure-dome

Nor by Binary Focus Syndrome