I have been sifting through some old readings from Graduate School and I came across this one today that got me thinking.
Click here to access the paper I am referring to!
What is Nuance really…
I realised the title of the paper Fuck Nuance, in a terse and concise manner, provides the main conclusion right in the beginning. Many of the vices that nuance in general has with respect to sociology apply to all other theories.
‘Nuance- ing’ can be looked at in a number of ways. I see ‘expository self righteousness’ as an outcome of nuance- ing. This makes the moralising and expository person feel they are doing good by shutting down cryptic truths behind theories or demanding account for why things are done the way they are. In an ideal world, theories would need no explanations since they would never deny the facts, but the truth is, in real life theories and explanations are at loggerheads and would constantly challenge each other. With the world being such a messy place as Healy says, whether you like it or not, it is important to decode and express its complex texture instead of calling in the big guns like- Facts, Nuances and Theories. Nuances made me over precise and tied my thoughts and sentences into knots and huge disclaimers. For example, getting a job over staying home without one, marriage over divorce, having a wife over a mistress or even as simple as the ideal over the complex, what classifies them as good or bad? Nuances that decide what is moral do. I have developed a tendency to demand detail over the last couple of years. I think theory should be developed with a scrutinising eye to explain in detail known social facts, and that abstraction should investigate the smaller facts and particular details. I would think that this tendency would make me a ‘deep thinker’ or a person demanding what sounds like a need for explanation. I was once told there can be a weak reasoning and a strong reasoning, like a weak juxtaposition and a strong juxtaposition. I would then assert that technically there could be a weak nuance versus a strong one due to the lack of complexity, which brings me back to the question does ‘nuance-ing’ make one imprecise or over precise? I would think it is exactly what makes us imprecise !
