#complexity

Finally, I had held up examples of Goldhagen's inflammatory language and suggested that he had missed the essence of what Primo Levi once called the 'grey zone' of human affairs, described by the historian Christopher Browning as that foggy universe of mixed motives, conflicting emotions, personal priorities, reluctant choices, opportunism and accomodation, all wedded, when convenient, to self-deception and denial. I thought that by marshalling his research into an overly narrow narrative, painted without nuance in black and white, the author had missed the human complexity and the ordinariness of racism. ↗

— Erna Paris

#free-will #justice #racism #motivational

Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols. ↗

— Gael Garcia Bernal

#becoming #complexity #constructed #day-to-day #democracy

Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves. ↗

— Edwin Way Teale

#eliminating #labors #life #needless #reduce

It doesn't matter how much you want. What really matters is how much you want it. The extent and complexity of the problem does not matter was much as does the willingness to solve it. ↗

— Ralph Marston

#does #extent #how #matter #matters

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. ↗

— E.F. Schumacher

#elegance #genius #inspirational #simplicity #violence

Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better. ↗

— Edsger Wybe DIJKSTRA

#elegance #simple #simplicity #virtue #education

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#art #complexity #writing #art

He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood. ↗

— E.M. Forster

#artists #complexity #friendship #music #musicians

I treat the photograph as a work of great complexity in which you can find drama. Add to that a careful composition of landscapes, live photography, the right music and interviews with people, and it becomes a style. ↗

— Ken Burns

#becomes #careful #complexity #composition #drama

A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding. ↗

— William Gibson

#city #clusters #complexity #computer #constellations