What’s the Opposite of Chocolate?

For a long time, but even more intensely over the last five years, political debate in this country has felt like an endless argument with a two-year-old. “No, my way,” is the constant refrain.

There’s a problem with this, beyond the war in Iraq, beyond the living conditions in the Gulf Coast States, beyond terrorism, beyond the future of our environment, beyond the massive deficits and the disregard for our nations laws and its constitution, or debates about religion, privacy and economic conditions.

The problem is, when you argue with a two-year-old, even when you’re right, you’re still limited to the language of a two-year-old. That means, all debate must be conducted in either/or terms. Which means, we are abandoning our capacity for complexity. That in turn means, we could lose the ability to make good decisions about all the other issues.

This hunger for an “Easy button,” as a current ad campaign says, could cripple us as a society more than we can imagine.

Are you for the troops or against the war? Are you for rich lawyers, or against lawsuits? Are you for free enterprise or against corporations?

The proliferation of these nonsense questions stabs at the heart of our flexibility, intelligence and power.

You might as well ask, “Are you for ordering the chicken, or are you against food?”

In our worthy desire to emulate Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and the gang, and even in our appropriate affection and gratitude for the World War II generation, we’ve forgotten something we need to remember—as time moves forward, we’ll succeed because of the way we grasp complexity, in ways no previous American generations ever did.

Instead, we’re racing in the opposite direction.

"Don't give me all these complicated questions-- should we bomb them, or rescue them? And quick, answer before we lose interest and click over to something else."

For example, so many questions about Iraq alone are unanswerable, by any fair measure. We guess at answers, the way parents often ad lib a response when a child asks, “What’s the opposite of chocolate?”

Here's a sample of those questions: Who’ll run Iraq in five years? Will there be a state religion? Will factions stop trying to kill each other, within Iraq?

Is there a qualitative difference between killing innocents when you’re getting rid of Saddam Hussein, versus killing innocents in a civil war? If a democratic majority rules, will a form of Islam be forced upon the people there? Will people kill each other over that? If the Iraqi people agree on a series of non-violent objectives that hurt America economically or politically, will we allow that?

What about all the other factions in all the other countries, whether Middle Eastern, Asian/Islamic, and the rest of the world community? How much of our policy toward them should revolve around this conflict? How tolerant should we be toward non-democratic, or religiously extreme regimes that help us, but also teach their children that America is the great Satan?

To what extent are Iraq’s affairs our business? When does “advocating democracy” become meddling? Do we plan to run the country for the foreseeable future? Is Iraq the one unique foreign country among the nations of the world, or are there other countries where we propose to apply this doctrine of pre-emptive war? Are there situations not directly involving U.S. interests where we approve of other countries conducting pre-emptive wars, or is that the sole right of the United States? If you’ve decided against the whole operation in Iraq, are there circumstances you’d foresee when you’d want to see the American military involved? Are there values, besides our own survival, that are worth protecting?

What ideas or programs or relationships can help a family become the first generation not to seek revenge on the faction they’ve been feuding with for their entire existence as a family? If a majority freely and openly chooses a tyrant, is that democracy? Will the United States ever regulate, criticize or curtail poor or illegal behavior by U.S. corporations, either toward the Iraqi people or toward our own troops? Is commercial enterprise always positive, no matter what the goals and results are? Is profit necessarily negative, if a company fulfills an important task in a dangerous region?

What should a veteran of this war receive from a grateful nation? What is the family of a casualty entitled to? Where should we draw the line between information that U.S. citizens ought to know about our employee, the government, and information that jeopardizes our position in the middle east? The average American is generous and compassionate. Is there any way to communicate this to people in the Middle East who’ve been getting so much propaganda? Is there a way to communicate more gently, not as weaklings, but as co-existing peoples, or is war the only language we now trust?

I’ve just scratched the surface on one policy area.

We must embrace the idea that we live with complexity. We need to increase our comfort level with it, rather than begging for it to go away. We need to attend to the many-layered questions that help us with our decision making.

I hope, in our dazzling, distracting world, we have the patience to follow this thought process, as a nation. It will take us beyond slogans and sound bites, to the real-world strength of character that separates adults from children.

Besides, many of our modern complexities open breath-taking panoramas of new human experience.

Because, no, there is no opposite of chocolate. On the other hand, there’s overwhelming beauty in the nearly infinite variety of flavors.