2. Nuance and the Avoidance of Platitudes
2.1. How To See More of the Painting
Imagine you’re looking at a painting. Maybe you’re standing at a distance and you have a beautiful perspective of the painting’s composition. Maybe you’re standing as close as possible and you can see the detail and mastery in the artist’s brush strokes and color choices.
While both of these perspectives give you insight into the image and are enjoyable in their own right, neither gives you a full understanding of the painting. So too with academic topics.
This comparison works well in pointing out that individual details should be seen in context. But paintins are, in the end, bounded by a frame, while academic topics are usually open-ended. This raises the stakes for in-depth thinking about a topic.
For example, the Zoom comic strip by Istvan Banyai (linked here) shows a few images that change dramatically as the scope and perspective changes:
Notice how the images themselves are not altered, only the perspective of the viewer is.
2.2. Nuance
The word we use to talk about this way of looking at things is nuance, a French word that comes from the latin word for cloud. You can imagine noticing the shades of color in a cloud, and that eye for subtlety is what we seek.
Here are some pictures of clouds with different levels of subtlety. A critical thinker might point out that I did not really need to include these pictures in the book, since we have all seen clouds, but it’s nice to break things up with a picture.
Many examples of lack of nuance come to mind, and this would be a good moment to have the class pause and everyone enter their favorite list of “places where I spot lack of nuance” in the lecture chat room. At this time we have, in our cloud server, a chat room called “lecture-sandbox” that everyone can access. Students can put their list in, and hit “enter” all together so they don’t influence each other.
One example I will give is “political sound bites”, and I will then tell the story of the fictitious (but interesting) presidential debate between Bartlett and Ritchie in the serial political drama The West Wing.
I tell the story of the “10 word answer” that appeals to campaign coaches, but kills nuance. In the process I briefly introduce the famous serial political drama The West Wing, since most students are too young to remember this very successful political drama. I also explain that a very common theme in presidential debates is the discussion of taxes.
I then show this snippet from youtube which demonstrates the idea. I start by streaming this youtube URL in jitsi
Below is a transcript:
- Governor Ritchie:
You bet it is. We need to cut taxes for one reason: the American people know how to spend their money better than the federal government does.
- Debate Moderator:
Mr. President, your rebuttal.
- President Bartlet:
There it is. That’s the ten–word answer my staff’s been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They’re the tip of the sword. Here’s my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I’ll drop out of the race right now.
Every once in a while, every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren’t very many un-nuanced moments in leading a country that’s way too big for ten words. I’m the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else.
After this we can slow down and students can talk about examples they have seen where politicians, or other public figures, make it cheesy and lack nuance.
Another way to address nuance is by discussion. Among peers or professionals, discussing a topic will give you, literally and figuratively, as many perspectives as possible. However, discussion requires other people, and often people will avoid having to discuss nuances or approach disagreements by using platitudes.
My favorite metaphor for gaining multiple perspectives on a topic is the practice of tomography: taking x-ray slices of something from many different angles, and then reconstructing a three-dimensional picture. A basic gometric figure is here:
Figure 2.2.1 Example of multiple-angle slices for simple geometrical figures. The slices allow the reconstruction of a 3D image. Credit: wikipedia article on tomography.
A more complete and fascinating example of optical tomography is from a researcher from Portugal, Gabriel Martins, who created a 3D construction of an embryo, by compiling over 1,000 images. You should approach research similarly: in order to gain a fuller understand of a topic as a whole, take many pictures from different angles, and let your mind compose a more nuanced picture (analogous to a three-dimensional image). You can find the article here:
2.3. Platitudes
A killer of nuance is the habit of using platitudes. Sports journalists, managers in businesses and other administration tasks, trade magazine writers, all often fall in to this practice.
A platitude is an overused statement that might sound deep or meaningful, but often lacks real significance. It’s a cliche, it’s vague, and it lacks substance.
Platitudes are so detrimental to the understanding of nuance because they hinder meaningful discussion: a rapid bypass to superficiality, not a path to real depth. They frequently oversimplify complex issues into brief sound bites.
To explain further, we here reproduce, with permission, a brief essay by Jerry Silfer who is a public relations consultant and blogger. It makes this point nicely.
2.3.1. The Platitude Sickness: Taking Out the Trash of Corporate Speak
- Author:
Jerry Silfwer
- Source:
https://doctorspin.org/creative/storytelling-writing/platitude-sickness/
(Silfwer’s blog is licenced so that it can be used, but Jerry Silfwer also gave explicit permission with an email to Mark Galassi on 2021-05-21.)
I sometimes hate what I do for a living.
A sizable portion of what I write for clients will pass through numerous of filters before getting published. And the end result is nothing but a dwindling tirade of cringy corporate platitudes.
I’m not alone in feeling this way. We’re all exposed to corporate speak. Whether you’re in marketing and communications or not, you’ll see these platitudes everywhere. And for some reason, platitudes are becoming the go-to format for many branded content strategies.
According to Wikipedia:
“A platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, generally directed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The word derives from plat, the French word for “flat.” Platitudes are geared towards presenting a shallow, unifying wisdom over a difficult topic. However, they are too overused and general to be anything more than undirected statements with an ultimately little meaningful contribution towards a solution.”
Corporate platitudes are such a waste of editorial space. Unfortunately, the platitude sickness tends to do quite well in social media.
A text loaded with obvious statements and no real knowledge can still attract quite a lot of social engagement. People often hit that “Like” button (or emoji-button or whatever) without even reading the actual article it refers to.
“It’s important to have a strategy.”
“Always put the customer first.”
“Be proactive and think long-term.”
“Publish epic content.”
Their engagement reflects how they agree with the headline and how it adds to their own personal worldview. It’s probably also a psychological bandwagon-effect at play, a way of signal belonging to important social circles.
So, how can you combat the platitude sickness in your corporate communication?
Make it your personal mission to find platitudes and to destroy them. As this becomes a ritual, you’ll develop an “allergy” to corporate platitudes — and removing them will become second nature.
Welcome to the fight — I’m happy to have you onboard.
2.3.2. Another Rant Against Platitudes
If you need further convincing, The Speech Dudes have a strongly worded rant about the waste of life that platitudes are. If nothing else, the amount of literature and articles on the nuisances of platitudes should demonstrate to you not only how problematic they are, but also just how prevelant.
They first comment:
More often than not, a platitude simply states the obvious and so would be better off not having been uttered [1]
and footnote [1] is:
[1] With a platitude, not only is there a stating of the obvious but it’s also done in such as way as to have the appearance of being profound or wise. Facebook is full of such pre-digested pabulum that, sadly, spreads like linguistic herpes, passed on by well-meaning but ultimately uncritical people who think that quoting something that sounds smart also makes them sound smart. It doesn’t. Platitudes also seem to aspire to taking on a moral dimension, presumably to reinforce the semblance of profundity.
After personally insulting much of the population that posts on Facebook, a social media platform popular among middle-aged and elderly people, they go on to mention corporate mission statement platitudes:
A mission statement such as “To combine aggressive strategic marketing with quality products and services at competitive prices to provide the best value insurance for consumers” is about as broad as you can get [… this really is the mission statement of a large insurance company]
They finally bring in a criminal organization as an example:
Here’s one you might have heard some years ago: Respect, integrity, communication, and excellence. This was from the company called Enron, which was one of the most notorious business scandals in American history and is considered by many historians and economists alike to be the unofficial blueprint for a case study on White Collar Crime. It’s also an example of a crime against vocabulary for creating such a miserably loose mission statement.
Clearly the Speech Dudes have an axe to grind here, but I find myself in agreement that every example they give is awful.
As an exercise, you could visit a rather sad site dedicated to mission statements (archive), and go to the Fortune 500 Mission Statements page [tomislavhorvat, n.d.] and pick out the few cases in which the company’s mission statement made you think “aha! this is original, bold, and memorable”. Consider, “what makes this better than the others?” - “What are they saying that is unique and meaningful?” - “How did they say it in a way that avoided platitudes?”
2.3.3. Mark’s Personal Experience
I have worked at Los Alamos National Laboraotry for my entire career. Los Alamos started during the second world war, a group of scientists came together to design and build the first atomic bomb.
Later in its history, Los Alamos developed a more corporate atmosphere, with layers of management and an administrative manual with tens of thousands of pages.
As I was writing this section (May 2021) I looked up what our mission statement was, and found:
Los Alamos National Laboratory’s mission is to solve national security challenges through scientific excellence.
It surprised me for not being awful – maybe just a bit too long. The mission statement from earlier in my career (1994), formulated by former Los Alamos director Sig Hecker, had been stronger, bolder, and more challenging:
Reduce the Global Nuclear Danger. [Hecker, 1994]
Simple, direct, and packing a punch.
2.4. The next generation of platitudes: AI slop
Come up with favorite examples. The example below, with names changed, comes from my local school district. They send out emails showcasing students. These emails use generative AI to describe the students. I personally find it offensive to the students, and to the whole district. I would prefer if they just wrote a few words from the heart.
Larry Smith
6th Grade, Platius Community School
Larry is a dedicated and hardworking student who consistently demonstrates a strong passion for learning. His teachers recognize his grit and resilience as he continually strives for improvement and works toward mastery in all that he does. Larry approaches challenges with determination and maintains a positive attitude that reflects his commitment to growth and success.
Larry was recently selected as Lobo of the Week in recognition of his kindness, compassion, and leadership among his peers. He is known for being an upstander, supporting classmates and doing the right thing, especially in challenging situations. His thoughtful actions and willingness to help others make a meaningful impact on the school community.
Outside the classroom, Larry brings pride to his culture as a Hoop Dancer for his Pueblo. He is also a talented athlete and a creative artist, with one of his pieces proudly displayed in the principal’s office. Larry’s achievements across academics, athletics, and the arts highlight his well-rounded talents and dedication.
Through his leadership, perseverance, and character, Larry truly exemplifies what it means to be a Lobo Leader. We are incredibly proud of him as a student, an athlete, and most importantly, as a person.