The Trap of Simplicity

The idea that the "simplest" explanation is best has a long pedigree. From the Latin maxim "simplex sigillum veri" -simplicity is the seal of truth-to Ockham's razor and George Pólya's praise of elegant solutions in mathematics, we have been taught to equate simplicity with honesty, clarity, and even virtue. A neat argument seems more trustworthy than a tangled one; a single cause feels more satisfying than a messy web of factors.

But in matters political, historical, of identity, or justice, it is here that love of simplicity quietly becomes a trap. It is not that simplicity is always wrong; it is just that more often than not, it asks us to flatten what should not be flattened.

Ockham's razor, in its original spirit, was a methodological tool: don't multiply entities beyond necessity. In practice, though, it is often reimagined as "the simplest story is probably true." That move might work for some scientific hypotheses or logic puzzles, where irrelevant complications can be safely shaved away. But difficult conversations rarely deal with closed systems. They involve people, histories, institutions, and emotions. Here, what looks like an "unnecessary complication" is often someone's lived experience.

Consider a conversation about colonial history. The "simple" version might sound like: "Colonization brought both harm and modernization; we should just acknowledge both sides and move on." It's clean, balanced, and easily quoted. But the simplicity is purchased by ignoring asymmetries of power, intergenerational trauma, and the ways in which "moving on" is not equally available to everyone. What sounds like reasonable moderation can function as a way of silencing deeper pain. The neatness of the argument becomes a shield against uncomfortable complexity.

This trap of simplicity shows up in how we frame moral responsibility, too. When we ask, "Was this person good or bad?" or "Was this policy a success or a failure?" we compress a wide spectrum of motives, constraints, and unintended consequences into a binary. It becomes easier to condemn or defend than to hold a mixed verdict in our heads. Difficult conversations then slide into tribal performances: choosing the "simple" side that best matches our group identity and defending it at all costs.

Social media amplifies this impulse. Platforms incentivize messages that are short, emotionally charged, and instantly intelligible. Nuance feels like weakness; uncertainty feels like ignorance. In this environment, the pressure to simplify doesn't just distort the content of our arguments; it reshapes what we're even willing to say. People self-censor the "messy middle" of their views because it's too complicated to fit into a caption or too risky to expose to hostile misreading.

None of this is to say we should abandon clarity and ramble in circles. The opposite of simplicity isn't confusion. The real challenge in difficult conversations is to stay intelligible while refusing to betray complexity. That might mean using simple language to describe complex structures: "This issue looks like one problem, but it's actually three: history, policy, and personal fear. Let's separate them." It might mean acknowledging when a simple explanation is emotionally tempting but incomplete: "I want to say it's all because of X, but that would ignore Y and Z."

One useful test is to ask: "What disappears when I make this simple?" If what disappears is redundancy or technical jargon, simplicity serves understanding. But if what disappears is a marginalized group, a painful chapter of history, or a real uncertainty, then simplicity is serving comfort. We're not using Ockham's razor at that moment; we're using a rhetorical knife to cut out what we don't wish to see. Simplicity, then, should be treated as a tool, not a verdict. In mathematics, an elegant proof is admired because it reveals structure without distortion. In difficult conversations our goal should be similar: to speak in ways that are as clear as possible, but never clearer than the truth allows. The seal of truth is not simplicity alone, but the courage to stay with a complex reality long enough to describe it honestly.

Sources:

Simon Fraser University. Simple Distinctions / Stacey Matrix diagram, in Complex Systems Frameworks Collection – Image Gallery. SFU Faculty of Science.