Justification from overcomplexity

It's a common thing... First let me explain what justification from overcomplexity is. In simple terms, it means that you complicate your own perspective and thereby cloud your own judgement, so you can justify something that you (either consciously or unconsciously) know is unjustifiable. Justification from overcomplexity could be the reason you believe in an Abrahamic God, it could be the reason you don't approach or talk to someone who's caught your eye on the street, it could be the reason you still believe in your government, it could be the reason you still smoke, eat meat, don't exercise, sleep too late and so on. Anything you have an emotional attachment to is very prone to this line of thought. We all have those moments where we want to do something, and suddenly your brain floods you with so-called 'reasons' as to why you should not do it.


This is where simplicity comes in. Whether you're trying to understand something, or make a difficult decision, or have an intellectual conversation, the most important thing is to cut the whole mess down to the basics. It may sound like a reductionist approach, but it isn't. In reductionism, you take the whole problem apart into different pieces, study the pieces, put them back together and then you can understand the whole. This assumes that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts, which is not necessarily true in all cases however. What I'm talking about here is different, in the sense that we're not trying to take everything apart into pieces and understand each piece to understand the whole, but we are looking for the most basic assumption that is absolutely necessary for the whole idea to withstand the trials of logic, before analyzing the rest of the problem/concept.


Why logic? Because that's the most fundamental method for verifying truth and separating truth from falsehood. And of course, I'm assuming that truth is preferable to falsehood with this, which is a sound assumption. You can try to argue against this, but it would end up being a logical contradiction if you do. When you're trying to say that someone should believe X over Y, you're already following the rules of preferring truth over falsehood. If you say X is falsehood and Y is truth, then.. Well.. I'll let you deduct that for yourself. For now, let's start with examples.


We'll take a controversial example. Governments. A lot of people have emotional attachment to this word. They see it as some kind of savior of humanity. The organization that will save us from ourselves and protect us from evil. It's supposed to create laws that we should obey so that life can be peaceful. Now before we go further, let's examine some things that we learn when we are children. Don't bully, don't hit, don't threaten, don't steal, and so on. What do these rules have in common? They basically have one message. The message is, it's wrong to initiate violence to get what you want. Now in general this is accepted as a good rule, and a rule that everyone should follow. This is the reason why most people are against wars, that people are against rape, that people are against theft, against beating someone up, killing and so on. It's a very basic, logical, simple principle that anyone can understand and agree with.


But when it comes to the government, things change. Say you refuse to pay taxes for a war you're against. What will happen? First the government will threaten you they'll raise the debt. If that doesn't work, they will come and rob you of your house and everything in it at gunpoint. If you refuse, they'll incarcerate you at gunpoint, and if you refuse that too, they will shoot you without any consequence for the institution itself. So the most basic aspect of the government is the gun. If there is any definition for government, it's an institution that claims to have the monopoly on the right to use violence to get what it wants. It is the exact opposite of one of our most basic moral rules. It makes the assumption that violence is the best (if not only) way to create peace. 
And I can see people squirming already, because their brain chatter has started. "But we need the government for order. If there is no government, who will create roads? Who will take care of us? Who will take care of the bad people? Who will organize society? Everyone would become violent. Other governments will invade our country and set up their own government." The emotional charge will make you think in overdrive to try as hard as possible to justify that which we call government. Just stop. That's an exact example of justification from overcomplexity. By allowing all this mess to enter your mind and making things overly complex, you are trying to cloud the fact that the most basic principle of (current) government is actually violent, and therefore unethical/immoral. It suddenly makes you realize something you prefer not to know, and you're trying to reject it with all your might. But if you stay consistent with the logic, then you might also start understanding why the world is a mess. When the institutions that govern the world are a contradiction to our basic rules as individuals, chaos is the only possible result. And chaos is exactly what government is supposed to overcome. Isn't that an eye-opener? When you let go of your emotional attachment, you can start seeing alternative answers to the questions you thought you needed government for.


The same thing applies to God. God is the creator of the universe, heaven and hell, is the most just, the most benevolent, all-knowing, merciful being. Most people believe in God not because they have a rational reason to do so, but because of their emotional attachment to some sort of potential savior. It's not surprising, because the whole concept is basically a list of problems. I'll list the most basic one.. Being all-knowing and still creating people who he knows are going to hell is neither just nor benevolent nor merciful. If a religion is based on such a contradictory concept of God, it immediately follows that such a religion has a flimsy foundation and can not be the full truth. Of course, when you use that argument against a religious person, what you get back is another flood of emotional information pretending that everything is more complicated than that, and that we are not capable of understanding God and should simply believe and so on. Basically it comes down to reasoning how to throw away reasoning to justify the belief in God.. 


The two examples above take full concepts and show how people try to justify contradictory things by making it overly complicated. You can move to more complex things when the rest has already been addressed logically. If you jump to the mess too soon, you will inevitably fall into overcomplexity, and be deluding yourself into submission of irrational beliefs and superstition. 


You can also 'fuse' different concepts after dissecting them, and you will learn more about something else. The two examples of God and the government have many parallels. They both tell us we are not mature enough to take care of ourselves and need someone else to guide us and take care of us. They both rely on fear of the individual that's masqueraded as salvation. That way you can discern that religion on itself is not really a problem, or government itself, but the human mentality is the real problem. We are trying very hard to put the responsibility in someone else's hands. The products of human beings suddenly begin to show parallels all over the place, and your mind will be able to entertain many simple thoughts that seem crazy to people, because they have the baggage of immediate judgement in their arguments.


In the end, we all have the issue of overcomplexity. By recognizing it and being critical of yourself, you can improve the consistency and validity of your thoughts, which can lead to a simpler yet wise and knowledgeable life. Your knowledge of things will expand by making things simpler. That on itself, is quite intriguing and eye-opening. I hope this has some use for you.