The pendulum swing of nuance

I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been bothered by this profile of Elizabeth Holmes in The New York Times. I think it’s because it’s an example of a pattern I’ve seen elsewhere in contemporary media (from mainstream press to social media).

• Step 1: Someone says or does something that is broadly perceived as wrong or offensive, and we pile on our reproach and cancel them or their ideas. Example: The recent protests and canceling of a speaker at Stanford Law School.
• Step 2: There is a growing recognition amongst some that maybe we’ve gone too far by reducing people to two-dimensional villains or reducing ideas to dubious conspiracy theories. Perhaps the truth might be more complicated, and needs to be revisited. Example: The revisiting of the COVID lab-leak theory, after it was roundly considered conspiratorial.
• Step 3: There’s an overcorrection in the effort to reintroduce the nuance that was originally missing. The absence of nuance is followed by the oversaturation of nuance. Everything becomes relative. Example: This podcast about JK Rowling attempts to redeem the author’s image by introducing new storylines and nuance. But this added complexity only creates a convenient relativism that shortchanges the truth.
• Step 4: The truth is lost in this sea of content, and we lose collective anchor points about a shared reality. Example: This profile of Holmes is a project in character rehabilitation to the point where we’ve partially lost sight of why she’s going to jail for 11 years. She’s not Elizabeth anymore, she’s actually Liz (with a higher voice).

Our media environment is suffering a crisis of nuance: either we are missing it entirely or we are steeped in it to the point where we’ve lost the plot.