‘All generalisations are wrong, including this one.’ This quotation attributed to Mark Twain, is an intriguing logic puzzle. Perhaps it hints, generalisations are sometimes correct? Of course they can be. If I said, ‘I am alive,’ that is true. So what’s wrong with generalisations? Can they trap our thinking into making statements that sound reasonable but are not?

Take the word, ‘immigrant’ as a current example. Are immigrants to a county going to bring problems or solutions? The more detailed the questions you ask the more complexity of thinking is needed. Are economic migrants desirable in a country not needing extra workers? Is an economy held back by losing skilled workers originally from other countries? Who enforces migration? Where are immigrants from? The questions are practically unlimited and yet a bigot will simplify matters to ‘immigrants go home’ or ‘no Muslims allowed into our country’. At worst it is absurd and at best it is unmanageable, simply because it will fail in the detail.

Think of the infamous Brexit question. Was anyone invited to discuss why this question was being asked? Did anyone debate how referendums should be run and what proportion of the vote constitutes clear public opinion? Did anyone present facts in the debate prior to the vote, which are now known? Governance is by definition simplifying complexity to enable broad decisions to be made. However without a debate and consequent understanding of important details, the question is flawed because the answer will not have been probed in depth. Socrates believed voters should be educated and informed otherwise the democratic process will reach an uninformed conclusion.

In Japan there is a tradition of producing elegant design solutions. However the designer and craftsman will have spent years learning details not apparent in the product.

Let us not be fooled by our conviction that we understanding things. We generally don’t and that, unfortunately, is a generalisation which is true.

‘All generalisations are wrong, including this one.’ This quotation attributed to Mark Twain, is an intriguing logic puzzle. Perhaps it hints, generalisations are sometimes correct? Of course they can be. If I said, ‘I am alive,’ that is true. So what’s wrong with generalisations? Can they trap our thinking into making statements that sound reasonable but are not?

Take the word, ‘immigrant’ as a current example. Are immigrants to a county going to bring problems or solutions? The more detailed the questions you ask the more complexity of thinking is needed. Are economic migrants desirable in a country not needing extra workers? Is an economy held back by losing skilled workers originally from other countries? Who enforces migration? Where are immigrants from? The questions are practically unlimited and yet a bigot will simplify matters to ‘immigrants go home’ or ‘no Muslims allowed into our country’. At worst it is absurd and at best it is unmanageable, simply because it will fail in the detail.

Think of the infamous Brexit question. Was anyone invited to discuss why this question was being asked? Did anyone debate how referendums should be run and what proportion of the vote constitutes clear public opinion? Did anyone present facts in the debate prior to the vote, which are now known? Governance is by definition simplifying complexity to enable broad decisions to be made. However without a debate and consequent understanding of important details, the question is flawed because the answer will not have been probed in depth. Socrates believed voters should be educated and informed otherwise the democratic process will reach an uninformed conclusion.

In Japan there is a tradition of producing elegant design solutions. However the designer and craftsman will have spent years learning details not apparent in the product.

Let us not be fooled by our conviction that we understanding things. We generally don’t and that, unfortunately, is a generalisation which is true.