people who oversimplify

So, looking at my baby daughter this morning, I was struck by the sheer volume of information about human interaction that she's learned in just a year... and how far she has to go.

Which led me to thinking about how books like "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" and "Four Simple Rules" etc, etc.

Ok. There is so much other stuff that we have to take into consideration if we are going to be fully functioning adults. And I am very very glad that there is quite a lot of richness and depth to adult human interaction... otherwise we'd still be punching each other to show affection or bashing each other over the heads with milk cartons (or whatever is handy) when upset.

What I'm getting at, is that if we simplify to the point of these books with their rules and their "harkening back to a simpler time," then we start to veer frighteningly into fundamentalist territory. You know, the place where you don't have any questions, because all the answers are right there.

Or as somebody else put it, when all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.

I'm not going to deny that as adults we have a tendency to make things more complicated. But, I think we also have a great desire to make things way too simple. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's a desire to have all the answers... I honestly don't know.

Regardless, this bugs the shit out of me.