Dealing with Problems by Ignoring Them—Part V
Circumventing Problems
Introduction
We’ve come a long way in grappling with this key topic over the past four weeks. It’s time to take stock.
—Ellen and James
Dealing with Problems by Ignoring Them—Part V: Circumventing Problems
Metaphors Making Trouble for Us Again
We tend to think in metaphors. Yet every metaphor breaks down somewhere or else it would not be a metaphor—it would be literal. Our thinking cannot go beyond the limitations of the metaphors we are deploying, however unconsciously.1
If we think of a problem as an opportunity, we would not want to miss an opportunity, now would we? So it follows that we would not wish to ignore one.
If we think of a problem as a calamity, we could hardly afford to ignore it, could we? If we think of a problem as an issue, we know we ought to be able to state what exactly it is that is currently at issue, so we make something up, or just go with the first thing we happen to think of, and we thereby refrain from reconsidering in the same breath what we could more usefully take to be the issue; so we won’t be quick to ignore the issue either as we have only just declared it to be in need of addressing.
If we think of a problem as a kind of puzzle to be solved, ignoring it would seem to be at best a kind of unbecoming intellectual laziness, and at worst deplorable, unconscionable apathy if we are puzzling about something of importance.
If we think of a problem as a challenge, we would seem to be faint-hearted or utterly lacking in moral courage if we were to fail to step up to the challenge.
But if we think of a problem as an obstacle, common sense would direct us in the first instance to find a way to get ‘round it and only failing that to try and find the easiest and quickest way to move it out of our way.
And if we think of a problem as a blind alley or a dead end, there’s clearly nothing for it but to turn around and retrace our steps and look for another way altogether to our destination.
We saw in Part I that a problem with a ready and wholly workable solution is not any longer a problem at all but just a clear way forward, and that a problem without a solution is a blind alley, a failed attempt to proceed a certain way and that it’s problematic because our chosen nostrum is no cure at all for what really ails us.
We saw too that when you are at an impasse you need to beat a retreat and look for another route altogether, and failing to do so would be like banging your head against the wall in front of you when you get to a cul-de-sac in your efforts to find your way through a labyrinth, which is not such a great idea unless you are after a Darwin Award.
We also saw in Part I the folly of seeing a problem, now metaphorically misconstrued as a challenge to be overcome, as “an opportunity for a fresh triumph, a heroic resumption of the struggle against the perverse elements and against daunting odds, a provocation to a romantic adventure—with yet another dragon to be slain…, one more instance of the universal challenge to noble man’s indomitable will, or some such nonsense.”2
Don’t Let That Be the Problem
In Part II we saw that having a problem is nothing more than not yet having a solution, that is, not seeing your situation in such a light that your way forward to your goal is clear. Having a problem means that whatever it is we’re trying just isn’t working and turned out to be a bad choice of expedients, and that therefore we shouldn’t let that be the problem in the first place. We should ditch it and choose a different and far easier problem to solve instead, one which, once solved, will equally get us to where we want to go.
You may know the story of how the great mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), as a schoolboy, was in a classroom where the teacher felt like taking a short nap, and to keep the class busy he asked them to add up all the numbers between one and a hundred. After a moment’s pause, young Gauss raised his hand and said, “Please sir, the answer is 5050!”
The little lad had thought the problem set by the teacher was too hard and that he just couldn’t be bothered. So he set himself a different problem at once, noticing that if you added the numbers in bookend pairs starting with 1+100, and finishing with 50+51, the answer would always be 101, so he set himself the easier problem of figuring out how many such pairs there must be and because the problem he set himself was a good one it instantly yielded the answer, “Why 50 of course!” so he then set himself the follow-on problem of “What’s 50 times 101?” which took him less than a second to work out was 5050.
The whole procedure took young Gauss less than 10 seconds to get to the right answer via a different route from his classmates. I expect his reward for his laziness was to be caned for being a clever-clogs and robbing the teacher of a nap. But we still tell the story today.
We saw in Part II how a problem that doesn’t instantly yield an answer the way Gauss’s problems did is just an unhelpful perspective to be dropped like a hot potato. and that if you think you have a problem you are thinking about it wrong, and that if you think of a problem as putting out a first feeler and it doesn’t instantly result in a ready solution you withdraw it and put out another feeler. We saw that a problem is usually a failed solution we cannot get to work, and why most efforts at problem-solving are just a silly waste of time, like making a 47-point manoeuvre to force your way into a parking space when your first approach was bad, rather than getting out of the space and starting again.
It’s Only the Scaffolding After All, Not the Building
In Part III, we saw that while one damn thing after another is just life, but if it’s the same damn thing over and over again you need to do something different from what you’ve been doing, and that the right solution to the wrong problem is the wrong solution, just as the right answer to the wrong question is just the wrong effing answer.
We saw too that the whole point of a problem is to get to a solution as easily as possible, and that you construct a problem as scaffolding so you can reach or build the solution you want. If the scaffold is the wrong height or in the wrong place, what do you do then? Why you get the scaffolders you hired to take the damn thing down and put up a scaffold that will let you construct the solution you’re after.
You Don’t Find Yourself in a Situation, You Choose the Situation You’re In
In Part IV we saw that even if your problem is a bit of headache, or whacking great headache, having a problem is less like having a headache than having an opinion. It’s more a provisional assessment, a first, trial hypothesis about what you might want to do rather than an instruction do the thing.
It’s just our assessment of our situation, framed in such a way that we can begin to construct a solution, which as we saw is the only point in having a problem at all, and that just as problems don’t come knocking at our door but are things we just make up—whether felicitously or infelicitously—for a constructive purpose, so situations are how we situate ourselves, and are equally negotiable.
Our “situation” is not something encountered out there in the world but is just our proposal for what we ought to be thinking about.
If an undesirable situation isn’t going away no matter what, it’s high time to think about something else instead. It’s time to make a different proposal, to pick a different way of situating yourself.
And it’s not something you want to be in any hurry to pick. Because as we saw, once you settle upon a definition of your situation you are implicitly and irrevocably committing yourself to a course of action, one which may turn out to be a fool’s errand at best, or a mass, lemming-like leap over the cliff in response to your cry of, “Tally-ho!”
In describing my situation as I see it, I am proffering an account of—my best shot at—the state-of-affairs I am seeking to realize, avoid, undo, prevent, expedite, and so on, in relation to the circumstances I take to be relevant, indeed crucial, to my endeavour.
I am setting the stage for action, identifying the dramatis personae, and checking my script. It is at this point that I sometimes conclude that no suitable script can be found, and then I simply am at a loss as to how to go on.
As my actions are comprised, in part, of my purposes together with the contexts I take to be relevant to their fulfilment, in settling upon what my situation is I am deciding (at least broadly) what to do and committing myself accordingly.
Finding A Way Around, Not a Way Through
The problem, the blind alley, is not something out there in the world.
It is our way of thinking about “our situation”—it is the way we have situated ourselves in relation to what we are after and how to get it most effectively.
Problems are constructed, not found. They are much of the time not worth solving. For either they solve themselves at once, in which case they are not problems at all but merely difficulties we can readily and unproblematically see how to surmount, or else they are merely unhelpful, problematic ways of situating ourselves.
In which case we need to drop that problem at once and construct a different problem, carve out a different situation instead—situate ourselves differently and less problematically.
We need to define differently what we are trying to do and how to get it done.
We need to find a way to our goals that lets us ignore the problem, a way that circumvents any and all problematic aspects.
We need to find a way around the “problem,” not a way through.
© Copyright 2010, 2023 Dr James Wilk
The moral right of the author has been asserted
See George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1980