I just must write about this ...

In my last two newsletters I have written about how we reduce the quality of human intelligence when we compare it to artificial intelligence, and how our working lives, and the business economy in general, have been diminished by being conformed to whatever is measurable.

I wrote those pieces, as I generally do, to clarify my own thoughts on those subjects. I was working with a set of assumptions I wanted to explore, about human flourishing and about the business and technical environment in which I work.

Then recently, my friend Scott Davis wrote an excellent short blog which set me thinking about how some of these assumptions slip into our language and thought. He said, Whenever we use the word just ... we are maximizing ourselves and our understanding of the world while minimizing other people, other perspectives, and other knowledge of the world.

He's right. There is a strong pattern in our thinking which often conceals exactly the kind of self-confirming assumptions we make. That pattern is in the way we use the simple words "must" and just."

Here's an example from my own writing ...

Effective persuasion and communication require recognizing that we must meet others where their knowledge is situated, not where we wish it would be.

I don't disagree with what I wrote there. In fact, it seems rather obvious: and there is the problem. I have slipped in, almost without noticing, the conclusion of what could be a long and interesting debate about the nature and purpose of communication and persuasion. Never mind all that, here's what we must do.

A blogger with a megaphone telling us what we must do

The hidden cost of simplification

"Must" seems to function as a conversational full stop: a way of avoiding the difficult terrain that lies beyond the blank assertion. When we say something "must" be done, we're not merely giving direction, but closing off the space for disagreement and for deeper thought, for more complex judgments and for emotions.

• We must use climate chaos instead to unite across the aisle.

• We must 'defend the borders' against 'bad guys,'

• We must restore nature to avoid global catastrophe.

• We must save our schools to save our children from crime epidemic.

• We must ‘rescue’ this generation at-risk: Glenn Youngkin.

• We must guard against the 'bystander effect' when we encounter creeping fascism.

If I say "we must secure the border," perhaps I'm expressing anxiety without acknowledging it and I'm presenting a contingent preference as if it were a physical necessity. The "must" of advertising (you must have this product) transforms the fear of missing out into consumption.

The architecture of online communication, especially social media, with their emphasis on brevity and impact, amplifies these patterns. The character limits of BlueSky or Twitter favors the urgency of "must" and the dismissive nature of "just" over more nuanced arguments. I can hide pages of complexity with four letters.

In a society dominated by such communication, genuine dialogue becomes increasingly difficult. The "must" and the "just" are symptoms of deeper pathologies in our infrastructure of communication.

I see these patterns everywhere in contemporary discourse. Take climate change: Some insist we "must" immediately cease fossil fuel use, while others claim we should "just" adapt to changing conditions. Both framings avoid the complex balance of considerations that genuine moral thinking requires. They substitute slogans for thought. Neither engages with the complex historical, cultural, and economic factors that a deep discourse would need to consider.

At best, they pretend that such discourse and debate has already happened and the use of "must" and "just" are the inevitable conclusions. They are, in this way, closely related to the appeal of Wwe had no choice but to do this." Such statements diminish our individual agency and responsibility.

And when I say we "must" prioritize economic growth, or poverty is "just" the result of poor choices, I'm selecting certain aspects of complex situations while rendering others invisible.

I'm particularly concerned about how these linguistic patterns affect our perception of disagreement.

If I believe we must implement a particular policy, and you disagree, I'm likely to view you not as having a different but potentially reasonable perspective, but as failing to grasp something obvious.

"Just" is equally interesting. It has a dual heritage, both from justice (what is right) and from exactness or precision. When someone says "why don't you just leave him?" or "companies should just pay higher wages," the word smuggles in a claim to both moral authority and straightforward simplicity.

If I say we should "just" implement a carbon tax, I'm avoiding engagement with the genuine fears and concerns that such policies evoke.

And similarly, if you express complex concerns about a policy and I tell you that we should "just" follow the experts or "just" look at the data, I'm dismissing the legitimate normative questions that technocratic approaches often obscure.

Let's complexify

But all life is infinitely complex, especially moral life; people aren't simply good or bad, but operate within intricate webs of motivation, desire, and circumstance. That complexity is precisely what "must" and "just" seek to eliminate.

It's worth noting that not all uses of "must" are problematic, but a more detailed approach involves distinguishing between genuine necessities and those we've constructed.

We can make this distinction by replacing a command with greater attention to the subject.

If we acknowledge the problems with "must" statements, we should consider alternatives. Instead of saying what "must" be done, we might ask what deserves our attention.

So what might this mean practically for how we speak and write? Perhaps we need linguistic practices that bring attention to the foreground rather than issuing commands, inviting exploration rather than closing it down.

Useful language doesn't substitute itself for reality but helps us attend to it more clearly; it uncovers rather than conceals.

When "must" becomes a substitute for paying attention to detail, our use language fails in this fundamental task. Neither the imperative "must" nor the dismissive "just" can substitute for patient, careful, integrated thinking.

So perhaps one practice might be to replace "must" statements with descriptions of what we see or questions about what we don't yet understand. This shifts the emphasis from command to perception, from closure to openness.

This suggests a language that acknowledges rather than obscures complexity. Instead of saying what people "must" do or should "just" do, we might describe the various factors at play in a situation and the range of possible responses, each with its own implications.

If we replace "must" with "should," we don't do much! Perhaps we permit of a little ambiguity at most. But if, instead of saying "we must secure the border," one might say "I believe securing the border should be a high priority because..." This makes the claim explicit and opens it to dialogue rather than disguising it as necessity.

Or we might consider consequences. "If we don't secure the border then ..."

You might argue, correctly enough, that this makes little difference if we don't then explore the consequences or implications in good faith, with openness or insight. And you'd be right. Simply changing our language patterns without changing our underlying approach to dialogue creates only a veneer of thoughtfulness. The real work begins after we've moved beyond the conversation-stopping 'must' and the dismissive 'just.'

This isn’t simply a matter of avoiding particular words. It’s about cultivating a different orientation: one of patient attention rather than hasty prescription. In a world obsessed with optimization and control, not everything that can be optimized should be, and not everything that can be commanded must be.