The Aesthetics of Complexity
On the Political Production of Simplicity and Performance of Complexity

“It’s complex.”
Over the last couple of months, I have started to notice how frequently “complexity” is invoked - often when discussing circumstances to do with social inequity such as war, poverty, systemic racism, colonial occupation, or health inequities. “The situation in Palestine is complex.” “Homelessness is complex.” “Addiction is complex.” “Land Back is complex.” “Social Determinants of Health are complex.” And don’t get me wrong, they are complex.
To utter the phrase “it’s complex” compels me to believe that the utterer must be very knowledgeable on the matter, so knowledgeable in fact that they have a hard time making head or tail of the problem. And yet, complexity often seems to function less as an invitation to understand nuance and more as a discursive shield — not to clarify, but to obscure. To say that we have done our due diligence, we’ve had the conversation. Other times, complexity genuinely engages us deeply in the problem, so deep that it forecloses any possibility for solutions. To have the conversation while not having the conversation.
I believe that ontologically everything is complex. However, we do not perceive all problems as complex; some indeed feel simple. Therefore, complexity speaks less to the actual knotty-ness of a problem than to its sense. This got me thinking about how we perceive or feel problems - the aesthetic difference between simple and complex problems.
A relatively popular means of explaining the differences between simple, complicated, and complex problems is the following table (which you can read at your own leisure).

Being somewhat versed in philosophies which are attuned to ontology and question essentializing claims about the world, I am immediately skeptical. I am compelled to argue that complexity and simplicity are not ontological determinations about an event or process but primarily aesthetic ones - they are to do with the forces that organize our sensations and experiences of the world.
We are unlikely to read a cake recipe prefaced with, “baking is complex.” But of course, it is. It may seem simple, but the butter in ‘our’ fridges likely comes from dairy farms subsidized by decades of policy. The flour in ‘our’ cupboards was milled somewhere far away, the sugar likely harvested under extractive labor conditions, the oven powered by infrastructure that spans continents and centuries. All of which is preserved and transported to groceries stores all around the Globe. What looks, or feels, simple to ‘us’ is only so because entire systems have been resourced to make it appear that way. I would venture to assume that someone from the 15th century would have a hard time believing how simple it would become for people in the Global North to make a cake in their homes. And yet, baking a cake today is not simple for everyone, I hasten to add. Not everyone has access to the resources to simply bake a cake. Many do not have access to the water, electricity, money, ingredients, house, time, or comfort to simply bake a cake.
When we shift from asking universalizing questions about the world and the stuff in it, such as “is baking a cake simple or complex?,” and orient our inquiry towards immanent questions, such as “for whom is baking a cake simple, and for whom is it in fact complex?”, “what context enables cake baking to be simple?” and “what socio-political ends does simplifying cake baking serve?” We then might find that problems and their complexity are a product of our socio-political milieu.
In contrast to baking a cake, poverty, housing, climate justice, or health equity remain “complex” for most. Not because they are inherently more intricate than the global supply chain enabling cake baking, but because the collective resources to make them feel simple are constrained. And yet for others, these problems may indeed feel quite simple.
I should clarify that when I say “resources” I do not only mean the ingredients, infrastructure, policies, or money required. More importantly, I mean the cultural resources that operate at the level of the collective unconscious. Resources such as our ethical obligations to one another, our sense of responsibility, our collective moral imagination about what feels possible and realistic, our cultural norms and priorities, and so on. Complexity is, therefore, not only an ontological category but also an aesthetic and relational category - a signal of the political, social, and moral allocation of care.
It isn’t impossible to imagine, for example, a parallel universe which is exactly as ours is today, apart from one key difference. That poverty is simple, and baking a cake in one’s own home is unimaginably complex - nearly unfathomable. I won’t bore you with details as to how this might come about, but encourage you to use your imagination.
Maybe when we hear “complex” we ought not to think about, or feel paralyzed by, a thing’s felt intricacy, but rather understand it as signifying a disease, syndrome, or a complex. Something that becomes simple once diagnosed. It is an invitation to invent a lexicon and set of cultural rituals to attend to it.
Paying attention to what ‘feels’ complex, why and how it is made to feel so, and for whom, opens up strategies for feeling differently. By asking ourselves “how can this be culturally and aesthetically resourced differently?” we open up different possibilities for organizing, for politics, and for activism. This might include opening up ways of articulating these problems differently and breaking open what we are made to imagine as unrealistic or feel is impossible.
It always seems impossible until it’s done - Nelson Mandela