Day 2: The meaning behind your blog name

Ok, I don't know if there are people following 30 day challenge posts all over, or if I just used a whole lot of keywords in my last entries, but this blog had a big increase in views overnight. That's pretty awesome. Please though, don't be shy, comments would be much appreciated. I see people reading (and I know some friends are) but I still kind of feel like I'm talking to myself here.

Anyway, the meaning behind my blog name.

It really speaks for itself, doesn't it? Shades of grey, because nothing is ever black or white. That's the view I've taken towards most things in life. For the most part, there aren't any extremes. I don't believe in the concepts of good or evil because I don't believe human nature works that way. I'll use the terms in general conversation simply due to ease but, honestly, they're not very effective words. They evoke a sense of God-given morality: an ethnocentric view that certain actions we value are considered 'good' and anything contrary is 'evil'. That's not to say I don't condemn things like murder, but I refuse to classify it - or the people who commit it - as evil. Things are never simple and it would be ignorant to lump anyone into any sort of category, especially one with such negative connotations. People are just people, with different motives, different mental capacities, different goals and desires, and different ideas about what is and isn't acceptable. I'd go into more detail on good and evil, but I feel like this is a topic for another day.

For a different perspective, look at politics. You have the Left and the Right. But what are those, really? How do you define those ideologies? By market freedom? By social freedom? By the size of desired government, if any at all? How is that libertarians, who believe in small government and maximum liberty in both the social and economic spheres, find themselves on the same side of the political spectrum as big-government, socially-oppressive conservatives? And then, how strongly do people support their chosen ideologies? It's not an all-or-none sort of thing, as much as some crazies on either side would like to believe it. You pick and choose the parts that suit you best. Where am I? Socially, I'm so far left I'm about to fall off the chart; economically, I'm left of centre but not excessively so. So what specific label does that put me under? Damned if I know. Then there's politics in practice, and that's a whole other ballgame.

Furthermore, look at scientific theories. In particular, I'm thinking of the linguistic nativism vs empiricism debate of language acquisition. Essentially it's another nature vs nurture argument. Hardcore nativists claim that our brains are completely hardwired for language, right down to a syntactic level. Everything we learn is because there exists a universal grammar, a set of rules that all humans automatically possess. Harcore empiricists, on the other hand, claim that all language is learnt. There is no built-in knowledge and we learn simply because we are taught. If we're not taught, we won't acquire language. As far as I'm concerned, neither of these theories, in their extreme form, have any sort of credibility. It's most likely that the true answer is some combination of the two: that we have a hardwired disposition towards language but require exposure and practice in order to develop it. A lot like intelligence, I suppose. Again, like so many times before, the answer lies somewhere in the shades of grey.

But it seems I've ranted on far longer than I thought I would. The point is, I don't see things in extremes and I think that's a healthy view to have. How did that actually become the name of my blog though? I'm not entirely sure. I started using it for other blogs a while back and it sort of stuck. I actually remember reading a book called '48 Shades of Brown' back in high school, so perhaps I'd remembered that and gone from there? I don't know. But either way, I think it fits me well and sometimes being a fickle pain in the ass can be fun, so I'm sticking with it.