Journalists, Please Stop Writing “Paradox” When You Mean Contradiction

It’s become commonplace for journalists to use the word “paradox” in referring to a contradiction. Consider this recent headline for example: “As it rapidly adopts clean technologies while drilling furiously for oil and gas, Norway is a paradox.” 

That’s not a paradox, it’s a contradiction, one that not only Norway, but humankind as a whole must urgently resolve. 

When journalists use words with very different meanings synonymously, it not only confuses readers, it increases the confusion around the issue they’re writing about. 

That’s especially true with reportage and commentary on the climate crisis. And nothing is more linguistically and philosophically basic than the distinction between contradiction and paradox. 

The knotty contradiction of Norway encompasses both the evolutionary contradiction between man and nature, and the Gordian knot of the climate crisis in the present world. 

To this point Norway, like America, have had things both ways -- adopting clean technologies, while drilling furiously for fossil fuels. 

“On one metric, Norway’s leafy green image darkens to an oily black,” the aforementioned article exclaims. 

We learn that “citizens of the rich Nordic nation dig up more petroleum per person than Russians, Iranians, North Americans and Saudi Arabians. Famed for its fabulous fjords and fairytale forests, Europe’s northernmost country is the closest the world has to what could be called a green petrostate.”

And it’s grating on different levels to hear that “Norway’s 5.5 million inhabitants are adopting clean technologies faster than anyone else – while its political and industry leaders drill furiously for fossil fuels to sell to Europe. It is a paradox that has led some to paint Norway as a climate hero and others to decry it as a carbon villain.”

To my mind a philosopher is a person with a low threshold for contradictions, and a love of paradoxes. I view contradictions as challenges, and see paradoxes as remedies.

A contradiction is “a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another.”  For example, "The proposed new system suffers from a set of internal contradictions.” 

A paradox, on the other hand, is “a seemingly self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained proves to be well-founded or true.” 

An example of the proper use of the word paradox is, “In a paradox, he’s discovered that stepping back from his job has increased the rewards he gleans from it.” 

Incoherence and conflict are inherent in contradictions, whereas paradoxes are a bit like koans, prompting insights that go beyond verbal explanation. 

In short, a contradiction is messy, and often ugly, whereas a paradox is clarifying, and always elegant. 

To be human is to be faced with many contradictions, inwardly and outwardly. When a contradiction is resolved however, there’s the feeling of an elegant scientific discovery. 

Many people are fine with contradictions, and even thrive on them to a degree. But a few, notably those of philosophical bent, rush in where angels fear to tread and ponder and try to resolve contradictions. 

The greatest contradiction, indeed the origin of man’s contradictoriness, is our anomalous relationship with nature. Homo sapiens evolved within the seamless wholeness of nature like all other life, yet man is fragmenting and destroying the earth. How can that be? Can that ancient, increasing contradiction be resolved, philosophically and pragmatically? 

Not as long as philosophers deny and scientists blur the contradiction between man and nature. 

The opening sentence of an academic abstract I read recently manages to both suffer from a set of internal contradictions, and be blind to the existential contradiction between humans and other species:

“All species have an environmental niche, and despite technological advances, humans are unlikely to be an exception.”

Unlikely to be an exception? Homo sapiens is the exception to all other animals, which live within ecological niches on this planet. Man is the creature that broke the bonds of ecological niche, adapting to and exploiting every environment on earth.

That’s both the source of our immense success and increasing failure as a species. Success because the human species exploits all environments, and has technologically developed to the point that there are serious plans to mine the moon. Failure because we have depleted and fragmented the earth to the breaking point in our tribalism/ nationalism, greed, and lack of insight into ourselves as a species.

The essential contradiction between man and nature is resolved into a paradox when we gain abiding insight into the mechanism of “higher thought.” The evolution of symbolic thought gave us the tremendous power to consciously separate and recombine reified things in our environments.

But failing to be self-knowing and gain insight into the mechanism and basic illusoriness of thought, we psychologically alienate ourselves from nature and divide ourselves from each other. Without radically changing, we’ll continue to do so, with increasingly dire consequences. 

So it’s absurd to insist “what happens next is not written, even in outline form.” We know what’s coming, at least in outline form. The question is: can we ignite sufficient insight within us to change course?

Remedying man’s primeval/postmodern contradiction isn’t a matter of national balance, but global breakthrough. Humanity urgently needs human beings that can resolve man’s existential contradiction into paradox, and chart a new course for humankind as a whole.

Martin LeFevre

lefevremartin77@gmail 

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