UNPOPULAR OPINION #5

The first example that comes to mind here is a soccer game, or football, if we were to call things by the names by which they are most widely and broadly recognised. Its status as the most famous sport in a worldwide arena does not owe its success to the level of its complexity; in fact, its sophistication bears no relevance here. And all of that is already in synchronous alignment with the established popular belief, though if we were to include the group of biased and subjective fans in the equation, to claim that the belief is that established would be somewhat misreckoned.

Instead of excessive layers of sophistication, football is a sport known for its simplicity. Everything about it is easy. Sure, ‘easy’ might not be the most accurate description, but it is most definitely the best-fitting word here. In comparison, the sport of polo, also known as the ‘Sport of Kings,’ a game belonging to the equestrian field, has a much narrower and tighter number of admirers and followers. If you are already cognisant of the fact that polo is a stick-and-ball game played on horseback, you might be morally tempted to concur that this sport, from a certain angle, if we were indeed to zoom out on that angle, almost ‘abuses’ animal rights and their freedom, hence counting it among the world’s most sophisticated sports would be nothing more than mocking and insulting one’s own intelligence and humanity. For a moment, let’s dismiss that angle, if I dare request that.

Both football and polo are about hitting a ball into a goal on your opponent’s side of the defence. Certainly, if we were to broaden the picture, almost every sport that exists or once existed in the world has a similar objective: getting some kind of object into some kind of target. What makes polo more complicated by several degrees is that you cannot run and walk on your feet as most people are already capable of doing from the age of one or two; polo requires its players to ride a horse, and that is not something many people know how to do. Then you cannot even use your feet to kick or your hands to throw the ball; instead, you are obligated to use long wooden mallets.

Taking all of those points into consideration, it can be valid to state that one aspect of sophistication is that the skills required to accomplish a given task ought to demand that ‘the participant’ learn the craft rather than simply be born with the ability to perform it. What’s more, those should not be the kinds of skills that many could feel they have the capacity to obtain easily if only they were to put their heads to it.

The next example that comes to mind is from the music industry. Without a doubt, opera and orchestral music are generally categorised as far more sophisticated than what many commercial pop artists or rappers could offer. For this instance, let’s strip away the skill-based merit of it all and instead concentrate solely on entertainment and appeal. The first two, namely opera and orchestral music, appear to demand too much undivided attention; what’s more, they seem to ask for thoughtfulness, perhaps even too much thoughtfulness, too much interiority that, by this age, by this era, might have already lost all its appeal, all its value, all its weight. That is not the argument I am trying to make here: that all commercial pop and rap compositions invite you to brainrot or mentally stagnate, and, if not that, then mentally fail to advance from where you are already settled. There are thoughtful commercial pop songs; there are thoughtfully made rap compositions. Yet the level of attention and ‘presence’ that the first two demand surpasses the level required by the last two. That is one of the reasons it is easier to discover people falling asleep or falling into tedium while listening to a high-class opera or watching a conductor bring a musical work into an assembled synchrony.

Taking everything said above into account, it is a defensible proposition that the more sophisticated things become, the heavier the cognitive toll they extract. Thus, subsequently, the more drained one’s mental reserves become, the more likely one is to fall into boredom. When that occurs, it greatly compounds the risk of losing your audience. Hence, the size of your spectators shrinks at the cost of it all.

To ground the proposed broader thesis, to seal the argument, let us look at one last scenario. People. There are people who present themselves, whether knowingly or subconsciously, as sophisticated. They seem to exhibit the ambience of high-class demeanour, the taste of cultivated culture, the smell of not just intelligence, but intellect. Don’t be tempted to conclude that my implication lies only with those who position themselves as aristocrats, artists, or entrenched members of the intelligentsia. We all possess the instinct to map out what kind of group it is that stands on the opposing sidewalk. The funny ones. The happy kind. The carefree types. The funny guy might possess a skill that not many are capable of learning. Say he knows how to command a helicopter, or even restore its mechanics. When engaged in or accomplishing this exact task, the air around him will even smell of sophistication, though the more fitting odour here ought to have been kerosene. However, the moment silly and groundless jokes come out of his mouth or gestures, the thin varnish of sophistication cracks and gives way with catastrophic speed.

It is almost as if sophistication is about high-level capacity, high-level thinking, and now even high-level solemnity. And when viewed through this alternative prism, can’t we propose that sophistication demands excessive measures not just from its observer and admirer, but even from the one who takes on the very guise of that sophistication? In order to preserve it, to prevent its forfeiture, one must make sure that they are not merely capable, but always capable; they must ensure they never happen to appear incapable in front of the eyes that are watching them, always ready to condemn that very ‘sophisticated being.’ What’s more, they must always know things: they ought to be cognisant of what is right and what is wrong, along with knowing when and how.

In that case, isn’t it possible that ‘simplicity’ is what deepens understanding, and ‘sophistication’ what flattens it, if we were to look not at who the sophisticated person is, but at who they have become?