pilfered_words

From what I’ve seen, nuance gets more acceptable at higher levels of education. In middle school, any attempt to introduce nuance was met with the question, “How does this support your thesis?” By the end of high school, some nuance was acceptable, as long as you had a strong thesis and proved it. Discussing an issue from several sides was not acceptable; you were necessarily convincing your audience of something. (Two sentence theses were only acceptable in senior year of high school; before that, the main thought of your essay had to be something you could say in one sentence.) 

 

I didn’t go to college, but I’ve read essays written by college students. It seems plausible to me that humanities majors learn to write actually nuanced pieces, and everyone else permanently stays at their high school level.

 

I don’t think saying “nuance is for scholars, what normal people need is the ability to make a bold statement,” is a good idea.