I recently wrote a column about systems, explaining how I think the systems we operate now are too complicated to manage. Part of the problem, I opined, was that systems involve a lot of moving parts, and too few people these days think in ways that keep all those moving parts in mind. That kind of flexible thinking doesn’t fit very well into a 30-second political ad.

But, recently, I’ve had some encouraging conversations. One of them was with current Arvada City Council member Bob Fifer. He was explaining how he views governing, and it seems like exactly what I was lamenting the dearth of. He explained that running a city is a little like baking a cake. Nobody tells you exactly what kind of cake to bake, but you know you want something really sweet to come out of the oven. So, you survey the ingredients on hand and you start to put things together. If you have chocolate chips, then you should change the balance of cocoa in the recipe; if you have cinnamon, then you change the kind of flour you use, and so on. There are a lot of different ways to get a flavorful cake, you just have to make choices about how you put the ingredients together.

You can favor economic development, but then you have to have to upgrade infrastructure; protect open spaces, but also manage revenue streams. And have a mind towards elements that are out of your direct control, like the building of schools to accommodate housing developments.

I have to say, it was a refreshingly broad-minded conversation about the management of a system that we all value. And, Arvada’s a great place, so something must be working.

But that thinking is rare — our politics has forced us to think about only one thing at a time. For instance, I was having a debate with an old friend last week, and he was arguing in favor of raising the minimum wage. Well, the only proposal on the table is $15/hour, and I said that would probably cause catastrophic inflation. We went back and forth about this for a couple days, before he finally laid out a comprehensive strategy for job creation, which included raising the minimum wage to a more modest degree, and then indexing it to inflation.

Now, my friend is among the smartest people I know, but even we got trapped into reducing a complex system to one narrow, easily demagogued issue. And, if it’s that bad when the two of us are going at it online over the course of days, how absurd is it that the candidates for president have to discuss ideas in two-minute answers?

So, it was with little surprise, but grave disappointment, that I listened to the President’s remarks after the horrible tragedy at Umpqua Community College. If you knew nothing, but just listened to his speech, you would think that four guns marched themselves into the science building at UCC and started spraying bullets. And, if the only conversation we have after this event is about guns, then we’re doomed to failure.

See, we have a little experience with events like that in these parts. There are holes in these boys’ souls that get filled with too-high expectations and very little reality, that then get spackled in with extreme violence and a cultural disregard for life, long before a gun ever reaches their hands. Narcissism meeting failure, coupled with social difficulties, and with a little mental illness sprinkled in for flavor: that is a system destined for tragedy.

The gun is merely the final ingredient of a cake that is already going to be awful, and shouting about that one ingredient is NOT going to fix the rest of the cake. But, then, maybe the problem is too many chefs who don’t understand the moving pieces. Keep that in mind, next time you vote for a new chef.