Somebody Else's Problem

And the dangers of getting attached to the wrong analogy

In Life, The Universe and Everything, the third book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy series, Douglas Adams conceived of a cloaking device called the “Somebody Else’s Problem Field”:

The Somebody Else's Problem field […] relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.

When something is too incomprehensible or bizarre or challenging for the mind to accept, our brains simply edit it out as Somebody Else’s Problem. The conceit being that actually making objects truly invisible is a fantastically difficult and expensive feat, whereas a Somebody Else’s Problem field generator can run indefinitely off a couple of torch batteries. The end result of exploiting our tendency to ignore difficult problems is the same: complete invisibility.

To be clear: it is not simply that you see and ignore the problem, on the assumption someone else will come along and deal with it. Rather, it is that the problem is so big, and so obviously someone else’s to deal with that your unconscious won’t let you even perceive there is a problem to begin with. You can only perceive an object cloaked by a Somebody Else’s Problem field if you catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of your eye, but never if you stare straight at it - the enormity is too much for the mind to handle.

And while Douglas Adams was using science fiction to elegantly poke fun at the human condition, the existence of this sort of effect is an important one to consider when facing a mass of people who seem to be ignoring an obvious problem.

An oft-used parable for such situations is that of The Emperor’s New Clothes, wherein the self-imposed veil of silence about the regal nudist is pierced by one child saying the unsayable. With that act, the spell is broken, and the whole naked edifice comes tumbling down.

But a Somebody Else’s Problem field does not work like that. It does not matter how often you try to bring people’s attention to whatever it is that is cloaked - they won’t see it. Their minds won’t let them see it. You drawing attention to the problem just adds to the problem. If you jump up and down screaming about the problem right in their faces, you become part of the problem, and just as invisible.

It also helps in understanding that this sort of selective blindness isn’t an act of malice or ignorance or self-preservation, but a far deeper and more universal tendency to not pay attention to uncomfortable truths when they’re right in front of us, something everyone has the capacity to be susceptible to. We simply don’t know what we are ourselves blind to.

In cases like this, it is not simply that people know there is a problem, but are afraid to be the first one to point it out - it is that the problem is so huge and complex and difficult that it is unseeable. And in that situation, pointing out in ever more desperate terms just how big the problem is makes it less likely they will see it. Solving this is a much, much harder task than simply laughing at a naked man and congratulating yourself on being the one bold enough to burst that bubble.

For this sort of problem you actually have to find a way to let people catch a glimpse of it, just a fragment, a manageable section out of the corner of their eye. Just enough for them to start to see it, but not so much that they shut down completely. Enough to create a niggle of awareness that something actually is amiss, and no, nobody is dealing with it. No-one has a reassuring hand on the tiller, and the iceberg is hoving into view.

Consider all the times there has been some seemingly seismic event in the sex and gender conflict that had people convinced that now, finally, this would be the one people would be unable to ignore. Men in women’s prisons. Men in women’s rugby. Men in women’s weightlifting. Rowling tweeting. The Cass Review. And on and on.

And the truth is each of these just seemed to make the whole conflict more bafflingly complex, and more invisible. Escalating the abuse and silencing instead of dispelling it. It turns out it isn’t enough to point out the grave injustices, the abuses, the unfairness, the blatant piss-taking. Most people aren’t waiting for the outrageous event that grants them permission to acknowledge the emperor’s nudity - they just won’t see any of this at all, because their unconscious rationalises it away as Somebody Else’s Problem.