What we do as a society is seek simple answers.

The line criticizes a common cultural habit: when faced with complex problems—social, political, moral, or personal—people often prefer tidy, single-cause explanations over messy, multi-factor realities. “As a society” broadens the point beyond individual laziness to a collective pattern reinforced by media cycles, partisan narratives, and the desire for emotional certainty. The quote implies that this appetite for simplicity can be dangerous: it can lead to scapegoating, overconfidence, and policies or judgments that ignore nuance. Read in a Koontzian register, it also fits a thriller writer’s interest in hidden motives and layered causality—suggesting that the truth is usually more complicated than the story we want to hear.