Questions
To be avoided at all costs.
Exceedingly rare now that everyone knows everything.
There are two general types of questions:
Honest inquiries designed to illicit a useful or relevant response
Theatrical antecedents to formulated answers
The first has the potential to generate doubt to the audience, the latter does not – it is purely performative. As a result, the latter is preferred, especially by technocrats, who view honest inquiry as inefficient, especially when they already know the answer. Why ask questions when we have EXPERTS to guide us through every situation?
Currently, most questions are introduced so they can be eliminated and therefore removed from the realm of concern by someone who is paid to pretend they have all the answers. The availability of unlimited facts that can produce an unlimited number of absolute answers that may be claimed is all the technocrat needs.
In such civilizations, memory is not highly regarded. Right answers which turn out to be wrong are simply replace with a new formula. The result of these sequential truths is an assertive or declarative society which admires neither reflection nor doubt and has difficulty with the idea that to most questions there are many answers, none of them absolute and few of them satisfactory except in a limited way.(1)
The free exchange of ideas that inevitably produce doubt and unanswered questions is unacceptable.
We would rather have a wrong answer than an dangling question.
We are addicted.
Posted: 17 Mar 2023
(1) Saul, John Ralston, 1994, The doubter’s companion: a dictionary of aggressive common sense, Penguin Books Canada Ltd
