Questions and Answers

Does anyone know the answer?

No? Well, does anyone know the question?

Which, to me, is the question.

We humans seek THE answer. The get-rich-quick scheme. The fountain of youth. Megamillions lottery jackpot. We will pay for the answer. We will pay a lot for the answer. Whether we know the question or not.

Public discourse in our country has devolved into a contest of answers. Red state vs. blue states. Conservatism vs. liberalism. Us vs. them. Having an answer to fight for or against is more important than knowing what question the answer is supposed to answer. Sarcasm, bullying, yelling people down are the hallmarks in the sphere of Answerists.

If I am someone whose career depends on my feeding energy into a following, Rush Limbaugh would be an example, I have to package my thoughts and opinions as facts and certainties. I have to reduce complex questions into simplistic concepts so they can be filed under one of my preconceived certainties. Whether I think through the issues or not.

How many others of you are as intrigued as I am at the number of pro-life activists who are for the death penalty? I have yet to find someone who is vehement in both these beliefs who can cogently rationalize whether or not there is a contradiction here. Please don’t assume that I am for or against either concept but only that my experiences with people who believe in both never questioned whether they are at odds.

I think that because of a hard-wired human characteristic that energizes us to achieve greater things that we would fall on our swords rather than admit we are wrong. This is an attribute when we are right but a detriment when we are not. But the only way we can attain any level of certainty about what is right is to constantly and diligently question our thoughts and beliefs.

Remember it is not so long ago that the generally accepted truth was that the Earth was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around us. That your body belonged to your God and through him to your sovereign. That no one could fly.

All of these truths are now generally discredited because there were people who questioned them. Kepler and Copurnicus knew the geocentric theory all too well but their calculations convinced them there was another truth. Montesquieu and Locke wrote of the rights of men. Orville and Wilbur Wright culminated the efforts of hundreds of people over hundreds of years at Kitty Hawk. These questioners found the evidence that the truth may not be true because they avoided regurgitating answers and instead asked questions.

Which is the only truth that I believe in 100%. The only way to be certain that which is true is indeed true is to regularly put it to the question. Unfortunately questioning doesn’t sell advertising. Answers do.

So we are going to have to wade through the muck and mire of media-based talking heads who can profess on their truths that sell advertising to as extensive an audience as possible to have any dialogue at all. We need a dialogue that is less sure of itself to make sure that human progress can continue. Progress can only come from work but nobody works on an issue if the have the truth.

Questions are work. Questions energize progress. Questions are the sign of intelligence. Questions are at the root of leadership and accomplishment. Questions are needed for excellence.

Answers sell advertising.