Why do we question?

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Why do we question?

I have a love for questions. Questions to understand another. Questions to explore one's own self. Questions to help another make sense of their life or an event. Questions that allow for one's self to retreat and for another to take the stage. Questions to elicit information. Questions to help another come to a realisation rather than dis-empower them with given fact. As Lord Sacks wrote, ‘Education is not indoctrination. It is teaching a child to be curious, to wonder, reflect, enquire. The child who asks becomes a partner in the learning process. He or she is no longer a passive recipient but an active participant. To ask is to grow.’ (http://askbigquestions.org/blog/201302/art-asking-questions).

As John G. Miller writes on http://qbq.com/15-reasons-to-ask-questions/:

Why exactly do we ask questions? Well, here are 15 reasons to do so!

1. To acquire knowledge

2. To eliminate confusion

3. To cause someone else to feel special/important

4. To guide a conversation in the direction we want it to go

5. To demonstrate humility to another

6. To enable a person to discover answers for themselves

7. To gain empathy through better understanding another’s view

8. To influence/alter someone else’s opinion/view

9. To begin a relationship

10. To strengthen a relationship

11. To humbly show we have knowledge on a specific topic

12. To stimulate creativity and idea generation

13. To gain a person’s attention

14. To solve a problem

15. To reach agreement or to “agree to disagree” with clarity

...and some reasons not to:

1. To find a culprit

2. To embarrass and shame

3. To appear superior

4. To create fear

5. To manipulate

6. To play the victim, as in, “Why is this happening to me?”

Lord Sacks argues for three topics of questioning in Judaism, about chokhmah, ‘wisdom,’ which includes scientific, historical, and sociological inquiry, about Torah, and about justice.

Interestingly Lord Sacks also explains that there are three conditions for asking a Jewish question, paraphrased below. The first is that we seek genuinely to learn – not to doubt, ridicule, dismiss, reject. He believes that this is what the ‘wicked son’ of the Haggadah does: ask not out of a desire to understand but as a prelude to walking away. Second is that we accept limits to our understanding. Not everything is intelligible at any given moment and we need to allow for scientific discovery. Not everything in Judaism that we do not understand is unintelligible. The very features of Jewish life one generation finds difficult, the next generation may find the most meaningful of all. Faith is not opposed to questions, but it is opposed to the shallow certainty that what we understand is all there is. Third is that when it comes to Torah, we learn by living and understand by doing. We learn to understand music by listening to music. We learn to appreciate literature by reading literature. There is no way of understanding Shabbat without keeping Shabbat, no way of appreciating how Jewish laws of family purity enhance a marriage without observing them. Judaism, like music, is something that can only be understood from the inside, by immersing yourself in it.

Along the theme of resistance, in my mind, questions sometimes arise where there is a tension, between what one already knows and what one sees before oneself. This could align with Friedrich Nietzsche who is quoted as saying, ‘We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.’ Effective questions can also elicit tension in others, whose knowledge or experience may not have yet triggered the question.

I would suggest we sometimes we only ask questions for which we are in the position to hear answers, or in fact, seek answers we feel we already know. Such as in a therapeutic context, asking someone ‘Do you think that would be a good idea?’ suggests we have already formulated an opinion, and we are looking for their agreement, albeit, we can believe that this approach of asking a question is a more gentle way to promote change than by making a statement. Yet, by doing this thinly-veiled questioning, we may elicit client resistance as our question is loaded and says more about our thinking than interest in theirs. They no longer trust us as being open and honest, and genuinely interested in their views. It becomes a tool of communicating the questioners own ideas or values. And this is usually because the questioner has an agenda they are trying to push.

Why in an evolutionary sense might we question?

As Prasanna Rao, PhD in Knowledge Management & Strategy, IIT Kharagpur writes about (https://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-ask-questions-8), assume a person is standing in a particular place they may consider what will happen when there is a change in environment? The person gets ready to react. Our brain kickstarts all its functions (self preserving instinct Flight or Fight reaction) and starts to connect the dots inside our head - depending upon our environment (Threat / Safety etc), age, experience & intelligence. Prasanna believes that one reason for our questioning nature, happened after we started living in a safe world. Even now, we run when we see a real threat. We don’t stop and ask question as our instinct takes over. Hence, we are physically designed to run. However, as we are mostly in safe environments, and our need for physical running on a daily basis has stopped, our mental running has started which prompts us to ask questions (so that we can strategise and remove threats ahead). Hence, we question mostly when we are aware of ourselves and our surroundings.

There are of course many other reasons to question, including for spiritual, emotional and intellectual purposes. I guess these approaches speak to me, they give meaning to my questioning, and questioning gives meaning to me, so by extension to my life. This year when looking at the four sons and their questions, consider the drive behind their asking. Do they already know the answer they pose, yet frame it in such a way as to perhaps appear gentler? Do they somehow experience a resistance or tension that they have not yet encountered? Are they moving someone else towards this? Or do they feel threatened? Can they see something occur around them that may compromise their intellectual safe place? How do the questions map onto Lord Sack’s categories? Do they fit more than one? What questions do you have? What else may be driving you to ask?

haggadah Section: -- Four Children