My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 5, #29, February 28, 2000

I'M GLAD YOU ASKED ME THAT

If I may paraphrase Robert Frost, I believe good questions make good choices, and it seems to me we're suffering from a serious shortage of good questions.

One of the questions we ask oftenest, unfortunately, is "Who can we blame?" As our culture has changed in ways we don't like, various people's answers to that question have included blacks, government, liberals, right-to-lifers, homosexuals, the religious right, lawyers, teachers, Congress, Bill Clinton, the American Library Association, "feminazis," illegal aliens, and communists.

That's a bad question. It causes us to exclude ever larger numbers of people from the ranks of "real Americans," until eventually there's nobody left but me and thee, and even thee's a little suspect. It cultivates our mean streaks and allows us to feel good about our prejudices. It also keeps us from seeing what we have in common with the people we've chosen to blame, keeps us from inviting them to help us solve the problems we all share.

Even worse, looking for individual culprits to blame doesn't allow us to examine and change the larger systems that may be the real culprits. When the National Transportation Safety Board investigates plane crashes, they ask "What can we learn from this crash to make the system safer?" This means that, even when they do find pilot error to blame, they may also find design problems that contributed to the error, and can then order design modifications in other planes. With as many as 100,000 patient deaths each year blamed on medical errors, we should be asking hospitals not "Who made the mistake?" but "How did the error occur, why wasn't it caught, and what safeguards would keep this from happening again?" Unfortunately, malpractice lawsuits keep the question firmly centered around "Who can we blame?"

Another good question is, "Does this work?" Americans have a notoriously short attention span. We get worked up about a situation, pass a law or two, say we've fixed it, and walk away. We don't go back often enough to see if the law did what we intended it to do or to see if it had any unfortunate side-effects. That's why I'm in favor of passing laws that are divided into two parts: a clear statement of what the law is intended to accomplish, which will remain in effect until specifically amended or replaced, and a means for accomplishing the goal, which will be automatically reviewed at five year intervals.

A good question for evaluating almost anything, be it advertising or web sites or textbooks, is "Who sez?" It all comes down to a matter of trust, and it's easier to trust people who tell you who they are and what their goal is. It's helpful to know what their training is and whether it's relevant to their claimed expertise (Dr. Laura's doctorate is in physiology, not psychology). We're more likely to trust impartial people who won't profit from convincing us to believe or buy, more likely to trust nonpartisan, professional or official sources than commercial ones. We grant more credibility to people and products that win honors and awards. But we have to ask the question first: Who sez?

Sometimes, when our customers or clients don't understand what we've done, we start asking, in effect, "How do we improve our defective users?" which leads us to solutions like training, manuals, and tutorials. A far better question is "How can we improve our systems so our users can understand them?" If VCR users expect that when they push "Record" and type in "Freaks and Geeks" the machine will figure out what day, time and channel is required, VCR makers should think real hard about making the system work that way.

Another question that would be helpful is "And then?" We go off half-cocked way too often and don't always think about what happens next. If, for instance, you tell your boss you'll quit if you don't get a raise, and he says, "Nice knowing you," you really should have made alternative plans first. I wonder if the people who invented the car alarm ever thought to ask what happens after the alarm goes off? Did they think public-spirited neighbors awakened at 2 in the morning would rush down six flights of stairs to chase away a car thief?

A question our self-esteem protects us from too often is "What did I do wrong?" which should be followed hard upon by "How can I fix it?"

But possibly the most important questions of all are "Why" and "Why not?" Often we don't understand enough to make an intelligent judgment, and asking "why" allows us to learn. If instead of inveighing against librarians peddling smut people asked them why they don't want filters on their computers, they would end up knowing a good bit more about the first amendment and the limitations of filters; they still might choose to disagree, but they would understand that librarians are defending principles, not pornography.

The beauty of "Why not?" is that it allows us to dream. We can get beyond the straitjacket of history, beyond narrow, limited goals and means, and envision a new world altogether. Bobby Kennedy said it best: " Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

Ask good questions. They make good neighbors, too.