"Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions."Sometimes a good question is worth more than a library full of answers.
Here's one I heard recently that might stir up some thought...
Why don't people want to be free?
You could dig into that for a long time. Thinking about what it means to be free, how we chain ourselves to some things (clocks, jobs, families, religion, political parties...), why our attempts to give people freedom sometimes fail. etc.
My immediate thought was that choosing to be controlled rather than be in control is a lot simpler. If someone, or some thing, controls me then I have no personal responsibility.
On a global scale that could be one ethnic, religious or political group blaming another for their problems. Some groups, and some individuals, need an enemy - someone to blame. What would happen if we didn't have someone or something outside of ourselves to blame?
We would be burdened with freedom. The freedom to change and grow - to think, to ask questions - to not have answers. To understand that the imperfect state of not knowing may be the best we will have, that there are deliciously difficult problems (and some fairly mundane ones as well) that have no right answer - no good answer - maybe a best answer, or maybe no answer at all.
If there is no answer, or no right answer, then we are forced to hold ideas in tension. That takes a lot of work. So....we go to the expert - dad, mom, teacher, preacher.
A person without the intelligence, energy, and courage to make something of his or herself will not choose freedom - but rather a cozy world where decisions, rules, answers, rhymes and reason are provided from someone or something external. Fundamentalists, those who belong to a movement or possess an attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles - are ready to take your freedom away.
They don't want you to ask questions - they want to give you answers. Turn on talk radio, watch the TV, go to church, ask an authority figure of any stripe - but don't think for yourself.
_______________________________
If questions like "why don't people want freedom?", interest you and you haven't had a chance to read the book The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
by Eric Hoffer - the "longshoreman philosopher" by all means check it out.
