“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers" - VoltaireThe most overrated advice is: "there are no stupid questions". Hogwash. There are lots of stupid questions. Most questions are terrible questions. As evidence of how strongly I feel about this, I offer three points:
a) In the deeply improbable future in which I am an HKS fellow (IOP, CPL - I'm back in town on Sunday, let's discuss), my study group will be called "Terrible Questions I Have Been Asked".
b) I know this because I am the only person alive who raises her hand in one-on-one conversations, or who prefaces her comments at weekend brunches with "I have a question, and a follow-up...". I love questions nearly as much as I love lists.
c) The below questions are definitely not terrible questions. Indeed, they probably deserve a place in the pantheon of important questions alongside "what is objective truth?" and "how long do you have to gaze into the abyss for the abyss to also gaze into you?".
A list of (probably) excellent questions
1. Does no-one use toner anymore? If so, when did the skincare people stop selling us the "clease, tone, moisturise" mantra? What other dermatological developments have I missed? Exfoliating is still a thing, right?
2. Why do movie directors think audiences can't read things the characters have found written on large pieces of paper? Why do they think we will find it plausible that the main character would read aforementioned written things aloud to themselves?
3. Why, in every shared housing situation, do the teaspoons disappear? More importantly, where do they go?
1. Toner is still very important to most copy-machines.
ReplyDelete2. If you had to decide between insulting the intelligence of the median American moviegoer or having them miss a plot point, which would you pick?
3. Alternate dimension. There is a chthonic metropolis behind your refrigerator forged from teaspoons.