question authority

[quarrel]

I have a hard time asking questions — or, rather, a hard time getting questions answered. A big part of it is that, for the past few years, I haven’t bothered trying to be polite. I can’t really see how it’s possible to question a person about her beliefs, her values, or her faith or ethics without implicitly attacking them, so why bother trying to sound like I’m not? That would only change me from disrespectful to disrespectful and insincere.

Obviously, I should try anyway. It probably won’t hurt. Probably. I suspect I’ll have a low success rate even if I eventually do learn how to do it well. There’s such a strong tendency, especially in the United States, for people to assume that if you are not 100% on their side a priori, your upbringing or your facts or your intelligence or your sense of civic responsibility are flawed. That’s the simplest explanation for why you don’t see the same blatantly obvious problems and aren’t doing the same things about them. (I could — and do — try to see things from multiple points of view, but while that helps me see why people come at issues differently, I’ve discovered it doesn’t endear me to any of them. In fact, if anything happens, it’s the opposite: I’m an uneducated idiot willing to believe any spiel from anyone instead of forming my own common sense opinion like decent people do.)

On top of that, between concern trolls and JAQing off, it’s exceedingly difficult to come across as a bona-fide question-asking neophyte. You must monitor the quality and quantity of your questions, for you begin with two strikes against you and risk being banned from the discussion if you sound even slightly disingenuous in your questioning or you don’t readily accept the answers you get. Refusal to accept answers is another denialist tactic. (“Yes, but how do you know evolution is real? How do you know evolution is real? How do you know evolution is real?”)