Category Archives: Rhetorical Mastery

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The False Promise of the Ill-formed Question

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We sometimes frame a questions awkwardly, increasing the likelihood even sincere answers will miss what we need to know.

We love questions.  They shift the burden of a conversation to another.  And their expression in a conversation suggests an open mind.  Setting aside queries about the nefarious intent of another, questions usually confer a degree of status on the one who has asked them. The person putting forth the query offers evidence that they are engaged and capable of more than spouting opinions.

Let’s set aside rhetorical questions: those faux interrogatories that are tossed out with a clear answer already in mind.  “You don’t really believe the President understands how international trade works, do you?” is a representative form.  The rhetorical question is a setup that reserves most of the power of explanation for oneself, which explains why they can be so annoying to the person that has to sit through the charade.  Let’s also set aside questions that are meant to yield setups that the questioner is interested in refuting.  “sandbagging” another person is a sport few people like.

We think of genuine questions as learning tools.  We love it when a child or a curious adult seeks an explanation that will add to their expanding range of understandings.  The best of such questions are asked without guile and directed to someone who has insights we respect.

Yet it’s also possible to imagine how useless and destructive the wrong kinds of questions can be.  Some ‘perform’ interest rather than genuinely reflect it. And too many others can turn us in the wrong direction. It’s surprisingly easy to frame an issue awkwardly, making it likely any answer will miss core issues.

Consider a few samples. “Should we continue to execute persons who commit violent crimes?”  Another might be: “Do you know how Johnny scored on intelligence tests?” In different ways each question primes us to consider a subject in a way that is not very advantageous to understanding what we should know. Regarding punishments for violent crimes, is the place to start really at forms of criminal punishment? We would be smarter to discuss common causes of serious crime, such as the nation’s tattered mental health screening for those on the margins.  Regarding intelligence test scores, the more interesting probes would focus on what we now mean by “intelligence,” and whether it is measured using narrow metrics.  Conventional measures, for example, don’t really touch the crucial variable of social intelligence: how well an individual copes with new situations and individuals.

The price of not asking the right question is perpetuated ignorance. 

In a memorable 1993 speech at the National Press Club author Michael Crichton observed that reporters often ask the wrong questions, missing the chance for a more panoramic understanding of a problem.

I often think, wait a minute. The real issue isn't term limits; it's campaign finance reform. The real issue isn't whether a gasoline tax is regressive; its national security--whether we'd prefer to go back to war in the Gulf instead of reducing oil consumption by taxing it more heavily, as every other nation does. The real issue isn't whether the United States should shave have an industrial policy, it is whether the one we have--no policy is a policy--serves us well.

In addition, Crichton could have added the cliches under-prepared that journalists can trot out for any candidate to answer: no research or knowledge required.  The list is familiar a familiar one: Do they think their campaign is going well?  Why do the want to hold this office?  Or how do they feel about their low poll numbers?  This kind of “process” journalism completely ignores explorations of what a candidate thinks about key issues of the day.  They don’t require reading position papers, previous interviews or speeches.  Broadcast journalism if full of interviewers who are not true reporters: too poorly informed to know what to ask.

A thoughtful question should hold out the promise of a useful insight. But it’s easy to miss the mark, making an errant query similar to searching for Venus in the wrong corner of the night sky.

Figuring Out when the Lights are On

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Picking  the wrong time to perform a demanding task is the penalty we pay for not knowing our own efficiency curve.

We are in a waking state most of the day, roughly two thirds of our life.  But being awake and being alert are not the same thing.  All of us have an efficiency curve: a line that tracks when we are least and most able to face the big mental challenges that the world throws at us.  Many tasks don’t require knowing the moment of one’s peak performance.  Answering phones in an office or helping customers in a retail setting may require more stamina than a period of intense focus and concentration.  But for many others, finding the moment when the lights are really on is an important workplace survival skill.

I was reminded of this by reading Janet Malcolm’s profile of MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.  Malcolm asked her subject why she started work in the early afternoon.  (Maddow’s show airs live at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time).  Maddow sensibly answered that she had to pick her moment.  She noted that you can only have your brain ‘light up’ for a limited time. She needed to perform well in what amounts to a series of extended narratives delivered in her prime time spot. It is possible to hit the high point of her curve if she starts preparing for her show after lunch. Her particular ‘high noon’ happens at 9 in the evening.

A lot of writers note the importance of the same natural curve, with many finding that mornings are when they are their most productive. In my own scheme for getting a book done, mornings are for writing; afternoons are reserved for rewriting or polishing. The curve flips for others who work best late at night.

It is true that a jolt of adrenaline might be enough to overcome encroaching mental dormancy. A pianist about to perform a set of demanding solo pieces for a paying audience will probably find hormonal reserves to carry them past the torpor caused by a sleepless night.  But that’s no way to live.

Students are often slow to learn their own curve, sometimes making the mistake of saving the toughest mental work of the day for the periods when their minds are fallow. High school schedules don’t help. They often require punishing early morning starts of classes forced upon nearly comatose teens. Many are simply not ready to handle an A.P. Physics at 7:30 a.m.

 

Is it good to be the first surgery patient on a Monday morning?  What if the doctor was at the Tiki Bar in Costa Rica just 15 hours earlier?

 

We all know the feeling of staring at a blank page or screen waiting for inspiration that may never arrive. Picking  the wrong time to do a demanding task is the penalty we pay for not knowing our own efficiency curve.

Sometimes it bears not thinking about potentially consequential mismatches of work tasks against a person’s natural curve.  Is it good to be the first surgery patient on a Monday morning?  What if the doctor was at the Tiki Bar in Costa Rica just 15 hours earlier?  And how about pilots flying a ‘red eye’ coast to coast?  One can hope that at least somebody in the cockpit is a late riser.

I had a friend who worked on a car assembly line one summer. In the days before robots and computers he swears that they managed to partly assemble a three-door sedan early into the first morning shift.  Workers on the line realized too late that the company was making a two-door car on one side and a four-door car on the other side.  Clearly someone was off their game.