The Question (Always) Anticipates the Answer

By Greg -
The question is always ahead of the answer, because the question presupposes the fact. Answers tell us nothing but what the question had already anticipated. The inquisitor is to be blamed if a negative answer leads them nowhere. Every question should anticipate every answer, which is to say that no answer should ever be dismissed. The question might not be understood, by either the interrogator or by the interrogated. If so, refine the question, expand, explain. To articulate a relevant question requires that the scholar first be educated by the curious. There are rote answers to rote questions, and there is curiosity that disturbs the serenity of ideologues. The latter requires careful diplomacy and, especially, compassion. We all were once confirmed to one state or another, and we all owe ourselves to the compassion of an inquisitor, the sympathy of an interrogator. Ask and receive. It was never know and get. It's all in the asking, the humble inquisitiveness, curiosity without conditions, questions which are ready to accept every answer.

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