Sunday, October 10, 2010

Questions

I really love the Baha'is in my community. They are so wise, kind and courteous. Whenever I approach any of them and share a silly idea for a post, like this one, they sit there and say, "Wow, that's a great idea." And quite often they then add in a wonderful and insightful comment that really helps me get on track.

Today we were talking, and I mentioned my love for the Baha'i calendar. I mean, come on, how can I not love it? It isn't really based on the lunar months, nor even on the solar cycle. No. I think it is based on pure math, with a bit of the sun thrown in for good measure.

As I'm sure you know, it is 19 months of 19 days each, which totals 361 days. Then, to round out the solar year, there are 4 days thrown in for fun, or 5 in a leap year. Oh, and I do mean "for fun", because they are even called the Days of Ha, Ayyam-i-Ha. How much more fun can you get?

My wife says that she thinks Ayyam-i-Ha is a time for discovery. It is when you go, "Ha!" Maybe the extra "a", for "Aha!" comes from the initial for Ayyam.

Anyways, another part of the calendar that I love is the very names of the months. They are named after some of the attributes of God. You have the months of Glory, Might, Splendour, Perfection, and so on. All attributes of God, right?

Hmm.

What about Masa'il? The month of Questions? (Maybe that should be the Days of Ha? Or perhaps that would be the Days of Huh?) (I can already hear the phone getting to ring as an Auxiliary Board member calls to ask me to show a bit more respect. Sorry.)

But seriously. How is questions an attribute of God? I just don't understand. See? I even have a question about questions.

Perhaps it is that it is an attribute of ourselves, in that we do not know everything, like God, and therefore will always have questions. I really don't know. If anyone out there has an idea, I would love to hear it.

All of this, though, leads me to another thought about questions.

I was in a meeting once when someone said to a Counsellor, "Can I ask you a question?"

His response was a thoughtful, "I'm not sure. After all, questions are dangerous things." He spoke for quite some time about the danger of questions, and how we need to be very careful with them.

I was reminded of this just a few days ago when someone asked, "How can we strengthen our children's classes?"

Now that is a good question, in principle, but I think a dangerous one. Fortunately that danger was avoided during the discussion, and we all came away with a better understanding of the framework of the Five-Year Plan.

Now, why do I say it was dangerous? I'm glad you asked, dear Reader. The way that it is phrased presupposes a seperation between the children's classes and all the other core activities. It seems to indicate that they can be strengthened or weakened on their own, in isolation from the rest of the community. Oh sure, we can work on our lesson plans, researching age-appropriate activities and crafts that are relevant to the theme, or find stories and music that will enhance the ideas we are trying to convey. But really, I believe, and the community showed me this, that the best way to strengthen these classes is to ensure that they are in conjunction with the junior youth groups, as well as study circles for the adults. They also can be further strengthened when they are surrounded by the love of the devotional gatherings.

Later, Marielle and I were trying to figure out how we would try to ask the same question without unintentionally implying this seperation, and it was very difficult. I think what we finally settled on was, "How can we further enhance our children's classes within the framework of the Five Year Plan?"

And you know, that just seems cumbersome to me.

So my hat is off to the people who organized our meeting and came up with the question they did. I'm not sure I could have done better.

Besides, their question did get me to think.

And that, as we all know, is a dangerous thing.

11 comments:

  1. No question is dangerous.

    Asking a question does not mean there is an inherent weakness in the subject. What is means is that there is always room for improvement, which logically might be lacking in one department compared to the others.

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  2. Why are questions dangerous? Or shouldn't I ask? Perhaps the answer can be found in Bahiyyih Nakhjavani's book, "Asking questions". The book is subtitled, "A challenge to fundamentalism".

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  3. You are correct. A question does not imply an inherent weakness. But, as to why a question can be dangerous, it depends on who is doing the asking.

    When a question is used to try and lead others to knowledge, as in the example I gave, it can cause mis-leading presumptions.

    I believe we need to be careful about how we phrase our questions, as we need to be careful about how we phrase praise or criticism. Words are powerful, and they need to be respected.

    But when we question to try to understand for ourselves, I believe that questions are a good thing.

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  4. I was also a little confused about your attitude towards questions, probably because of the way you use the word 'dangerous'. Normally, 'dangerous' is not a very nice word -- nothing good is ever 'dangerous' as the term is often used. On the other hand, you give 'dangerous' a less common meaning at the end of the piece, one that's more compatible with your suggestion that questions are good. There, you use 'dangerous' to mean 'powerful': you seem to be suggesting that questions aren't so much dangerous as deserving the same sort of respect as a power tool or a fission reactor. And if is this what you mean, I agree with you. And I also agree that while we shouldn't be afraid to ask questions, we should be careful to ask the right ones.

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  5. I've just re-read your response, and I see that you're critical of a certain kind of question. You're critical of the sort of question that people ask when they already have an answer in mind, or when their intention in asking the question is to pose an insoluble paradox. While I still agree that there are good questions and bad ones, I don't see why you should condemn this particular class of question. I always liked the place near the beginning of Mirza Abu'l-Fadl's "Miracles and Metaphors", where the devout Muslim is asked how raindrops can be guided to earth by angels when the Koran says angels will never stray near a house where a dog is living. It's the sort of question that needs to be asked every now and then, I think. But I still agree with you that a good question depends on good phrasing. For example, the following seems to me a very weak question: Why aren't women allowed to serve on the Universal House of Justice? On the other hand, I think this is a good one: Will the world ever believe that Baha'is are serious about gender equality as long as the supreme institution remains exclusively male? The basic idea may be worthy of discussion, but it's the specific grammar of the question that gives it power, or as you would say, that makes it dangerous.

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  6. Hi Brendan. Thanks for your thoughts.

    Actually, I don't really mind the sort of question where you are helpinglead people to an answer or an idea. It's just that we need to be careful not to err in our preconceptions.

    In Tabernacle of Unity, Baha'u'llah is asked many questions that have faulty premises, and He therefore appears to avoid answering. Actually, He does answer with phrases like "Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in..."

    You see, when Manikchi-Sahib asks about things like which of 4 schools of thought are correct, the presumption is that one of them is correct. This was not the case, and therefore the question could not be answered as it was given.

    Now this is easy when you are asking a Messenger of God. You know you will come away with a good answer, and will probably learn something.

    When we ask questions of each other, especially when we are in a position of authority, we need to be cautious that we don't fall into this trap.

    So in that regards, I agree with the Counsellor. I think questions are dangerous. But only, as you said, in the same sense that fire is dangerous. When you use it properly, it is a great tool. We need to treat questions with respect.

    But all this still doesn't help me figure out why there is a month of Questions. :)

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  7. Hmmmmm.....I'm more than a little eerie about saying that questions are dangerous, because that road can very easily lead to Fundamentalist Town. If you scare people into NOT asking questions, then all they have left is "just believe", which would make the Baha'i Faith no different than any other fundamentalist organization that requires blind faith and submission from its adherents.

    Many people are already scared to ask critical questions in religious settings as it is, so I don't think it should be made more difficult for people by saying that they should have the most thought out question in the world before they even ask said question.

    It is true that some people ask questions under false pretenses, i.e. "Why does your religion say you have to kill all the infidels and take over the government with your Shariah Law?" Obviously that's not a question, but an attack. But I really don't think questions, even "stupid" ones, should be discouraged.

    Those are my two cents anyway.

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  8. Bravo, Ruh Kalb! I'm not sure Mead ever meant to imply such a thing, but I'd agree with you that people shouldn't ever be discouraged to ask questions. It's worth trying to ask the best questions we can, but I certainly wouldn't want some timid soul to be silent because they're afraid they won't frame their question properly.

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  9. Randomly googled this topic and couldn't help but contribute to this discussion. These are just some humble opinions of psychology, and an integrative way of applying the Baha'i principles...

    The path to any learning FIRST begins with a question.

    Mere consciousness in a student, is not an indicator of learning. How many times have we daydreamed while listening and missed the point? Learning requires active listening, asking the speaker questions, and then internalizing the questions within ourselves (codifying) into our own language that we can use and apply in our own way to our context.

    learning requires commitment to learn which is sparked by a growing curiosity that surrounds a question.

    This is where the virtues of Humility and Truthfulness play an imperative role in the Learner.

    The learner must be humble enough to acknowledge their own shortcomings, or rather where there are areas to grow. This is questioning oneself (or bringing thyself to account?) or reflecting.

    The minute we're able to acknowledge where we want to grow, that commitment fosters a synergy that increases the chance of us learning.

    After reflecting, its time for action (action-reflection). Ideally this could be done on the cluster, team, or individual/personal level.

    Some learning science indicates we learn better when things go wrong. We are forced to question why it didn't work, make some adaptations to our interpretation of reality (our assumptions that dictates cause and effect), try again and see if it works better.

    Often times, when things go right, we tend to pat ourselves on the back and keep moving forward, we accept that the outcome matches our assumptions. Learning isn't stimulated in this case, although it could if we ask questions.

    Sir Isaac Newton did more than observe an apple hit him in the head. He questioned "why?"

    It appears everything we're asked to do in this age involves Learning in one way or another. And a root of learning is Questions. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Randomly googled this topic and couldn't help but contribute to this discussion. These are just some humble opinions of psychology, and an integrative way of applying the Baha'i principles...

    The path to any learning FIRST begins with a question.

    Mere consciousness in a student, is not an indicator of learning. How many times have we daydreamed while listening and missed the point? Learning requires active listening, asking the speaker questions, and then internalizing the questions within ourselves (codifying) into our own language that we can use and apply in our own way to our context.

    learning requires commitment to learn which is sparked by a growing curiosity that surrounds a question.

    This is where the virtues of Humility and Truthfulness play an imperative role in the Learner.

    The learner must be humble enough to acknowledge their own shortcomings, or rather where there are areas to grow. This is questioning oneself (or bringing thyself to account?) or reflecting.

    The minute we're able to acknowledge where we want to grow, that commitment fosters a synergy that increases the chance of us learning.

    After reflecting, its time for action (action-reflection). Ideally this could be done on the cluster, team, or individual/personal level.

    Some learning science indicates we learn better when things go wrong. We are forced to question why it didn't work, make some adaptations to our interpretation of reality (our assumptions that dictates cause and effect), try again and see if it works better.

    Often times, when things go right, we tend to pat ourselves on the back and keep moving forward, we accept that the outcome matches our assumptions. Learning isn't stimulated in this case, although it could if we ask questions.

    Sir Isaac Newton did more than observe an apple hit him in the head. He questioned "why?"

    It appears everything we're asked to do in this age involves Learning in one way or another. And a root of learning is Questions. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Also, another viewpoint concerning the strengthening topic...

    Learners can Master a domain when they find competencies (skills) that they can specifically work on within themselves. One organization lists a total of 11 official competencies for Learning (reading, writing, math, active listening, questioning (yes its one of them too), speaking, etc...

    Could becoming a better listener or speaker create a more engaging conversation? Could this essentially have an effect on the impact of our activities? I'm just reminded of the virtues of my favorite inspirational teachers from childhood/teenhood. How animated/passionate they were about whatever they taught. (Animated = Animator??)

    We're asked that our tongues be eloquent, yet we're not born that way, it takes desire, learning, practice(Action), reflection(more learning), etc...

    Other psycho/social elements to ponder is building a sense of commitment, ie; passionate conviction, truly owning the problem and be a part of the solution. Is this state of mind currently fostered in all participants or members of our neighborhood? If not, if it was nurtured, would things be dramatically different?

    just a few thoughts from one who studies way too much.

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