Why

Why?

This is such an easy word to pronounce – it’s one of the first words children learn, as any frustrated parent will avow – and one of the simplest and most direct questions to ask.

Why?

Do you mean why easy or why one of the most direct?

Why?

Because in order to answer your question, I need to understand your information need.

Why?

Because if I don’t understand what you’re looking for, I might give the wrong answer.

(Sound of fingers drumming…)

There’s a technique in the world of process improvement (where I spend a great deal of my paid time) called 5-Whys or more to the point, Ask ‘Why’ Five Times. It’s a tricky tool to teach because you can easily give surface answers to each succeeding question and end up never getting to the Root Cause of the problem at hand, which is of course the pot o’ gold you’re seeking.

It’s also dangerous to use because the respondent might well give an answer that is to him or her Truth but to the thinking world logically flawed, or as we like to say in formal ethics, a bunch of hooey. Examples of this sort of response abound and nowhere more often than at the intersection of politics and religion.

Example: Query - Why can’t people exercise these constitutionally guaranteed rights?

Response - Because God said it’s bad.

See what I mean? There are myriad valid ways you can knock the logical stilts out from under this response but none of them will work for a simple reason – the answer is based on a belief system that is in no way tethered to provable concepts. The answerer is perfectly willing to provide nonsense answers and actually quite smug concerning their use of theology as their authority for doing so. And to be clear, I’m not saying your god belief is nonsense, that’s completely up to you and after all, what do I know? But using it as your authority for making a judgment about people’s rights in a pluralistic society is completely bonkers. Particularly just now, when we have half the countries of the world clearly demonstrating on a daily basis the dangers of letting religion drive a society.

Wanna know how to whinny down the vast field of candidates for public office?

Step one: Ask a question about disputed rights.

Step two: When they give the answer, ask ‘why’ and then listen to determine if their answer is based on constitutionally valid principles or just ‘beliefs.’

Moral: Beliefs only work as underpinnings for a position if the debate is undertaken solely within a group of folks among whom the belief system is common. That does not describe this country.

Sorry.