Q for Question
The structure of any question is as devoid of neutrality as is its content
This is an excerpt from Niel Postman's Technolopy: The Surrender of Culture to Technology.
To put it simply, like any important piece of
machinery— television or the computer, for example—language has an ideological agenda
that is apt to be hidden from view. In the case of language, that agenda is so
deeply integrated into our personalities and world-view that a special effort
and, often, special training are required to detect its presence. Unlike
television or the computer, language appears to be not an extension of our powers
but simply a natural expression of who and what we are. This is the great
secret of language: Because it comes from inside us, we believe it to be a
direct, unedited, unbiased, apolitical expression of how the world really is. A
machine, on the other hand, is outside of us, clearly created by us, modifiable
by us, even discardable by us; it is easier to see how a machine re-creates the
world in its own image. But in many respects, a sentence functions very much
like a machine, and this is nowhere more obvious than in the sentences we call
questions. As an example of what I mean, let us take a "fill-in"
question, which I shall require you to answer exactly if you wish full credit: Thomas
Jefferson died in the year ––––––. Suppose we now rephrase the question in
multiple-choice form: Thomas Jefferson died in the year (a) 1788 (b) 1826 (c)
1926 (d) 1809. Which of these two questions is easier to answer? I assume you
will agree with me that the second question is easier unless you happen to know
precisely the year of Jefferson's death, in which case neither question is
difficult. However, for most of us who know only roughly when Jefferson lived,
Question Two has arranged matters so that our chances of "knowing"
the answer are greatly increased. Students will always be "smarter" when
answering a multiple-choice test than when answering a "fill-in"
test, even when the subject matter is the same. A question, even of the
simplest kind, is not and can never be unbiased. I am not, in this context,
referring to the common accusation that a particular test is "culturally
biased." Of course questions can be culturally biased. (Why, for example,
should anyone be asked about Thomas Jefferson at all, let alone when he died?)
My purpose is to say that the structure of any question is as devoid of
neutrality as is its content. The form of a question may ease our way or pose
obstacles. Or, when even slightly altered, it may generate antithetical
answers, as in the case of the two priests who, being unsure if it was
permissible to smoke and pray at the same time, wrote to the Pope for a
definitive answer. One priest phrased the question "Is it permissible to
smoke while praying?" and was told it is not, since prayer should be the
focus of one's whole attention; the other priest asked if it is permissible to
pray while smoking and was told that it is, since it is always appropriate to
pray. The form of a question may even block us from seeing solutions to
problems that become visible through a different question. Consider the
following story, whose authenticity is questionable but not, I think, its point:
Once upon a time, in a village in what is now
Lithuania, there arose an unusual problem. A curious disease afflicted many of the
townspeople. It was mostly fatal (though not always), and its onset was
signaled by the victim's lapsing into a deathlike coma. Medical science not
being quite so advanced as it is now, there was no definite way of knowing if
the victim was actually dead when burial appeared seemly. As a result, the
townspeople feared that several of their relatives had already been buried alive
and that a similar fate might await them. How to overcome this uncertainty was
their dilemma.
One group of people suggested that the coffins
be well stocked with water and food and that a small air vent be drilled into
them, just in case one of the "dead" happened to be alive. This was
expensive to do but seemed more than worth the trouble. A second group,
however, came up with a less expensive and more efficient idea. Each coffin
would have a twelveinch stake affixed to the inside of the coffin lid, exactly
at the level of the heart. Then, when the coffin was closed, all uncertainty would
cease. The story does not indicate which solution was chosen, but for my
purposes the choice is irrelevant. What is important to note is that different
solutions were generated by different questions. The first solution was an answer
to the question, How can we make sure that we do not bury people who are still alive?
The second was an answer to the question, How can we make sure that everyone we
bury is dead? Questions, then, are like computers or television or stethoscopes
or lie detectors, in that they are mechanisms that give direction to our
thoughts, generate new ideas, venerate old ones, expose facts, or hide them. In
this chapter, I wish to consider mechanisms that act like machines but are not
normally thought of as part of Technopoly's repertoire. I must call attention to
them precisely because they are so often overlooked. For all practical
purposes, they may be considered technologies— technologies in disguise,
perhaps, but technologies all the same.
