Questions, questions and questioons
Saturday, 20. June 2009
Questions can hurt. They can be arrows that stab into people and force them onto your agenda.
I am not talking about questions that are invited.I am talking about people trying to control an interchange by asking questions.
- THE SMOTHERLY QUESTION FROM THE NICE GURU CARING LADY WHO MAKES YOU VULNERABLE WITH HER CONCERN AND OFFERS TO HELP YOU.
- The Clever Intellectual question from the little professor who asks you something so he can move to an endgame that reveals your ignorance.
- THE AUTOMATIC CHALLENGE, as used by rough people who want to bully you.
- The airily vague question as used on social occasions by people who want to belittle you while pretending to be not really interested.
- THE THERAPY QUESTION by someone who wants to get their hooks into you and understand you better, right, yeah?Come to think of it, I can hardly think of a time when the interrogative isn’t an assault on one’s boundaries, except between consenting adults who have a life together and need to check on things from time to time.So don’t ask me any questions, OK? Anything you are meant to know you can work out for yourself.Asking questions of other people could be just about the least valid tool there is for a) relating to people and b) finding anything out.
First posted on Ecademy in 2006
Vincent Says:
I’m not sure what to do with this set of observations, other than to reflect that it’s up to each one of us (all living creatures) to protect ourself from hurt; and up to each to find the way to do it, that is, keep someone from assaulting our boundaries.
I’ve noticed that as a general rule everyone has a strategy for self-protection against such assaults: even (or especially) those who are most vulnerable. It’s true of course that some strategies may be ill-advised, and have the opposite effect of the one intended. But delving deeper, I saw that, for example, the person who supposedly wanted to be left alone (not have his or her boundaries assaulted) seemed to subconsciously seek out those very situations which provoked the assault. I don’t mean the barbed-question type of assault, but any kind.
But I’m not denying the prevalence of bullying, where a vulnerable person may not find an effective defensive strategy despite all efforts. Still, I would always recommend the simplest attitude of self-protection, in which emotion is used to trigger the simplest form of escape from harm, e.g. running away and avoidance of ambush thereafter.
Complicated and destructive forms of self-protection may involve revenge, negative judgement and hate. They make the victim complicit in the crime, and don’t keep you clean.
Anyhow please note, I have carefully avoided embedding any questions in the above!
bashi Says:
Steven yes – questions questions … but can we listen and having listened how does it feel.
To me the questions someone asks me and the answers I might give are not important only how I feel. I read somewhere that
People will forget what we said; they will forget what we did; they won’t forget how we made them feel. It has probably stayed with me because yes I do remember how people’s words hurt me or healed me.
Steven Holmes Says:
The interface between people where language takes place is such a tender region, and normally so brutally handled.
Vincent Says:
Yes but . . . just to show how much we are at opposite corners, compare this post based on a comment I’d made on a blog with your perception of “normally so brutally handled”.
To get the context, check this post and its comments, in which I queried the author’s reference to “passive-aggressive British humor” (comment 2).
In essence I agree completely with you that “the interface between people where language takes place is such a tender region”. But I have cailbrated my definition of what happens “normally” in a different way, based on selective memories of an earlier time.
Vincent Says:
NB there is a lack of contrast in your settings between the colour of ordinary text and the colour of hyperlinked text.
sally Says:
Ummm, questions… I have been dying to ask what ‘no Myers Brigg’ in the site headline means, but since that concept seems to have passed me by in life, perhaps it would be reasonable to assume that I haven’t missed anything!
Anyway, I well remember the first time Steve and I met and a very convivial 4 or 5 hours was spent chatting about life, the world and universe without feeling bothered by any questions, although we must have each asked some but without the loaded barrel that goes with some people’s over pertinent enquiries.
Can we post threads here, Steve, or perhaps suggest some topics? Oops, questions, sorry.
Steven Holmes Says:
Myers Briggs is the standard reference for ALL modern personality tests. Not only do I not believe in the deterministic concept of “personality” but I certainly think it is ludicrous to try to measure it. A person can be whatever they dream of/dare to be.