Putting the Question

Abuse of Faith in Governance: Mystery of the Unasked Question (Part #12)

The curious cognitive status of an unasked question is indicated by the appropriateness of "holding a question" on some issues of importance, without seeking premature closure on an answer. This "bracketing" of the world phenomenological epoché -- the moment where all belief in the existence of the real world, and consequently all action in the real world, is suspended.

There is a degree of recognition of this with those suspected of heresy being "put to the Question" (namely tortured) by the Inquisition -- a tradition seemingly continued in Guantanamo Bay with respect to those suspected of terrorism. There is a curious parallel between the two in their efforts to defend their respective "faiths" through a system of special tribunals. However there is a case for considering what form "Putting the Question" might take with respect to various faiths and belief systems in their most generic sense.

Faith-centered questions: One approach to clarifying this possibility is to endeavour to identify the unasked question in each of the cases reviewed above. In the case of the financial crisis, this might have been associated with the unquestioning acceptance (by the financial community and those complicit in its agenda) of the Gaussian cupola on the basis of which assets were repackaged to conceal their toxicity This has been usefully explained by Felix Salmon (Recipe for Disaster: the formula that killed Wall Street, Wired, 17.03, March 2009). In the case of expenses of Members of Parliament, this might be the unquestioning acceptance of their integrity and trustworthiness.

Discipline-centered questions: There is the intriguing possibility that each discipline is centered on a unique and characteristic question that it avoids asking by every means possible. To the extent that the array of disciplines purports to encompass the dimensions of knowledge society, and the advance of knowledge, how might those questions be understood as systemically configured in relation to one another? How is it that disciplines are so pathetic in addressing their collective failure to address the challenges of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity -- at a time when humanity is in desperate need of such integrative insight? Something about the incommensurability of black holes?

Institution-centered questions: As with disciplines, there is a case for envisaging the manner in which each key institution -- especially those with governance responsibilities -- is itself centered on a question that it avoids asking. Approaches to such consideration are to be seen in the courageous debates of some bodies on whether they should continue to exist or should dissolve themselves -- rather than continue as memorials to obsolete problems and strategies, endeavouring still to attract scarce resources in their support. Such dissolution amounts to a form of "institutional euthanasia" -- unusual for governance.

That aside, what for example might be the question that UNESCO carefully avoids addressing? How would it differ from that avoided by WHO or the FAO? In the case of the EU, faced with a degree of popularity accorded to the Eurovision Song Contest at a time of expected total citizen apathy for the European elections, what is the question it fails to address? This is notably ironic because of its effort to get citizens to address questions to the EU in anticipation of those elections through a Choice Box -- without having any ability to process them. A related valuable case is provided by Tony Blair, allegedly promoting his candidature as a future president of Europe, but currently has established as his institutional base the The Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Given his role in misrepresenting the challenge of Iraq, and his faith that he acted correctly in engaging in military intervention, what might be the unasked question on which any faith in his foundation is based?

Strangely the financial crisis makes it only too evident that very large amounts ("trillions" of dollars") could be rapidly made available to bail out financial institutions and corporations -- funds which had never previously been available to bail out (indebted) developing countries, despite commitments to do so. One unasked question was how this had been possible.

Also curious during the development of the crisis was where these hitherto unimagined was where these hitherto unimagined bailout resources were coming from. This question had been carefully avoided although it became apparent that was future generations of taxpayers who were the generous providers, not "the government".

Sectoral-centered questions: For purposes of governance, industry and business, society is understood as divided into an array of economic and industrial sectors -- variously targeted for "stimulus" by the taxpayer as a result of the financial crisis. Much is made of the overriding importance of "growth" on a planet with significant resource constraints. Are there particular unasked questions associated with each industry? A useful example might be the question that the major automobile manufacturers failed to ask in 2008 -- before the oil crisis and the financial crisis -- unexpectedly transforming them within months into basket-cases and beggars. They claimed naively not to have been aware of their vulnerability -- equipped as they were with the highest expertise considered appropriate by business schools. Potentially more interesting is whether "jobs", as conventionally associated with such sectors, might fruitfully be understood as centered on an unasked question -- a question vital in a time of social turbulence.

Religion-centered questions: Most interesting perhaps, from a theological perspective, are the questions that each religion fails to ask. It is of course through that failure that each is challenged by other religions. Most tragic, given the dedicated sophistication of much theological thinking, is the total incapacity to address the poverty of interfaith dialogue in creatively addressing their differences which impact so violently on society as a whole. Does the secret to further progress in this respect lie in more attentive recognition of the questions they each refuses to ask?

Problem-centered questions: The major challenges of society, as noted above, might be fruitfully understood as based on an unasked question in relation to the faith that each has been correctly framed. Especially interesting in this respect are questions relating to the "frozen categories" intrinsic to such framing, as discussed separately with regard to a number of such problems (Framing the Global Future by Ignoring Alternatives: unfreezing categories as a vital necessity, 2009).

As one example in the current period when unemployment is a major issue for many, it is intriguing how there is very little question of whether the very concept of "job" or "employment" could be fruitfully rethought. These are frozen categories that have been effectively commodified to the satisfaction of the discipline of economics and the strategies of governance based on such commodification. In a society that lauds "innovation" such categories are not themselves open for innovation -- especially since there is a massive legislative and statistical apparatus that would be disrupted by any fluidity in that respect. "Labour mobility" refers to physical relocation and movement between sectors, it in no way implies a conceptual dynamic in reframing what a "job" might be.

WH-questions: Another approach is to apply an array of WH-questions to each domain of faith on the assumption that it is not sustained by a single question alone. WH-questions are those associated with who, where, when, why, what, which, and how. As discussed elsewhere, these may together offer a radical insight into cognitive engagement with potential crises -- against which the "faith" acts as a protective envelope, or cognitive "bubble" (Conformality of 7 WH-questions to 7 Elementary Catastrophes: an exploration of potential psychosocial implications, 2006).

This approach has been envisaged in terms of identifying questions of a "higher order" appropriate to the complexity by which governance is increasingly challenged (Engaging with Questions of Higher Order: cognitive vigilance required for higher degrees of twistedness, 2004). Experiments have been tentatively undertaken to this end (Generating a Million Questions from UIA Databases: Problems, Strategies, Values, 2006; Preliminary NetMap Studies of Databases on Questions, World Problems, Global Strategies, and Values, 2006).

If the central question in each case is such that it cannot be asked for fear of completely undermining the integrity of each undertaking -- whether its "sustainable development" or the "sustainable illusion of development" -- are there ways of refining understanding of the set of questions and engagement with them? Buddhism, for example, uses the metaphor of a mirror to refer to one aspect of this challenge. To the extent that the question is addressed to a mirror (as in the Snow White fairy tale), one possibility is that the mirror requires polishing. Is the issue one of eliciting an unasked question of higher quality, dimensionality or self-reflexivity? Does the question have an inherently paradoxical quality to it, as with the traditional Zen koan and the learning to be derived from it?

Also of relevance is that each year the World Question Center (initiated by The Edge) formulates a question that is submitted to a network of people of appropriate eminence in a relevant field. For example, the Edge Annual Question of 2007 is as follows: What are you optimistic about? Why? This is clearly of interest in a society vulnerable to hope-mongering. The possibility of moving beyond such limitations is discussed separately (In Quest of Optimism Beyond the Edge -- through avoidance of the answering process, 2008)

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Putting the Question