MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

My English tutor at school was supreme and it is due to him, his methods and enthusiasm that gave me a love of words – my food and drink in many ways. One of his methods was to teach us youngsters to think – not merely think but “THINK”. To encourage this, he would ask a question. One boy would be selected to answer this question – with a question; the next boy would have to answer this question with a question of his own, and so the process continued until everyone had asked a question, or someone fell down and gave an “answer”.  Each question asked had to show a relevant and understandable link to the previous one asked and not move off at a tangent. Unorthodox perhaps, but effective.

Whatever your thoughts about H.L.Mencken, he had a very prescient, free-thinking mind. He was also a beer aficionado (about the only thing that endears him to me). I remember well one of his quotes which has relevance to this blog:

“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”

Very valid I feel, since we are all often guilty of looking at the simplistic side of things and taking the first explanation as the best and only one.

Maybe we should start challenging the “easy answers” with deeper questions so that ultimately we end up with the answer that is not just the easy option, but RIGHT.

I ask you a question - what’s your opinion?

Until next time,

P.S.