Asking questions?
Oct. 3rd, 2023 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mediastudiesI really like Berger’s approach to question formation and structure: the Why? What if? How? progression and combining the Why? with action. When I’m working with students on developing research questions, we go through a process of identifying what they know and what they want to know. We also move from surface level questions to deeper research questions that can’t be easily answered with a single Google search. I hadn’t read Berger’s book before, but I do have colleagues that have applied his approach and engaged with the Right Question Institute, and I do find this process very impactful when working with other colleagues to brainstorm and address problems.
I also chuckled at Berger’s Frank Lloyd Wright quote in describing an expert as someone who has “stopping thinking because he ‘knows’” (p. 13). I thought of one of my first inquiry projects with high school students, and a student asked “What if we already know everything about our topic?” Working with professionals, inviting people to expand their thinking can be challenging, even sensitive, because it can be interpreted as a slight against one’s expertise. On the other hand, some of Berger’s writing on question experts seems a bit dated ten years later. That is, we live in a time when disinformation and conspiracy theories have exploded. Conspiracy theorists often repeat the refrain, “I’m just asking questions.” Others insist that their “research” on blogs, YouTube, and Facebook memes is just as valid as the years of dedicated, controlled inquiry undertaken by leaders in their field.
I was really struck that Berger was so dismissive and critical of Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s criticism of “a new global economy that is ruthlessly demanding more skills and more inventiveness from the workforce” (p. 21). Earlier in the chapter Berger writes that Why and What If questions aren’t particularly welcome in “the realm of What Is,” and here is Berger himself stuck in the realm of What Is. Perhaps Friedman did not frame his questions elegantly, but I do think there are valid questions to be asked along this line of inquiry: Why does increased automation lead to increased workload and strain on workers? Why does technological advancement and automation lead to exponential profits for a select few while workers must compete harder for less? How might technology instead allow for increased prosperity and leisure for working people? How might we structure an economy in which increased productivity benefits workers, not just the owning class? Of course, these sorts of questions may lead us down the very dangerous path of questioning the validity of neoliberal capitalism.
References
I also chuckled at Berger’s Frank Lloyd Wright quote in describing an expert as someone who has “stopping thinking because he ‘knows’” (p. 13). I thought of one of my first inquiry projects with high school students, and a student asked “What if we already know everything about our topic?” Working with professionals, inviting people to expand their thinking can be challenging, even sensitive, because it can be interpreted as a slight against one’s expertise. On the other hand, some of Berger’s writing on question experts seems a bit dated ten years later. That is, we live in a time when disinformation and conspiracy theories have exploded. Conspiracy theorists often repeat the refrain, “I’m just asking questions.” Others insist that their “research” on blogs, YouTube, and Facebook memes is just as valid as the years of dedicated, controlled inquiry undertaken by leaders in their field.
I was really struck that Berger was so dismissive and critical of Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s criticism of “a new global economy that is ruthlessly demanding more skills and more inventiveness from the workforce” (p. 21). Earlier in the chapter Berger writes that Why and What If questions aren’t particularly welcome in “the realm of What Is,” and here is Berger himself stuck in the realm of What Is. Perhaps Friedman did not frame his questions elegantly, but I do think there are valid questions to be asked along this line of inquiry: Why does increased automation lead to increased workload and strain on workers? Why does technological advancement and automation lead to exponential profits for a select few while workers must compete harder for less? How might technology instead allow for increased prosperity and leisure for working people? How might we structure an economy in which increased productivity benefits workers, not just the owning class? Of course, these sorts of questions may lead us down the very dangerous path of questioning the validity of neoliberal capitalism.
References
- Berger, W. (2014). A More Beautiful Question. Bloomsbury.
