Somebody who knew President Bush well once remarked to me. "You’ll notice he never asks questions."
"Why not?" I said.
"Because he doesn’t know what it’s okay for him not to know."
I am interested in the principle, not in discussion of President Bush. Hat tip to Ross Douthat.
interesting principle. i would be one to err on the side of caution though.
Tyler,
Please don’t take this to be a defense of George W. Bush. Although I don’t think he’s the worst president in history, I do think he’s the worst president since LBJ. The comment about Bush not asking questions may be true of him as President, and there seems to be lots of evidence for it. It’s also true that he shows almost zero curiosity. But I remember in the late 1990s a number of my Hoover colleagues coming back from Texas after having spent serious time with him and being impressed by all the thoughtful questions he asked.
Best,
David
I never ask questions, because I can use Google or UrbanDictionary to figure out what people are talking about without risking admitting I don’t know something I really should.
It also annoys me when people who are near a computer ask questions they could find the answer to much more quickly by Googling.
HAH! Me too. But there is a critical difference between you me and the laypeople, and President Bush. You just can’t Google: “Q-Clearance Nuclear Weapon Design plan presented by Energy Secretary on September 12″! They keep that stuff off the internets.
It sounds to me like this is a matter of perception. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to praise the current President but when your in a position where all eyes are on you have to be perceived as being in control.
Asking questions will also tell you what the other person doesn’t know.
Sounds like a product of south or central European school systems. Many pupils and students are hesitant about asking questions because they are afraid they will be ridiculed by the teacher and the classmates. In contrast, when I was an exchange student and met US peers, I was pleasantly surprised at their active attitude – they acted as customers and treated the teacher as a supplier, so they demanded clarity and discussion. (On the other hand, I was occasionally unpleasantly surprised at the level of their questions but then, some European students might have been just as dumb but you coudln’t tell because they were silent.
The premise is wrong. He does ask questions.
This is the first rule of politics in Chicago. The Mayor knows nothing. It’s safer when the grand jury starts asking questions.
So many people are concerned about looking intelligent. I guess I’m a reformed know-it-all, because I find that pretending not to know much of anything at all turns out to have a lot of advantages, even if I’m well versed on the subject in question.
Riffing on David Henderson’s comment above, the difference between the GWB of the late 90′s and of today could simply be a strategic choice of “brand image”.
If that were true, i.e. that the “dumb-guy” schtick were just that, then asking any sort of question while in role could potentially shatter it.
Asking “intelligent” questions is, often, a status competition among the striving educated class. Which is why many meetings devolve into question one-upmanship.
Sometimes asking good question is a way to move up the status game, other times it is not.
In politics it often is not – especially in public. Now, behind the scenes, among loyalists, asking smart questions should be done. But asking questions in front of political enemies will often just give them fodder to attack you.
I think Palin’s response on the “Bush Doctrine” is a good example. Her enemies are trying to make her reasonable questions about a vague and ill-defined “Bush Doctrine” into some major gaffe.
….
In sum, I’d say the wisdom of asking questions depends on the context and the status-game you are playing. There is no single correct answer on what you should do.
The cliche ‘there are no dumb questions, except the ones you don’t ask’ is a cliche for a reason — lots of people are afraid to display their ignorance by asking questions they should already know the answer to. And it’s a legitimate fear — I know I’ve had my level of respect for co-workers drop dramatically when they asked questions that proved they didn’t know stuff they really should have. Someone who is extremely confident in themselves and other people’s opinions of them could probably pull it off anyway, but a lesser mortal really does run the risk of looking stupid.
Doesn’t seem to work psychologically. Why would an ambitious, social climbing, son of a former President feel the need hide ignorance from a staff member who works for him?
Abstracting away to more general circumstances, however, it does seem to be the case that some people will avoid asking questions in order to avoid revealing ignorance. As a life-long “why” question asker, I’ve gotten used to heavy sighs and imperious sneers. Also as a life-long “why” question asker, I’ve gotten used to discovering that for some people it’s more important to seem like they know something than to actually know it. But the latter group are not often part of the former group.
So look at the reaction to John McCain saying the economy is his weak spot, or saying that he doesn’t check his own email. Or look at Charles Gibson using the “Bush Doctrine” as a gotcha question for Sarah Palin. Even the guy who named it (Charles Krauthammer) says its an amorphous evolving thing that nobody can really put a finger on.
The problem is the literalists who evaluate the questions and answers and heap scorn on anyone who dares to buck the conventional wisdom. No doubt Bush is a smarter and more curious guy than he is popularly portrayed. But he tired of getting beat up for disagreeing. I think McCain is enjoying and benefiting from being beat up for disagreeing. One thing I learned in high school from a teacher who I pretty much despised at the time is to just admit when you don’t know. It disarms people. And I’d add, admit when there isn’t an obvious solution. It makes the quick solvers look thoughtless. The reason McCain is surging in the polls is that Americans don’t like know-it-alls. Obama can’t help himself from finding a solution involving the federal government to everything. He can’t help himself from asserting he’s so much smarter than McCain, that Dems are so much more virtuous than Reps, etc. All Obama has to do to wrap up the worst electoral performance since Mondale is claim to be more humble.
Plausible deniability seems to be an important tool for any one making a tough call in an organisation. If I make a decision that I know my boss would make, but want to offer us an out at a later date I’d use this. It allows them the opportunity to drop it on me as my mistake.
Take for example the congressional testimony of Vice Admiral John Poindexter on the Iran-Contra affair – “I made a deliberate decision not to ask the President, so that I could insulate him from the decision and provide some future deniability for the President if it ever leaked out.” It’s an interesting ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for ugly decisions.
Most everyone needs techniques for asking about things that the other party expects you to know. The probably mythical US Senator who used to ask his guests their names; and then say: “No, of course I know your (first name/last name depending on what the guest had said), I meant I can’t call to mind your (lat name/first name, depending)” had the right idea.
That said, if you want to learn and to look impressive, stay looking ignorant (always easy I find) until you close the conversation with a key bit of knowledge (if you are still sure of it).
Even a fool seems wise until he opens his mouth. Proverbs
What if you ask a question and the person doesn’t know the answer? Have you just made them look stupid and made yourself an enemy? If the person works for you do you then have to fire them?
There must be more face-saving systems of exchanging information with your staff.
The answers to some questions are complex and must be looked up and interpreted from data. In that case, it is not important to know the answer but rather where to find the answer.
Comments on this entry are closed.