[Neurons] 2020 Neurons #56 WHEN QUESTIONS ARE NOT FAIR

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall   

2020 Neurons #56

October 12, 2020

Reflections on Politics #11

 

 

WHEN QUESTIONS ARE NOT FAIR

 

Questions are not innocent.  They are powerful.  And anything powerful can
be powerfully misused.  In NLP we know that part of the power of questions
lies in how questions direct the brain.  Ask a question and the brain is so
wired as to go off looking for an answer.  Another aspect of questions is
that you can ask questions which presuppose the very answers that you are
wanting the other person to provide.  Those are manipulative questions.

 

"Did you wash your hands before or after you took the cocaine?"  How do you
answer a question like that?  You cannot just say yes or no.  If you did,
you would be accepting the presupposition that you took cocaine.  If you
spent time explaining yourself, it would seem that you are evading the
question and not answering the question.  Either way, the questioner has got
you.  You've been had.

 

In Awaken the Giant Within, Anthony Robbins relates a story about a poll
question which people responded to as if it was true- that is, they took the
unspoken assumptions of the question as if they were facts.  That's what
happens with a presupposition in a question.

"One example occurred during the 1988 presidential election, just after
George Bush had announced Dan Quayle as his running mate.  A television news
organization conducted a nationwide poll, asking people to call a 900 number
to answer the question, 'Does it bother you that Dan Quayle used his
family's influence to go into the National Guard and stay out of Vietnam?'
The glaring presupposition built into this question, of course, was that
Quayle had indeed used his family's influence to unfair advantage- something
that had never been proven.  Yet people responded to it as if it were a
given.  They never questioned it, and just automatically accepted it.
Worse, many people called to say that they were extremely upset about this
fact.  No such fact was ever substantiated!" (1990, p. 190, bold added), 

 

That's what we call a presuppositional question, one that manipulates the
hearer to get the hearer to make a pre-determined response.  And in last
week's Vice-President debate, I heard several questions by Susan Page that
were of that nature.  She asked some really semantically loaded,
manipulative questions.  That is, she presupposed things and presented the
question in such a way that it would be very difficult to call out the
loaded assumptions.  Previously Chris Wallace did that in some of his
questions to the President.

 

What I found jarring in terms of fairness was that Susan Page mostly asked
straight-forward questions to Harris and dis-empowering presuppositional
questions to Pence.  Page asked Pence a few straight-forward questions, but
most were loaded with unquestioned assumptions.  Check it out for yourself.

 

To Kamala Harris:

What would a Biden administration do in January and February that a Trump
administration wouldn't do? Would you impose new lockdowns for businesses
and schools in hotspots? 

              Would you like to respond?

             If the Trump administration approves a vaccine, before after
the election, should Americans take it and would you take it?

Have you had a conversation, or reached an agreement with Vice President
Biden, about safeguards or procedures when it comes to the issue of
presidential disability? And if not, and if you win the election next month,
do you think you should?

Do voters have a right to know more detailed health information about
presidential candidates, and especially about presidents, especially when
they're facing some kind of challenge?

Would raising taxes put the recovery at risk?

But if you look at the Biden Harris campaign website it describes the Green
New Deal as a crucial framework. What exactly would be the stance of a Biden
Harris Administration toward the green New Deal?

What's your definition- we've seen strains with China, of course, as the
Vice President mentioned, we've seen strains with our traditional allies in
NATO and elsewhere. What is your definition of the role of American
leadership in 2020?

If Roe v Wade is overturned, what would you want California to do? Would you
want your home state to enact no restrictions on access to abortion?

 

To Mike Pence:

Why is the U.S. death toll, as a percentage of our population, higher than
that of almost every other wealthy country?

How can you expect Americans to follow the administration safety guidelines
to protect themselves from COVID when you were at the White House have not
been doing so?

In recent days, President Trump's doctors have given misleading answers or
refused to answer basic questions about his health. And my question to each
of you, in turn, is, is this information voters deserve to know?

Should Americans be braced for an economic comeback that is going to take
not months, but a year or more?

This year we've seen record-setting hurricanes in the south. Another one,
Hurricane Delta is now threatening the gulf. And we have seen record-setting
wildfires in the West. Do you believe, as the scientific community has
concluded, that man-made climate change has made wildfires bigger, hotter
and more deadly? And it made hurricanes wetter, slower and more damaging?

              

It's easy to answer straight-forward questions and yes/no questions.  The
person answering can simply say yes or no and explain the answer.  It is
much more difficult to answer a question that is semantically loaded with
assumed presuppositions.  It generally makes one sound defensive.

 

The real solution is to question the question.  "When you say 'as the
scientific community as concluded,' do you mean that every single climate
scientist believes that?"  You can also call attention to the assumptive
nature of the question.  "In your question, you are assuming things to be
true and loading it up semantically."  You can then refocus the question
which can be answered.  "Here is the question I will answer."

              [Want more? See Mind-Lines: Lines for Changing Minds and
Inside-Out Persuasion]

 

 




 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com  

 

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Humor is a meta-perspective about incongruity, exaggeration, playfulness,
and even absurdity.

For a touch of humor --- see the new book --- HUMOROUS THINKING  (2020)

 

 



 

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