Questions Instead of Answers

-Lucinda Garthwaite, ILI Director

Freedom is a concept both deeply held and very, very broadly understood. To be free means profoundly different things to different individuals, and in different cultural contexts. I can easily imagine a circle of a hundred people, defining freedom one at a time, each one baffled by the other definitions.

People have always been willing to lay down their lives for freedoms to and freedoms from. But human beings have never worked out their differences about what it means to be free. Over and over again, these differences violently collide.

My understanding of violence (I mean, here, between humans) begins with words that ignore the complexity of one human being, or assume universal sameness within any group that shares just a few characteristics. Violence is a moving sidewalk; dehumanizing belief, long or briefly held, is the ticket to that track. My reading of history and observation of the world tells me that always, immediately or eventually, violence begets more violence.

So I’m left with a deeply challenging conundrum: If your idea of freedom means you will work hard to limit or eliminate my idea of freedom, and if resisting with violence is not an option, then how do I respond?

I’m stopping here to tell you what just happened: The first time I typed that last line, I wrote, “if resisting with violence is not an option, then how do I protect my freedom?” I thought about that for a minute and I changed it to, “how do I respond?” The first ending invites a cycle of antagonism, a constant grapple to prevail. The second invites the possibility of change.

This piece is not actually about freedom. In fact if you try an internet search for the word “freedom,” I advise setting a timer first, or asking a friend to be ready to pull you out of the infinite rabbit hole in which you’ll find yourself. I don’t believe humans will ever agree on the nature of freedom.

But I’ll work for liberation anyway. I want to work for more and more people to have access to more of what they need in order to exercise their full capability, well and safe from violence. The way to that increase isn’t necessarily answers. I don‘t believe we’ll inform one another into liberation. Questions, though, really good questions, may help clear the way.

Comedian and writer Hannah Gadsby has said about facing the contradictions in her own life, “I could not understand it, that is, until I could.” She’s also said that questions hold way more wisdom than answers. Without good questions, not-understanding creates a stalemate. Good questions are the bridge between, “I could not understand,” and “I could.”

The question, “How do I respond?” when others’ freedoms might limit mine invites possibilities beyond protecting my own perspective. It lets in more light. The more open the question, the more honest I am that I sincerely don’t yet understand. The more I admit that I sincerely do not understand, and the more I learn to bear that state of not-understanding, the more likely I am to grow calm enough to frame the questions that could lead to liberatory change.

Hannah Gadsby again, “My struggle is not to escape the storm, my struggle is to find the eye of the storm as best I can.”

The eye is the calmest part of the storm, but it’s still the storm. That storm -- the differences between humans -- is not going away. I don’t believe ideas like freedom can be beaten or convinced into submission. Ideas and beliefs can change, but they’re held firm for a reason; threats and even opposing certainties will only tighten that grip.

Questions though, sincere and open-hearted questions, can and have caused ideas to stand down, or shift enough to make more room for more people to thrive.

I’m grateful to be part of the growing community of the Institute for Liberatory Innovation, whose essential job is to ask those questions. The “opportunities to learn together” in our mission statement are meant to offer an eye in the storm. Our work is to frame questions, come up with fair ways to explore them, and to think hard about what we learn. Based on all that, we offer ways to drive increasing social equity and decreasing violence.

These biweekly newsletters are meant to be part of that, offering a window into asking and wondering, thinking our way to more questions. You are one among several hundred people who read Intersections, one among several hundred who think about what you read, ask your own questions, and practice abiding in the eye of the storm.

We’re grateful for your company.