User:Slrubenstein

The tale of the fool, the naif, the adventurer, the wiseacre, may be the best weapon against the myths of the state.

Everyone has one question. For the Little Prince, the question is whether his drawing #1 frightened them. If they answer "Why should I be frightened of a hat?" he knew that they understand nothing.

Here is my question:

If the person answers yes (or can answer yes to an appropriate addition), I know they will understand why the fact that I think the Bible was written by human beings and that many parts of it are not historically accurate does not mean that I think it a fraud or an anachronism, nor does it mean that I am a blaspheming heretic, but on the contrary that I believe it to be a divinely profound and truthful work. And if the person answers yes, they will understand why as a scientist I think that research with living people, the aim of which is to understand how they make meaning of their lives and their world — something that cannot be measured and subjected to statistical analysis, and research that is not reproducible — is nevertheless among the most significant and valuable research one can conduct and learn from.

If the person answers "no," I know that they understand nothing.

I think of those people who would answer "no" to my question whenever I read this passage from Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum:

There is one other question I think is rather important (actually, I suspect "my one question" is really a corollary of this question, or this question is just a cruder version of "my one question"):

A Bed for the Night

I hear that in New York
At the corner of 26th street and Broadway
A man stands every evening during the winter months
And gets beds for the homeless there
By appealing to passers-by.

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Wikipedia