Is It Possible To Make A Neutral Question
It is very hard to believe that neutral questions exist. Neutral is synonymous to objective. Being impartial means that your questions are not influenced in any way by your emotions or personal opinions. Asking a question implies bias. It is favoring one view over the other because people have different ideas. Most questions are the exact opposite of neutral. They can be influenced by emotions and personal opinions. People often ask questions because they want to know the answer and not because of preconceptions. Ironically, there is even a biased assumption in this title. This is because the speaker claims that there is no neutral question to make his point. In the realms of art and religion, neutral questions are rare. Art, imagination, emotions, and other forms of knowledge are difficult to neutralize because each individual interprets them differently. Two ways of knowing are the most common in religion: faith and memory. Both memories and faith are different for each person.
Art is one of the most powerful ways to understand. It’s called imagination. The ability to think up new ideas and not really knowing why or how is called imagination. Marcel Duchamp was the man behind Readymade sculptures. He intrigued me. It was a mystery to me. His sculptures were famous only because he was. However, my imagination was not the same as mine. Duchamp deliberately left no explanation behind his Readymades in order to let his audience create their own meaning. Duchamp gave his audience the freedom to ask their questions and was allowing them to create their own meaning. I don’t think twice about a shovel I see in the store. Although I think of it as a shovel in my mind, it is neutral to me. However, I began to wonder about Duchamp’s shovel. Is it an extension to Duchamp’s arm and all of its capabilities? Is it an extension for Duchamp? Maybe art is what evokes subjective questions. Without art objects wouldn’t even be questionable, especially when public and personal questions are quite different. If I was by myself, I’d ask creative questions, making up meanings for the shovel’s purpose. But with others, my imagination is very personal, and I don’t ask questions beyond what it serves.
Art can also invoke emotion, especially in the 1960s when Fluxus was a popular movement. Emotions can be a very subjective response to situations. Fluxus is an international art movement, made up of all sorts of artists. Fluxus founder Ben Vautier was a Swiss painter. Vautier believed society will “understand beauty” after the event. He believed art should not be limited to the technical aspects of the craft. Instead, everyone should have the chance to develop their conceptual skills and expand their understanding of the world. Fluxus was a way to ask questions like: Why is what I find beautiful so important for something more? These artists were subjective, believing that everyone must feel their emotions in order understand the world. Others believed the knowledge that was already given was sufficient to make informed judgments. These artists were so passionate about free art that it led to a flood of new ideas about art and how it could be personalized, thus more subjective. It is impossible to advance art if there is no emotion involved.
Vautier claimed that art was a subjective use of human ability. Dennis Dutton, a British philosopher, countered this claim. Dutton rejects the idea art is a social construct. Art is only a way “for people to hone their technical skills, and improve their concentration.” Dutton would question, “How do you improve your drawing abilities?” Vautier would be more specific, “What does the drawing tell me about myself?” Dutton views art as a natural part of human nature. It is not subject to personal opinion. Art is not something that existed before humans.
Memory is the best way to know that I am strongest at it. As a Southern Baptist, I was raised in an Oklahoma small town. This group is very strict in their beliefs and does not allow for tolerance of others. One week I’d be in Sunday School learning how to love everyone. God is love. Next week, I would learn about premarital sex and how I shouldn’t be friends with those who practice it. Teaching intolerance to others was against the foundation of Christianity. God-believing Christians should have contentment. People who talk about security are often discontented. These two contradictory lessons in my memories prompted me to wonder, “What makes someone virtuous?” Virtue is being a person who has high moral standards. There could be many different answers to this question. This question has an obvious answer: The church already knows the right answer. Love all people as long they are like you. To me, tolerance should be preferred to intolerance. Being someone who relies more on memories of love and acceptance, as well as hymns of helping others, I am able to use my memory for comforting and calming others. I hope that they will be able to use my memory of me to help them make the right choice in tolerance.
Memory and reason are linked, or what is right or wrong. It is almost impossible to answer the question “Is murder wrong?” without knowing if you are religious. Everyone has been taught that illegality does not make sense. This question does not require strong emotion. Law dictates reason, not emotions, so it is almost completely neutral. Two answers to the question “Is it wrong to kill?” could be given. Christians will affirm that God will give us life. Some will say no, as they are able to recall how assisted suicide brought peace for a terminally ill patient. Because emotions are stronger than reason, it is hard to remember.
The Christian faith is founded on trusting God. Faith involves trusting God in all things. This raises the question “Does faith give true knowledge?” Faith can help someone live a happy life. It is the unexpected or unknown that causes the most panic. Faith, however, will not make this a problem. 2 Timothy 1 :7 says that God gave us not a spirit to be timid, but a spirit to be powerful. The Christian Bible states that believing in God can give one the strength to accomplish anything.
Eliezer Yudowsky claims that Faith is not true knowledge. In his writings on human rationality, he states, “If evidence is considered a constraint and you try to get out of it, you give yourself over to your whims.” He believes faith creates closed-minded people. They are unwilling to accept other views. Faithlessness will not allow us to progress in our lives. He likens faith and drawing a map of a city to it. The city would be drawn in a closed-off room that has no windows. One would draw the city from the outside, on a hill that overlooks the city without faith. Because they are less religious, people who have no faith can be objective.
Every person has questions. However, the imagination can produce art that is universally meaningful and objective. The Christian religion is full of paradoxical views and memories. However, the combination of memory and reason can make it possible to make a sound judge, which is a response to the subjective question “What’s right?” Faith is blissful. It is one perspective: God trusts in us. There are only one answer to the neutral question: trust. Faithlessness allows one not to be bound by any religious doctrines and allows them to view the world objectively. Neutral questions cannot exist because the statement in itself is an obsolete assumption. Any object that is not objective can not be objective since it leaves no room for argument.
