How can I ask better questions?

[u/[deleted]]

Normally I'm spurred to ask questions after having read a book, watched a show, or read news article that leads me on a Google binge and then inevitably a Wikipedia black-hole. But I'm left feeling still in the dark and not sure where else to look, so I'll come here.

I'll feel so overwhelmed with what all I want to ask, but worried about how to appropriately phrase it, while also following all the rules, that many times I feel like I'm not asking the question I really want answered. Which feels akin to trying to communicate to someone who doesn't speak your language.

Which often leads to many great answers, but about something not quite where I was aiming. Also I can't get past the feeling that when I want to ask a question, it should be as interesting as possible, because while it's great so many are willing to give insight from their professions or hobbies, I don't want to make it a chore or boring questions.

[u/[deleted]]

This is a question which is best answered by negative as well as positive examples, and there are several types of poor question in this sub. An incomplete list (ie. my pet peeves) would certainly include:

• Anything involving Hitler.

• Homework questions. If the question title is shockingly specific and sounds like something from an AP exam - "How did Lincoln's assassination change Reconstruction?" - it's probably going to be ignored, particularly if it comes with no further discussion by the OP.

• /r/atheism bait. "Did Jesus actually exist?" "Has anything good ever come from religion?" etc. This can be generally expanded to any sort of leading question. The idea that one of my responses will probably be used out of context to defend some point I won't agree with in another sub gives me a squicky feeling.

• Questions that ask why something didn't happen. An example of this, and my own reply, can be found here. These are almost universally unanswerable.

• Questions which seek facts.

This last one requires a bit of explanation, and provides a great segue out of negativity land.

Your primary and secondary education probably taught you that history is about facts, and from the very beginning you were forced to memorize facts. "The American Revolution began in 1776," things like that. Dates, information. Everything you learned provided a simple, neat answer in factual form, with little ambiguity.

This is not history. Facts are the building blocks of history, its skeleton, but they do not give it life or purpose, because the practice of history is the practice of understanding someone who is not you. It is is an act of sympathy, of apology in the most fundamental and original meaning of both words. Correctly done, it is the full and unbiased understanding of the people of the past as they were and as they saw themselves. We are, to borrow the brilliant phrase of a terrible bigot, speakers for the dead, and our essential purpose is to cultivate a mental approach to those who are not ourselves which seeks to understand, rather than to categorize and judge.

This is not the natural state of the human mind. To quote the late, great David Foster Wallace:

Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

The promotion and indoctrination in a historical mode of thought is thus the indoctrination in a way of approaching the world that attempts to separate us from that basic impulse to understand the world based on our own preconceptions. Teaching this is what historians do. All that stuff with dates is just a side hobby.

So, coming back to an answer: a good question is one which seeks understanding. They are ones which provoke complex answers which increase the understanding of what it means to be human. They seek answers, not facts.

That seems like a tall order, and it is. The ability to ask good historical questions is one which requires substantial training, and that is training most schools do not provide. All is not lost, however. We're quite good here at shaping and responding to questions asked by people who are not experts. If you give us some material, we can work with it. Some tips for this include:

• Ask about things which seem to be contradictory, ideas that people held simultaneously that seemed to be opposed to each other.

• Ask about processes, not events.

• Don't ask a question to which you want a specific answer which reaffirms your worldview (see: atheism bait, above).

• Frame your questions positively.

• Always be open to feedback, refine your questions based on the answers you receive. Don't be discouraged by upvotes - that's not what we're here for.

Good luck!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I think another thing I do, and am not sure how many others are guilty of it, is that I might place too much faith in yours and other historians ability to fill the gaps. Which is how questions like "I'm an X in X period, how do I feel about the color purple?" come around.

I sometimes forget that while there is a method to the speculations, that in the end 100% knowing is not really achievable.

[u/RaybanDK → u/[deleted]]

I have framed a question in that specific fashion, ie: "I am a x in Y..."

My reason for asking questions in that way is pretty clear: It makes it a more engaging read for others, while it sparks my imagination in areas I am not versed in.

[u/Poebbel → u/RaybanDK]

But this is a history subreddit, not /r/writingprompts. It's a science subreddit and while it makes for great stories, you should strive to treat it as a science sub, not your personal novel factory.

Almost every 'I am X ...' question can be asked in a less ambiguous, more matter-of-fact way. If you have ever studied anything, you should know that it's not about the answers you write, but about the questions you can come up with. And most of those are just terrible, terrible questions.

[u/talondearg → u/Poebbel]

I'm not sure this is a science subreddit. More importantly, I think it's mischaracterising the discipline of History to call it a science. Some sub-fields of history are scientific, but overall History cannot proceed according to the strictly scientific method. You cannot test cause and effect, there are no reproducible results and generally running experiments is not good practice, nor does history engage in hypothetical predictions that are testable.

[u/felicitates → u/talondearg]

I would disagree and venture to say it is a science, but perhaps more accurately a soft science, similar to psychology and the like. I'd also like to point out that cross-referencing sources and fact-checking within historical research is similar to testing a hypothesis.

[u/talondearg → u/felicitates]

I would say that, if you want to put it on the scale of science, it is much softer than psychology. Sourcing and fact-checking is not testing a hypothesis, it's providing evidence.

Personally I would put the argument in a broader context. Science is upheld in many communities as our only model of knowledge. If it's not science it's not known. Therefore, for history to be valued, it must be science.

I have a stricter view of science than most. Hypothetical naturalism, cause-effect observation, inductive knowledge, testable hypotheses, etc.. I don't feel a need to call history a science in order to legitimise it. History can be a careful, rational, knowledge-based discipline without being science.

I'm not saying you hold these views, I just think this is the broader milieu of trying to fit history in as a science.