I’ve mentioned
before that I enjoy reading autobiographies. I like them because I
appreciate the insights they give me into other people’s (usually famous
people’s) realities. I don’t seem to get the same insights by watching famous
people on TV or in the movies or by hearing them speak during talk show
interviews. I’m often struck by how people who seem dissimilar face struggles
that are more similar to each other than I would have imagined them to be.
I just finished reading an
autobiography by Madeleine L’Engle called A
Circle of Quiet. It was published in 1972 when she was at mid-life. She had
published what became one of her most well-known books, A Wrinkle in Time, 10 years prior, and in the autobiography, she
recounts among other details the difficulties she faced in getting A Wrinkle in Time published. She shares
the grief she experienced each time she received a rejection from a publishing
company, and she discusses the thoughts she had of giving up on writing
completely. But then she admits that the compulsion to write is for her
uncontrollable, and she explains that she found herself writing new works even
in the midst of rejection.
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| Madeleine L’Engle (Flickr/molosovsky) |
Although I’m often struck by the
similarities I find in autobiographies, such as the emotional challenges people
face, the way people struggle to balance a personal life with a career, or the
desire to act ethically despite temptations to do otherwise, I noticed several
passages in A Circle of Quiet that
discuss themes I hadn’t heard in an autobiography before. One of these themes
has to do with the act of questioning. I’ve been interested in the idea of
inquiry since my graduate school days, so I took particular note of L’Engle’s
discussion.
Near the end of the book, L’Engle
writes, “I wish that we worried more about asking the right questions instead
of being so hung up on finding answers” (207-8). I couldn’t agree more. In my
research over the years into the subject of intercultural understanding, I
found theorists who would also agree with L’Engle. Scholars such as Linda
Flower, Richard E. Young,
Theresa Enos,
Jim
Corder, and Deborah Tannen explore the
idea of asking questions rather than finding answers. I was fortunate enough to
study in person with the first three of these scholars, while I encountered the
other two through readings assigned by the others. They all use different
language to address the topic, but overall, their ideas about questions are
sympathetic to L’Engle’s.
As L’Engle writes, “it’s the
questions that have come from thinking…that are important” (208). Linda Flower
calls these questions inquiry, Richard E. Young calls them a problemology,
Theresa Enos sees questions emerging from a transforming ethos, Jim Corder sees
questions emerging from a generative ethos, and Deborah Tannen sees questioning
as a part of dialogue. All of them would like to see more emphasis placed on
questions rather than on answers because they all see more promise of reaching
mutual understanding this way. Again, they might not all use the same
terminology to discuss this idea, but to me, this is the gist of it.
As L’Engle puts it, “I wish we’d
stop finding answers for everything. One of the reasons my generation has
mucked up the world to such an extent is our loss of the sense of the
mysterious” (208). The scholars I’ve mentioned seek to solve this problem. I’ve
tried as well. You can find my thoughts on this matter in some of the writing
samples on my website, such as the book
chapter titled “Employing Ethos to Cross the Borders of Difference:
Teaching Civil Discourse” and the journal
article titled “Building Intercultural Empathy Through Writing:
Reflections on Teaching Alternatives to Argumentation,” both of which take up
the problem of feeling the need to assert answers to everything.
In response to these writings of
mine, people have often asked me if I really mean to propose that students
should be taught to question rather than assert. Don’t I, they wonder, really
mean that students should be taught to question only before being taught to
assert? Or taught to question as a step in the process of learning to assert?
It’s interesting to me that people have tried to put words in my mouth in this
way. I suppose that scholars in a discipline devoted to teaching students to
argue sometimes have a hard time hearing that there might be another way to
approach the world.
Ultimately, I’m grateful to the
editors who decided to let my words speak for themselves and who gave me a
chance to share those words with an audience. Like L’Engle, I find I can’t keep
myself from writing, so it seems I’ll keep finding ways to present my words to
an audience, such as I’m doing through this blog. Thank you, readers, for
giving me an audience!