Americans have stopped asking why, and it's destroying our ability to think critically

Potentially the single most frustrating facet of American political discussion to me is the conspicuous absence of the word "why".

We sling facts and figures around and share headlines without reading the substance. We imbue terms with new meaning and bury each other in dirt based on two sentences of information.

But as a culture, we've stopped asking why.

And it makes me crazy, because to me the why is generally more important than the what - context is more important than content.

In analyzing personal or even corporate challenges, we know to ask "why" at least six times to get at the root of a problem.

But in our political engagements and endeavors, we not only don't ask why ourselves, we often demonize those who do.

"Unpatriotic."

"Unsympathetic."

"Uncaring."

We assume that causes and motives are exactly what they appear to be, based on the opinion of whomever clicked "publish" first.

Let's look at a couple examples.

Right now, the nation is debating our drawdown in Syria and the consequent military action taken by the Turkish government.

There was an assertion of fact, then immediate outrage.

Here are just a few of the questions the American public should be asking before determining whether or not to condemn the decision.

1) Why did the President decide on this change? Was it really due to a phone call with Erogdan? If so, what was said/promised/debated on that call?

2) Why are we beholden to Turkey?

3) Why are we beholden to the Kurds?

4) Why have we deployed troops to safeguard political dissidents in a Mideast nation that has no bearing whatsoever on our national security?

5) Why should we remain in Syria, and for how long?

But none of these are being asked.

Trump did it, so it must be horrible.

Let's look at another example: the whistleblower complaint that has sparked an impeachment inquiry in the house.

PSYCH!

Actually the Democrats had already planned impeachment last year (as reported by Mollie Hemingway at the Federalist last November), before anybody even knew about this whistleblower.

Still...

1) Why are the Bidens so closely connected to Ukraine?

2) Why did Hunter Biden get a job he seemed clearly unqualified for and get paid a ridiculous salary for it - and could it have been an attempt to influence American policy?

3) Why shouldn't an American president look into potential corruption by the previous administration's officials?

4) Why are we giving Ukraine money, and where is that money going?

5) Why are we using that money as leverage to influence domestic policy in Ukraine?

6) Why would the president ask a foreign nation to investigate, rather than leveraging all the (vastly superior) resources at his disposal within the executive branch and justice department?

Finally, let's look at Obergefell 2.0, the gay/trans employer discrimination case.

1) Why were the people in question fired, according to employers?

2) Why were the employees fired, according to the employees?

3) Why might a business require a job to be sex-specific?

4) Why should government legally redefine a common-use word (sex) to include tangential or unrelated classes, to which people belong or do not belong based on how they feel?

5) Why shouldn't they?

6) Why should government be able to second-guess the given reason for an employer firing an employee? Wouldn't that be judging motives?

7) Why is this issue before the courts when congress has not changed anything since the statute originally passed? Should it be decided by the courts, or by Congress?

Now I might come to radically different conclusions on these things than someone else, and I completely understand that.

What I don't understand is drawing hard conclusions on matters of national policy without even asking these questions to start with. I can't imagine being so consumed with a viewpoint that I'm generally unconcerned with the whys behind it. I can't imagine subscribing so completely to a single narrative that I judge speculation in support of it to be fact.

But right now the prevailing wind of political strategy is to throw so much dirt that critical, skeptical minds don't have time or capacity or information to analyze it all, and then rush decisions based on the dirt.

This is why the news cycle of scandal continues, even after so many scandals, hate crimes, etc, have turned out to be hoaxes.

If you create a scandal - even completely fabricate one - you can blast it everywhere and let the whole world know overnight. Outrage and overreaction will ensue. Meanwhile, critical people and fact-checkers take days or weeks to respond, because we're busy evaluating the truth of what's been said. And by the time a debunking or a retraction is published, it doesn't matter, because the desired effect has been reached and those tasty, tasty web hits have already been monetized.

Thus, the speed and volume of information itself has become a hindrance to being informed, and that fact is cynically exploited by a click-hungry media.

I think the first step to asking why again is moving past our soundbyte addiction, but that requires time and attention, and few people in my generation are interested in spending more of either.

Don't settle for headlines.

Ask why.

Then ask it again.

And then again.

Part of the importance of digging deeper into root causes is to find *a* point of commonality between conflicting sides, and that's true here as well.

But we've stopped digging, stopped asking, and are content to strawman each other online, to earn our blue checks.

Why?