Answers, Questioned

“Judge a man by his questions, rather than his answers,” said the great Voltaire, according to Forbes.com, and BrainyQuote.com, and GoodReads.com, and a thousand other places across the Internet.

But where did Voltaire say this, or write it? Pursue that question a short distance, and you’ll come across Wikiquote, which says the source of this expression wasn’t, in fact, Voltaire, but a book of maxims by Pierre Marc Gaston de Lévis. And sure enough, there it is: “Il est encore plus facile de juger de l’esprit d’un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses.” (“It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers.”)

The Internet is filled with answers to life’s conundrums. Many of those answers are helpful, and a great many are suspect, or insufficient, or just wrong. How to figure out which is which? Perhaps by taking the answers as a starting point, rather than the destination.

Over the next few weeks, we’re trying a spin on a long-loved format for journalism: the A&Q. We’re taking the classic Q&A and turning it on its head, beginning with some of the most frequently posed solutions to pressing matters of policy and complicating those answers with thoughtful questions. Here are the first eight, published today:

• How should the U.S. go about reducing its sky-high rates of gun violence?

• What are the best answers to stopping political polarization in the U.S.?

• How should the world go about addressing climate change?

• What are the fairest and most effective ways to hold police officers accountable for killing unarmed citizens?

• How can the U.S. reduce rates of teen pregnancy?

• How can wages for men and women be made more equal?

• What should be done about unauthorized immigration?

• What can raise the stagnating economic conditions of America’s middle class?