Bullshit Answers
The Tibetan people have a saying that goes something like this, "To give a green answer to a blue question". This essentially means to give an answer to an unrelated question.
In other words, this means to avoid answering a question while appearing to answer the question. I like to call these useless answers as "bullshit answers".
I am sure that you are also way too familiar with these types of answers. Every politician does this to a certain extent. Good politicians even more so. CEOs of companies do it all the time. Once in a while, everyone (including us) gives these types of answers to try to avoid a question we don’t want to answer.
Yet, why do we accept these types of answers? Since bullshit answers are extremely transparent, we should do something about them.
I recommend cornering people on those answers. For example, I have begun to bluntly tell people that they did not answer my question and to try answering the question again. Besides the satisfaction of watching people try to squirm their way out of not answering a second time, I’ve find that this method shows the true dishonesty and duplicity of people.
If a question is an honest and righteous question, then we should not allow people to avoid answering without some punishment. Please give it a try, and see how well it works for you.
by Phil for Humanity
on 11/06/2007