Why Ask “Why?”
“The word ‘why’ is, in my view, the most powerful word in the English language. It is the driving force of my profession, and it’s also the driving force and at the heart of your professors, creative sciences, honest politicians and of good parents. Don’t stop asking the word ‘why’ just because you’re leaving DePauw. All institutions, all endeavors, all relationships are improved by a good scrubbing using the word ‘why.’ In democracy it is the question we must all constantly be asking our government and our leaders. It is not unpatriotic to question the government; it is unpatriotic not to.”
—John McWethy (1947-2008), veteran print and ABC News journalist, who died this week in a Colorado skiing accident; from his 2003 DePauw University commencement speech (Thanks to alert WORDster Hillary Groutage)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why do you have a blog like this? Why do we have an unsatisfiable urge and desire to ask why? From childhood, we often use it as our favorite phrase. We truly want to know why. We also live in a system that is far from perfect yet we allow this same system to blind us into nearsightedness and stop asking why. Break the system and keep asking WHY!
ReplyDeleteAmen, JP. Good advice, especially in an election year. Too few of us--including journalists--ask the important "Why?" questions and demand answers.
ReplyDeleteTP
What a great tribute to an untimely passing. And it reminds me of the following quote by e.e. cummings: " Always the beautiful answer. Who asks a more beautiful question?"
ReplyDeleteNo beautiful questions, though, if no one's paying enough attention to ask them. And then, like the trees falling mutely in the woods, do the real answers make a sound if no one's listening?
ReplyDelete