Question etiquette

Is it a good idea to answer any question asked by the media? My answer to this question is no, since the idea-set that underlies the question may not be well chosen.

The above question IS hopefully worth answering. Ideas now travel the globe in very short times. Those who reinforce bad idea-sets by obediently manning any side of a weak or ill-posed question both: (i) help the bad idea propagate and (ii) falsely legitimize un-informed pursuits by those lined up on both sides of the question.

Do people ever make this mistake? It seems to me that among others, "stereotypers" (who cartoonify folks and often champion single-scale causes) and "progressives" (who attempt in sometimes muddled ways to address challenges on more than one scale) both make the mistake frequently. The latter often do it thereby aiding the former with their xenophobic labels, while the former often do it thereby aiding stereotypers against whom they discriminate.

What are some examples of this? I'll offer two. According to linguist George Lakoff, progressives often take the wrong side of a bad issue (like whether to set a date in advance for withdrawal from some conflict or election) instead of attacking the poor choice of question while offering a better one. This may require standing up to mono-scale cartoonifiers (including media reps) who claim that arguing against a bad question is beating around the bush. Such reframing of bad questions had thus better be done clearly and succinctly.

Another example involves possible responses to non-government violence against citizens. The strongest narrative may not involve "wars against terror by an axis of evil", especially if such phrases help groups with no (or poor) track record at governance to act like governing adversaries either militarily, or in their ability to bring order to the lives of everyday folk. Instead it might be better, for example, to ridicule those making the neolithic claim that "it's OK to treat others as subhuman" and to demonstrate that we can better help sustain folks' lives on multiple levels than can they.