Curiosity — Killing the Cat

Image by Kevin Poh

Or — A Plot to Maintain the Status Quo

I can’t remember how many times, during my youth, I heard things like, “Curiosity killed the cat”. I’m sure most of you had similar experiences.

Many of the questions we asked as children, were answered with a “curiosity killed the cat”-type brush-off. I’d love to be able to say that things have changed for the better in the decades since I was a child … but they haven’t. Children still hear things like :

“Curiosity killed the cat.”
“Little children shouldn’t ask big questions.”
“Children should be seen and not heard.”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“You’re too young to know.”
“Don’t ask so many questions.”
“Believe me. You don’t really want to know.”
“Not now! Ask me later. (later, as we know, never comes)

There are five facts about “curiosity killed the cat”.

1. Even if you were asking about your cat, dog, or goldfish, this answer had nothing to do with your pet.
2. The “responder”, did not want to answer your question.
3. The “responder” valued their “secret knowledge” above your need, desire, or ability to learn or understand.
4. The “responder” maintained and strengthened the existing adult-child power-control imbalance.
5. The “responder” taught you that questioning is an undesirable, dangerous social behaviour. This answer attaches an undeniable passive-aggressive threat to any further questioning.

So, from our earliest days, the adults closest to us, taught us that questions are bad — even dangerous. Secondly, we were taught that we shouldn’t question those with power over us. Furthermore, we were taught that the powerful need not answer questions.

Knowledge belongs to those in positions of power, and they guard it jealously.

Yet, during another aspect of our youthful education, we were seemingly taught to question, by means of the scientific process.

At school, we were taught, and expected to :

• Make an Observation. Be naturally observant and curious.
• Propose a Question. Find out more about our initial observation by asking questions.
• Form a Hypothesis. Utilise our currently limited information to form a suggestion/proposal. Use that as a starting point for further questioning.
• Conduct an Experiment or Study. Collect unbiased information from repeated, controlled experimentation, and/or wide-ranging study.
• Analyse the Data and Draw a Conclusion. Sort and analyse our findings, with the aim of drawing a conclusion. (your conclusion may take the form of an answer, no answer, and/or further questions)

These are two very powerful, yet contradictory messages. Surely our society values the scientific method of questioning? Well, yes it does, but …

How many scientific discoveries have been buried, captured by commerce, or propagandised to an early death, because they did not suit the plans of those in power? Of course, we’ll probably never know. But, think of various medications, electric vehicles, or the inventions of Nikola Tesla. These things did not fit with the desires of those in power. We know they were suppressed in various ways and degrees.

When I was a kid, one of the dangled carrots to encourage learning, was, “Maybe, someday, you’ll find a cure for cancer”. Of course, we now know that drug companies would price that cure out of the reach of most people. Unless of course, they’ve already found, and hidden it. After all, cures don’t make as much money as treatment. (there’s your mild dose of conspiracy theory for the day) 😉

So, how do these two very different messages about questioning fit into our lives?

What we learn from these two, powerful, competing messages is :

Ask questions, when we tell you to, and accept the answers we give you; even if they don’t really answer your question.

A questioning/curious mind is only valued by power, when it submits to power

This is almost always true, in almost all situations. These include, but are not limited to — adults & children, employers & staff, teachers & students, and rulers & populace.

Knowledge is power, and those in power know it.

It is safe to say that we’ve all experienced this. Your parents (or a sitter) told you — semi-playfully, of course — that curiosity is deadly to small, cuddly creatures. Maybe, a teacher insisting on their version of reality, in spite of evidence to the contrary. Later, it might have been your boss, telling you your question (or suggestion) is stupid. (and then using it themselves).

The insecurity of powerful people is directly proportional to the strength of their negative reaction when questioned.

When I started in the 1st grade, I could already read and write. My teacher hit me repeatedly, on the knuckles, with the edge of a heavy ruler, because she said that I shouldn’t be able to write. That, with variations on the theme, was the story of my school-years.

Much later, during the mid-80s, I spent three years studying at an evangelical bible college. In spite of achieving an A-aggregate, obeying all the rules, and fulfilling all course requirements (more than), I was not allowed to graduate. Even after many official queries, I was never told why.

I can only assume it was due to my persistently questioning nature. I questioned things that didn’t seem to make sense. I didn’t do it to be difficult. I questioned out of a genuine desire to understand. This did seem to make some lecturers, including the principal, uncomfortable. It seems I — along with my parents, who’d paid for the course — had to be taught a lesson. The power-balance had to be restored.

In the wider world of today, we have politicians telling journalists that they “don’t need to know”. We have politicians redefining facts to suit themselves. We have politicians banning journalists from public press conferences.

We have tech companies making billions from semi-legally acquired (at best), private information. Yet, we have people being locked-up, or on the run for publicising the crimes of those in power.

We have “news” media companies, just making stuff up as they go along. We have news media companies, misusing language to control perception.

Consider the following headline from the New York Times World, on May 14, 2018. “Dozens of Palestinians have died in protests as the U.S. prepares to open its Jerusalem Embassy”

Side Note : (The New York Times is generally a “good” news source)

I’m sure many of you are wondering what’s wrong with that headline.

Now consider these questions, and look at it again.

• “How did these dozens of Palestinian die?” The headline does not say.
• “Who killed these dozens of Palestinians?” The headline does not say.
• “How did these dozens of Palestinians die in “protests”? The headline does not say.
• Not to mention — “What has the US embassy got to do with this?”

No matter your political, or moral inclinations regarding Israel, Palestine, or the USA, this headline does three things.

1. It hides who killed the Palestinians.
2. If it tells us anything at all about the cause of these deaths, it puts the blame on the act of protest.
3. The cause of the protests is only mentioned as an aside — something that happened at the same time — not the cause of the protests.

Now, that’s not right!

It is not good English.

It is not good morals.

It is neither factual, nor truthful.

It is very definitely not good journalism.

By using the “passive voice” to hide pertinent detail, this headline commits a prime journalistic sin — it buries the lede (the main point of the story). In modern journalism, the lede is seldom buried due to ignorance. Rather, this is used to hide power from blame.

Once again, it is a case of “curiosity killed the cat”, or in this case, “protesting killed the Palestinians”.

In fact, protesting didn’t kill the Palestinians. The Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers. They just happened to be protesting at the time.

That headline — in the active voice — should read : “Israeli Soldiers Kill dozens of Palestinians Protesting the Opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem”

Moustafa Bayoumi, an English professor at the City University of New York, wrote the following :

It is the peculiar fate of oppressed people everywhere that when they are killed, they are killed twice: first by bullet or bomb, and next by the language used to describe their deaths.

And you thought grammar was unimportant.

Have you ever heard a kid come straight out, and say, “Mom, I broke your favourite vase.”?
Seldom, if ever. But, we’ve all heard a kid say something like, “Mom, your favourite vase broke.”
And yes, every adult knows what the kid is trying to do. The kid is making a clumsy attempt to bury the lede, and hide their culpability by using the passive voice, and omitting pertinent information.

When we look at this in the context of children, we laugh at its ridiculous transparency, don’t we?

Yet, how many of us would think to question that headline if it wasn’t pointed out to us? This isn’t about a vase being broken, it’s about heavily armed soldiers killing unarmed, civilian protestors!

Yet, most of us read it, and are misled without question.

Why?
Because it was not said by a child. It was said by adults. It was said by a newspaper. It was said by those we perceive as “powerful”; those we trust to tell us what is happening in the world.

Because we have been well conditioned, not to question power.

So, to stick with my theme of feline endangerment, and buried ledes :

• Who conditioned us to not question power?
• Why did they do it?

The answer to the first question is as simple as it is unfortunate and disturbing. In fact, I answered this question in the first part of this article. Did you notice?

Our parents, relatives, carers, and teachers conditioned us. As children, we were conditioned by the people who had power over us. Later in life, this conditioning was strengthened by lecturers, professors, mentors, pastors/priests/preachers, bosses, and civil/political leaders.

So, why did they do it?

Mostly, they did it because it had been done to them.

Your parents, and others who cared for you, thought they were “doing the right thing”. Few, if any of them meant to harm you by repeating playful ditties like, “curiosity killed the cat”, or “only speak when spoken to”, or “children should be seen and not heard”.

As always, the most pervasive evil, is the one that creeps up on us, unawares.

Consider a couple of new parents. Proud, protective, nervous, and largely clueless. Most of what they know about raising children, is how their parents raised them.

Their parents taught them, that children shouldn’t question their “elders and betters”. They may have done it semi-playfully with sayings such as “curiosity killed the cat”, but they did it. They were taught that respect meant never questioning those in power. They may have had it “beaten” into them.

Your parents, in turn, passed their conditioning on to you. They may well have been better parents to you, than theirs were to them — but they conditioned you. It is almost certain that they did not set out to harm you — but they conditioned you.

Bringing it all together

Some things to remember as we work to break our conditioning :

1. Blame does not help us break the conditioning. Blaming our parents, teachers, mentors, or anyone else is not going to help us. They, like us, were/are the products of their conditioning. Not blaming even applies to those who purposely misuse their positions of power and trust to mislead others.
2. Not blaming, does not mean we assume a passive stance. Blaming is not helpful, but we should always challenge misleading attitudes, actions, and communications that attempt to maintain the status quo, and/or mislead us. The “norms” must be challenged. But, we can do this without blaming.
   e.g. “Dad, what you said there is misleading … <explanation>”,
   vs
   “Dad, you’re just maintaining a false front for those in power.”
   Not a subtle difference. But it is a difference we get wrong too easily and often, when we begin to speak out against perceived wrongs.
3. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. I almost feel like I need to say this nine times — jut to prove it.
   Just like “protest didn’t kill the Palestinians”, “curiosity didn’t kill the cat”. Curiosity (or protest) may have led the cat into a situation where something or someone else killed it — but curiosity didn’t kill the cat. Similarly, protesting did not kill the Palestinians.
   Curiosity, questioning, and/or protest is blamed to stop you from upsetting the balance of power.
4. The boat was rocked, by the curiosity of the cat. Yes, I do love mixing metaphors, especially when they work so well together.
   Those in power, hate it when anyone “rocks the boat”. Curiosity, which leads to questioning, rocks the boat. That little rock of the boat, starts everyone looking around to find a cause.
   When they do that, they begin to notice other things that aren’t as they should be. Maybe they notice the “officers”, living in luxury, while they are on rations. They realise that the powerful have cut up the sails to make fancy clothes. They find out that the fashionably dressed, aren’t on the rowing roster.
   Of course, when they begin to notice this, they become restive, and the boat rocks even more. The last thing the powerful want, is for the boat to tip. We may discover that we can stand in the shallows, and don’t need them at all.
5. Look behind the curtain, to the real cause of every circumstance. Curiosity, questions, protest, facts, truth — these are all good things. Stop blaming them for things they cannot do.
   Look instead at who is blaming these positive, creative actions. That is almost certainly who is truly in the wrong.

So, let’s all open our eyes and ears to what is really being said.

Let’s all ask the uncomfortable questions of those with power over us.

Don’t accept the “answers” that attempt to separate true culprits from their actions.

Don’t accept answers that don’t truly answer your questions.

Realise that it is not curiosity, protests, questions, or “lack of respect” that kills cats or protesters.

We as adults, are told, “protests killed people” for exactly the same reason that children are told, “curiosity killed the cat”.

To stop us questioning.