An Autodiact's Bible, #8

Reclaiming Your Mind, Part 2, Chapter 1b

This is the eighth installment of the serial of my forthcoming book Reclaiming Your Mind: An Autodidact’s Bible. As with other installments, part of it is behind the paywall. Become one of my supporters to get the whole thing.

Catch up on earlier installments here:
#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7

If your email client chokes on this post, find the whole thing at http://jdanielsawyer.substack.com

Continuing with our survey of the basic tools of learning…

Chapter 1
Outfitting Yourself: The Basics (continued)

JAQing Off in Public and Private

As I wrote this book and several whip-smart individuals of my acquaintance looked it over, nothing elicited more raised eyebrows than the term “JAQing off” which, as you may have inferred, is pronounced like “jacking off.” And, to be fair, as with the less reputable term, there is something vaguely masturbatory about JAQing off.

So what is it?

The term arose on Internet discussion forums in the early part of the 21st century as a derogatory way to dismiss somebody who seems to be hanging around a contentious thread and asking questions just to stir the pot, without having the gonads to step up and play devil’s advocate or make a solid argument of their own, because they claim to be Just Asking Questions.

Well, it might be a passive-aggressive thing to do in the middle of an Internet flame war, and it can certainly be used to dishonest effect.¹ Still, asking nosy or controversial questions in the face of propriety and stage fright? That’s the autodidact’s stock-in-trade. You’ll be shocked at how often people are willing to talk, given half the chance. Everybody wants to be listened to.

To successfully employ this foundational tool (if you’re not doing it already), I recommend the following approach:

1. Deliberately prevent yourself from censoring your own thoughts—it’s very hard to JAQ off if you’re not allowing the questions to percolate to the surface.

2. As you do this, you’ll find that you were previously keeping yourself from being aware of two broad classes of questions: the impertinent, and the stupid. Impertinent questions are ones that are socially or situationally inappropriate, forward, nosy, or otherwise potentially rude. Stupid questions are ones that

   1. make you feel dumb for even thinking they’re worth asking, or

   2. that you’re afraid will make you look stupid (or like a “bad person”) if you ask them out loud.

3. Once you’re comfortable letting the questions (no matter what they are) percolate to the front of your mind, start asking them as opportunities present themselves. This part will take practice—and sometimes a little Irish Courage—because asking impertinent and stupid questions violates a whole bunch of internalized/inarticulate taboos, but it’s worth it.

4. You’ll find, with a little practice, that with the right approach and attitude, you can ask almost anybody anything. So long as your interlocutor feels like you are genuinely interested in the topic you’re discussing or the question you’re asking,² they are likely to engage (either with enthusiasm, or because they feel like politeness demands they reply).

5. Practice this long enough, and get good enough at your approach, and you’ll be able to get anyone to open up about almost anything. Humans love talking about their pet issues, their pasts, and their hopes and fears and pet peeves and passions—so long as they feel like their audience is listening with genuine interest.

6. For this approach to be autodidactically useful (instead of just useful for starting conversations and annoying strangers), you must ask your questions in a non-loaded fashion. That’s why I chose “JAQing Off”—if you want to learn things, you must be able to just ask questions for the sake of hearing the answers. While in personal arguments (or Internet arguments) you may wish to win points and prove your rhetorical superiority, when you’re attempting to learn something you must be open to the idea that your own opinions, inclinations, judgments, and prejudices are wrong and that the other party knows something that you don’t. If you cultivate this attitude and ask questions in good faith, you will learn a lot more than if you halfheartedly play the devil’s advocate or use your questions as a subtle way to make other people feel stupid.

7. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll quickly find that this technique is applicable everywhere—in academic settings, in formal settings, in personal settings, and even on social media.

So, in sum, Just Asking Questions is just that: just asking questions. It’s your initial reconnaissance pass at the world. Call it “qualitative research.” It’s how you map new territory for potential exploration in the future. If some of the tools I discuss later on (like Research and Crossing the Line Twice) can be likened to hacking through deep jungle and climbing fog-shrouded mountains (and they can), then JAQing Off is standing on an observation tower and getting a broad-strokes view of the landscape before you dive in (except, in this exploration party, you can always stand on that tower, even when you’re simultaneously hacking through the jungle).

While you’re on that epic quest, it wouldn’t do you any harm to develop a taste for...

Sacred Hamburgers

In India, while cows are a vital part of the agricultural economy, they are not commonly eaten as food. While there’s little in the world that the Western palate appreciates more than a healthy-sized slab of lightly seared cow (or ground cow served between puffy slices of bread), this gastronomic delight seems...untoward, from the Indian perspective. Several Hindu sects have long maintained a religious taboo on the consumption of cow flesh every bit as strong as the Jewish and Islamic taboo against the consumption of pig flesh (alas, poor bacon, they know you not!).

I find food taboos fascinating. So, from time to time, I’ve read up on the Hindu beef taboo, and over the years I’ve collected a number of explanations that I have been unable to confirm (this is a matter rife with speculation).³ Similar to the Jewish and Islamic taboos against pork (and the Egyptian pork taboo that predated them both), there seems to be a lot of educated guesswork, but not much definitive evidence.

However, the story that I find most appealing goes something like this: