Touchstone Tools and Resources: "The Answer Reflex Why is it that framing conversations in terms of questions is so difficult to master? One reason we have found is that Western society and the educational system seem to have rather thoroughly trained us to always know and say the right answer, and to avoid the vague and weak position of simply asking an open-ended question in a discussion. In other words, the result of years of practice is that most people have a very effective 'Answer Reflex,' which is the source of the commonly heard discussions of the 'Yes, it is!' - 'No, it isn't!' variety. In a discussion, the original question is quickly overwhelmed by a flurry of countermanding ideas -- proposals, answers, or solutions of some kind -- and tightly bound to those ideas are their justifications. Each justification in turn gives rise to new ideas, each of which has its own justification (see Figure 1). A well-functioning Answer Reflex assures that no one asks 'What is the question here?' Figure 1: The Answer Reflex This is not to say that people don't frequently ask questions. Indeed, to be a skillful politician or rhetoritician is to make effective use of the interrogative form. However, 'rhetorical' questions (e.g. 'Do we want another four years of inflation in this country?' or 'Are you always this dense?') neither open the dialogue nor foster a mood of inquiry -- they are simply a kind of position or assertion with a question mark on the end, and are very much a part of the Answer Reflex. Buckminster Fuller described the Answer Reflex as the 'Mistake Mystique': the tendency to avoid both the risk of being wrong and the vulnerability of not knowing by always 'knowing the right answer.' He pointed out that while this may have been a good strategy for success "