In my latest book manuscript, Don’t Ask—If You Want to Find Out What’s Really Going On, I make a case against asking as a way to find out what’s really going on. All forms of asking, all types of survey research—including polls, face-to-face interviews, and focus groups—are assessed and found wanting. The following is a draft of the Preface. Click here for the Table of Contents.

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Don’t ask if you want to know what’s really going on in America, Africa, France, Australia, or in any other country. Don’t ask if you want to know what’s really going on in a municipality’s planning agency, in your neighborhood, or in any other place. Don’t ask if you want to know how many people live in a nation or community; or how many are members of this or that group. Don’t ask if you want to know about the performance of government agencies, gender discrimination, foreign policy, economic conditions, or if you want information about budgets; such as how much a school district spends for administrative overhead and how much for education. In other words, don’t ask if you want to know about objective phenomena. Reliable information about the objective world is acquired by what I call "proper" methods of data collection (observation and document analysis), and by proper research designs (experimentation, use multiple sources of data, formal model building and testing, and comparison).

Also, don’t ask if you want to know about subjective phenomena; such as attitudes, opinions, motives, and values. Use proper methods and research designs. For example, when you want to know people’s attitudes or opinions, observe the actual behaviors of the persons being studied. Then, assign to these individuals the subjective attributes consistent with their behaviors. What people do, not what they say indicates their attitudes, beliefs, and values. As labor organizer Cesar Chavez put it: "Talk is cheap...[T]he way we...use our lives everyday...tells what we believe in" ¹

Another way to obtain information about subjective phenomena using proper methods and research designs is based on the reasonable, and empirically substantiated assertion, that respondents (and everyone else) are not born with, nor do they make the opinions, attitudes, and values they hold. Rather, what people think and feel about ethnic minorities, public policies, lawyers, gay marriage, present and past Oval Officers (Gore Vidal’s designation), Congressional candidates, products (Saturn automobiles, skim milk, and Sony LCDs), as well as everything else are—as economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out some time ago—"fashion[ed\" and, "within very wide limits,...create[d]" by families, peer groups, governments, business, the mass media, churches, schools, and other institutions and groups that socialize, advertise, and propagandize². "What we are confronted with", Schumpeter continues, "...is largely not a genuine but a manufactured [public] will [opinion, or attitude]"³. So, don’t ask about subjective phenomenon. Rather, identify by observation and by content analyses of the mass media and relevant documents, the values, priorities, understandings, biases, prejudices, loves, and hates promulgated by society’s powerful groups and institutions. These are the opinions, attitudes, and values held by those experiencing these groups and institutions.

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Because asking is the fashion, the case against it is unknown. There’s hardly any thought in the popular media about whether asking is a good way to find out what’s really going on. And there aren’t systematic assessments of the asking method in academe. Consequently—and sadly—almost everyone is certain that asking produces reliable information. What’s considered real, what’s believed and not believed, imagined, anticipated, dreaded, as well as the opinions of this or that socioeconomic group, and so on—all of this—is usually based on answers to questions. Most social science research, as well as most reports and investigations in the popular press and on TV, are based on surveys, polls, interviews, and the like. Answers to questions help form many government policies, and guide business decision makers. When there’s no one to ask, the tendency is to rely on newspapers, journal articles, books, and TV, which means obtaining little or nothing more than answers acquired by other individuals and organizations—such as newspaper reporters, corporations, and academic and government agency researchers—who asked. For most people, their understanding of the world, themselves, and virtually every other person, thing, and event they read or hear about, are based on answers to questions.

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The Problem with asking is that it does not produce reliable answers. When government and academic researchers, newspaper reporters, TV interviewers, and other askers rely only on answers to questions, it’s impossible to know which answers reveal what’s really going on and which do not. That’s The Problem with asking.

This is not to say that askers never obtain correct answers. Of course they do. Voters sometimes respond accurately in exit polls and, thereby, winners are predicted. Members of social clubs often answer correctly when asked, What is your email address? Market researchers have received accurate information about consumer preferences and, as a consequence, corporations have sold advertised products at profit-making prices. Academic askers sometimes obtain accurate responses to questions about sexual behaviors, illicit drug use, and organizational performance. The Census Bureau, it’s generally agreed, obtains at least some correct information. When asked, elected officials and corporate CEOs sometimes tell the truth about what they have done and what they intend to do. However—and as everyone knows—many exit polls have not predicted winners; not every product marketed sells as well as anticipated by survey results; people often give inaccurate answers about orgasms, penetration, oral sex, and heroin use, as well as workplace behaviors and organizational output; the Census Bureau does not receive accurate information about the size of minority populations; and many elected officials and corporate executives have been caught in deceptions and outright lies.

Those who rely on interviews, surveys, and the like do not accept the unreliability of answers to questions. If they did, they wouldn’t ask and this book wouldn’t be needed. But my efforts are required because askers believe (erroneously, as shown in ) that by modifying components of the asking method (such as question wording), inflating response rates, weighting results, logical imputation, as well as other manipulations (some statistical, others magical) they can identify correct answers; that is, answers that correspond to what’s really going on.

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In Part One (Ch. 1-4) the ubiquity of asking is described; thereby the extent of The Problem is demonstrated. Everyone asks, everyone is asked, and questions are asked about everything. Moreover, asking is continuous and worldwide. Everyone asks everyone about everything everywhere all the time.

In Part Two, Chapter 5, The Problem with asking is described and the sources of The Problem are identified. I point out in Chapter 6 that The Problem has been extensively documented and, moreover, acknowledged throughout the popular press, as well as by numerous academic and professional researchers; some admitting, among other things, that asking instruments "shake"⁴ and that the results of asking are "wobbly"⁵.

In Parts Three through Five (Ch. 7-15) I describe the three major components of the asking method, and show how (1) asking instruments, (2) the situations or conditions in which questions are asked and answers given, and (3) askers themselves contribute to The Problem.

Part Six contains identifications and brief discussions of proper methods of data collection (observation and analysis of documents) and proper research designs (experimentation, use of multiple sources of data, formal model building and testing, and comparison). General readers may wish to skim this material—and even so—they will have criteria indicating whether or not articles in newspapers, magazines, as well as reports on TV and the Internet describe what’s really going on. They will know that only reportage and accounts based on observation, experimentation, document analyses, and other proper methods and designs meet the test. Those interested in doing research—students, newspaper reporters, social scientists, and so on—will find the examples and analyses in Part Six helpful as an introduction to methods of data collection and research designs that produce the data needed for better understandings of whatever is being investigated; that is, data for finding out what’s really going on. And when there’s data acquired by proper methods and/or proper research designs, there’s no need to ask.

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I am aware there are difficulties, weaknesses, and biases in every method of data collection and in every type of research design; including proper methods and research designs. Observations may not be representative of the larger population being investigated; official records are, in some instances, incorrect and incomplete; formal models may not include significant variables, thereby skewing the deduced conclusions; and so on. Since all methods of data collection and all research designs have deficiencies, the issue is: which set of deficiencies, imperfections, or shortcomings are best to deal with? The limitations of observation and other proper methods and research designs, or the shortcomings of the asking method? It’s my view that the flaws of surveys, interviews, and other types of asking are so extensive and severe that asking to find out what’s really going on should be abandoned. We’ll obtain more accurate information about both objective and subjective phenomena by using proper methods and research designs—even though we’ll also have to deal with the shortcomings of these research procedures—than we will by asking and dealing with the deficiencies of asking.

When the case against asking is accepted—and I anticipate my efforts in Don’t Ask will contribute to that outcome—proper methods and research designs will become more attractive and, thus, more widely used. The latter is dependent on the former. "’We must clear the ground of rubbish", says writer and art historian, Ernst Gombrich, "before we can build"⁶. When those who want information no longer rely on answers to questions—on "rubbish", as political science professor, David Runciman describes some polls⁷—and, instead, depend on results generated by proper methods and research designs, they find out what’s really going on. With reliable information, better understandings of social and individual problems are acquired and, even more importantly, as sociologist, Irwin Deutsher, wrote some time ago, there is a "more effective application of...relevant knowledge to the solution of ... problems"⁸. If you want to acquire information best suited for solving problems, don’t ask; instead, use proper methods of data collection and proper research designs. Norbert Weiner, mathematician and founder of cybernetics, writes:"To live effectively is to live with adequate information"⁹. Paul Sweezey, economist, journal editor, and writer, agrees: "If you know what’s happening you’re in a position to figure out how to do something about it, and that’s always uplifting"¹⁰.

Because of the popularity of asking, and the high esteem usually accorded its practitioners and proponents, I am compelled to document every aspect of my critique. Noam Chomsky (linguist and writer) explains my situation: "if you’re following the party line you don’t have to document anything; you can say anything you feel like...That’s one of the privileges you get for obedience. On the other hand, if you’re critical of received opinion, you have to document every phrase"¹¹. The Endnotes section at the end of the book documents my case against asking.

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Sometimes it’s advantageous for all concerned to ask people to say something about objective and subjective matters of interest to them. This is not asking to find out what’s really going on but, rather, asking to provide opportunities for people to express themselves and/or to participate. See Appendix A "Asking for Expression and Participation" for examples and further discussion of this point.

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A final, prefatory comment; borrowed from Rousseau: I cannot say everything at once or—as the reference in the previous paragraph to Appendix A illustrates—in one place. So, as you read Don’t Ask, keep in mind that my case against the asking method is methodical and cumulative. The grip of the asking method is so powerful and ubiquitous that it’s unreasonable to expect that any single Chapter of this book, or even a Part, would suffice to end reliance on asking. Only when all the weaknesses and illogicalities of the asking method are identified does it become abundantly clear that you shouldn’t ask if you want to find out what’s really going on.

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Endnotes

1. — http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menue=research&inc=history/09.html↑


2. — Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1950), p. 263.↑


3. — Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3rd ed., p. 263.↑


4. — Edwin D. Goldfield, "Afterword", in Denis F. Johnson, ed., Measurement of Subjective Phenomena (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Printing Office, 1981), p. 193.↑


5. — Carol Tavris, "Secrets and lies", Times Literary Supplement (May 11, 2007), p. 7. ↑


6. — Quoted in James Hall, "Older and wiser", Times Literary Supplement (October 18, 2002), p. 3. ↑


7. — David Runciman, "The Cattle-Prod Election", London Review of Books (June 5, 2008), pp. 17-18. ↑


8. — Irwin Deutscher, "Words and Deeds: Social Science and Social Policy", Social Problems (Winter 1966), Vol. 13, No. 3, p. 235. ↑


9. — http://brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/norbert_wiener.html ↑


10. — Alexander Cockburn, explaining Sweezy’s views, in "Understanding the World With Paul Sweezy," The Nation (March 22, 2004), p. 8. ↑


11. — Quoted in Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on MisEducation. Edited and Introduced by Donald Macedo. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), p. 173. ↑