Complex Question

Logicians dating back to Aristotle recognized the existence of something called a "complex question". Politicans, lawyers and ad men call it a "loaded question". Either way, this is a question that assumes that something is true when it has not been established. It is often used to introduce something into a discussion that is not agreed or even not true.

The complex question is a favorite device of anybody with some kind of ax to grind. It's beauty (if that is the word) is that it is unanswerable. Any answer, including failure to answer, gives credence to the included assumption. This technique is even more effective when used as a rhetorical question, because the questioner can follow it up with whatever answer he desires.

There is one classic complex question, "Are you still beating your wife?" In the case where the poor soul confronted with this answers no, the question leaves the very strong impression that he did at one time beat his wife and has since stopped. Note that both the question and answer leave no room for the possibility that he never beat his wife, or even the possibility that he was never even married!

Campaign candidate questionnaires are a favorite lurking place for complex/loaded questions. Some of the questionnairs have questions so convoluted that Glenn has decided to ignore them because that's much simpler and much less time consuming than analyizing them. Besides, these questions are often framed to be answered yes or no (or else). If you're interested in a live example of loaded questions with a brief analysis of their unstated assumptions, take a look at Glenn's reply to NHN with respect to their insistance on yes/no (or else) answers. Glenn's original narrative answers is also available for comparison.

Glenn's view is that the use of the complex question to surreptitiously introduce information that is not given or even outright false into a discussion is less than ethical at best and deliberately misleading at worst. The complex question is so firmly entrenched in American English that there may well be examples of it on this very website. These are not deliberate, so let us know if you find one so that we can fix it.

One of the things that candidates for public office receive is questionnaires that seek to learn the candidates stand on issues of interest to whoever sent the questionnaire. They also attempt to sway the candidate, the carrot being an endorsement for "right thinking and right behavior". These questionnaires are just chock full of complex questions. Glenn's approach to these is to state his position on the issues raised as clearly as he can and then see that they appear on this website. The policy of this committee is to send a copy of the pertinent web pages to the organizations that send questionnaires. This is much more honest and also much easier than trying to thread the thicket of complex questions in the questionnaires.

For more information on complex questions, see the results of a Google search for "complex question"