On Wearing a Question

Most clothing with words on it is trying to end a conversation. It states a side. It plants a flag. It tells the people who pass you what you have already decided, so that nobody has to talk about it. That is the point of a slogan. It saves everyone the trouble of thinking.

We are not interested in saving anyone that trouble. We think the trouble is the point.

A slogan closes a subject. A question opens one. We only make the second kind.

A question works differently than a statement. A statement asks to be agreed with or fought. A question asks to be answered, and an answer takes a moment of actual thought, even a small one. When you wear a question, you are not telling anyone what to conclude. You are handing them the first line of an argument and trusting them to take the second.

This is harder than it sounds, and it is why so few people do it. A statement is safe. You know who is with you and who is against you within a second. A question is exposed. It invites a range of answers, some of which you will not like. But that exposure is exactly the civic muscle we think is going out of use. The willingness to hold a question open long enough to hear more than one answer.

So the garments are plain on purpose. Heavy cotton, honest color, a question set in a type that does not shout. Nothing here is designed to win an argument on sight. It is designed to start one, and then to get out of the way.

You will notice the questions are short. Two or three words. This is not because the subjects are small. It is because a good question does not need decoration. Great for whom. Says who. At what cost. Compared to what. Each one is a door. What is on the other side is up to the person who walks through it.

That is the whole idea. Wear the question. Start the conversation. Then, and this is the part that matters, actually have it.