I would like to start a somewhat self-reflexive, philosophical, discussion about this site, dedicated as it is to having people who do not know each other and who do not come in any physical contact with each other interact or come together  around questions that they post on a forum open for all to see and contribute to. In short, I am asking, what is the significance of questions when they enter into this relatively new medium which we are all still trying to figure out, that is, the internet. This site, it seems to me, is one attempt to try to figure out what could the relation be between the internet and the linguistic mode we call the question. It seems to me that the question, as a linguistic utterance of a specific nature, implies two interrelated aspects which are, nevertheless, almost completely opposed. The one we might view as a fascistic, dominating aspect, the other, a liberating, creative aspect, or a life changing aspect. How are these two sides implied in the essence of the question? we can start to see this by looking at what it is that the question DOES to the one being asked, or what is it that happens when one is questioned. When one is questioned, we might say, about anything whatsoever, what is first of all PUT IN QUESTION is one's identity, who one is. when asked about anything the one who is asked first of all feels his or her IDENTITY IN CRISIS, OR IN SUSPENSION. Simultaneously with having to answer about the content of the question, even if it is the simplest question of what color is this horse, etc, I also as if have to answer or decide about WHO I AM, who is the one who needs to answer or who answers, who is the one ADDRESSED by this question. That is, when asked a question it is my identity or my subjectivity that is in question or in suspense, it is my subjectivity that has to be decided upon. My life is in question, in suspense, every time I am being questioned, and thus to an extent every question is A LIFE QUESTION, a question about who I am.

 But together or simultaneously with this event of life crisis there is an immediate effect of imprisonment, of being dominated, precisely because by being questioned by someone who puts my subjectivity in question I am also at the same time SUBJECTED TO the one who asks, am in his or hers power so to speak, since my subjectivity as if needs to receive the answer to its crisis from the one who posed to me the question, and who thus in a certain way holds the key to an answer, to the answer of who I am (I am going here very briefly and quickly over some quite complicated issues, so the argument might feel a bit lacking in connections). Thus "the question" as a particular linguistic mode is both a life question that opens my life to a rethinking about itself, opens up for me the issue of who I am and in this need to respond I might discover new things about myself and create my world in a new way, but it holds potentially the power to subject me, to put me under the power of the question of another that as if holds the key to my identity and can decide about it, or as if who knows a secret that I myself do not know. That is, by being questioned about who I am I also experience a certain BLINDNESS in relation to my self, as if there is something about myself that I do not know (otherwise my identity will not feel itself in question, since it will have known everything about itself) and it is precisely at this blind spot of my self to itself tat the other who questioned me might seem to have infiltrated and positioned him or herself in, in that by potentially holding the key to my identity knows something about myself, a secret, that I do not know, and thus knows about me more than I know about myself, and this is to be sure someone I need to follow and obey.

It seems to me that the philosophical tradition, the tradition of writing that has to an extent dedicated itself most to the question of the question, to exploring what a question is and what its significance might be, has been equally drawn to these two sides of the question, its liberating, life changing, power, and its subjecting, life imprisoning force. Socrates famously is the one who has introduced the genre of the question most forcefully and practically into the heart of philosophy, by practicing philosophy through going about and asking people apparently simple questions, but that exposed to these people that the life they have lived and the truths they held to be self-evident are actually completely obscure to them, that they have no real idea about who they are and what their life is about, and it is this that the philosopher activates, thus enabling  life transformation. At the same time, by positing himself at the place of a questioner who, though admitting about himself that the only thing he knows is that he doesn't know, nevertheless occupies the place of a power that can subject and lead these distraught people being asked wherever he wants, Socrates has also revealed philosophy's power to subject and attempt to lead others by forcing upon them the need to respond to the questions that it itself has formulated, and at times only in ways that it decides are legitimate. Thus like a lawyer who establishing someone as guilty simply by raising the question of their guilt and forcing them to respond, even if in the negative, about a guilt in which they might not at all have been implicated in, philosophy has gained at times its power by forcing people to answer questions that it itself has formulated, questions that might not have had any real merit, but once they are on the table they hold a power hard to dispel.

Now, the question is asked, can we activate the creative side of the question without, or at least with diminishing, its imprisoning side? It might be that one of the significant aspects of the internet will be involved in this attempt. Being posed in a forum open to all, not in any situation where one can gain any authority over another (I am obviously being somewhat simplistic here, authority is not that easy to get rid off) the question seems to gain in its life changing mode. It is there in the open, EQUALLY ADDRESSED TO EVERYONE AND TO NO ONE, with no real power to force an answer or even to direct to any specific person who might feel obliged to respond, the question sits there on the internet page waiting for someone who might feel him or herself addressed by it (addressed meaning, feel that the question raises something that relates to their life and identity, something that calls them to raise a question about themselves) but with no obligation and with no supervising force (again, I'm being intentionally naive, the force of supervision is never only at the level of real presence but is a Phantasmatic projection, what Lacanian psychoanalysis calls the Big Other- and it is an open question whether the internet enforces the mechanism of a belief in an invisible big other that supervises and decides upon the meaning of what I say, or whether the internet will be an instrument of liberation from this phantasy) the question might truly become a life question, for someone, for everyone, without being immediately taken over by dominating forces. At least this is the promise of such an internet site, I think. Life thus becomes at stake in such a forum, the life of someone, or of everyone, who might feel addressed by that which has been raised openly and without authority, and it is thus that the life of the many, or of a few, in any case of all those who feel addressed by the same question, not necessarily present to each other, nevertheless open up, potentially, in relation to each other, through this new medium.