You will get, if you haven’t already, some hostile questions in your life—some from strangers, others from colleagues or supervisors or relatives. The trick is to distinguish the hostile ones from the innocent but clumsy ones. Clumsy questions might really be the questioner’s way of seeking to get to know you better, or they could just be the product of anxiety and ignorance, neither of which is morally blameworthy. The only truly bad questions are not really questions at all. They are statements disguised as questions that are meant to be demeaning or designed to trip you up. It’s worth being
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