- Big Q: Are all people created equal?
- Big Q: Is art getting better or worse?
- Big Q: Are books dead?
- Big Q: Why are 43 percent of Americans barely able to read?
- Big Q: Who's better at communicating -- men or women?
- Big Q: Are there any modern mummies?
- Big Q: Is texting the end of talking?
- Big Q: Is privacy a dying concept or the next battleground?
- Big Q: Is the Internet making us sicker?
- Big Q: What makes a good citizen?
- Big Q: Is race a social construct?
- Big Q: Can love actually kill you?
- Big Q: Should we force a cap on the U.S. population?
- Big Q: Do prisons create more criminals?
- Big Q: If the 1 percent had less, would the 99 percent really have more?
- Big Q: Are humans meant to be monogamous?
- Big Q: Can humanity counteract the damage it's done to Earth?
- Big Q: Is global warming real?
- Big Q: Is healthy food a right or a privilege?
- Big Q: What is Gender?
- Big Q: Is there a "gay gene"?
- Big Q: Are rich people smarter?
- Big Q: If you saw someone being mugged would you stop to help?
- Big Q: Can music make you smarter?
- Big Q: What role does creativity have in business?
- Big Q: Should your health be public information?
- Big Q: Can prayer heal cancer?
- Big Q: Is there life before birth?
- Big Q: Is racism hereditary? (Is there a racist gene?)
- Big Q: Would the world be different if we all looked alike?
- Big Q: Are we inherently evil?
- Big Q: Is it better to confess a lie or keep it secret?
- Big Q: Will the world end in 2012?
- Big Q: What's the first thing you'd say to an alien?
- Big Q: Is there a sixth sense?
- Big Q: Is God evil?
- Big Q: Should fast food be outlawed?
- Big Q: Why is depression becoming more common?
- Big Q: Will surgeons be replaced by robots?
- Big Q: Can we arrest aging by destroying certain cells in our bodies?
- Big Q: Is any place in the U.S. safe from Mother Nature?
- Big Q: Does the Mayan calendar predict our doom -- will the world end in December 2012?
- Big Q: Did the Mayans use multiple calendars?
- Big Q: Why did the Mayans use a 260-day calendar?
- Big Q: Will humans still look the same 10,000 years from now?
- Big Q: Can the brain solve problems while the body sleeps?
- Big Q: What impact does ocean acidification have on undersea life?
- Big Q: Would we age differently on another planet?
- Big Q: Are near death experiences just hallucinations?
- Big Q: Is fashion empowering?
- Big Q: Can playing games make us smarter?
- Big Q: Could a hacker take down the Internet?
- Big Q: Do animals have a sense of right and wrong?
- Big Q: Do clothes really make the man (or woman)?
- Big Q: Does having children make us happier?
- Big Q: Does monogamy make us happier?
- Big Q: Does quantum foam hold the keys to time travel?
- Big Q: Does the Internet make travel irrelevant?
- Big Q: Does the modern prison system work?
- Big Q: Have credit cards made us poor?
- Big Q: How does science fiction predict the future?
- Big Q: How has the Internet changed politics?
- Big Q: How is globalization changing culture?
- Big Q: Is marriage dead?
- Big Q: Is taxation stealing?
- Big Q: Is the "American Dream" really possible?
- Big Q: Is the U.S. Constitution out of date?
- Big Q: Is there an ideal form of government?
- Big Q: Is your personal information the new currency?
- Big Q: What are the odds of surviving a plane crash?
- Big Q: What does 'free speech' really mean?
- Big Q: What does it take to explore the Mariana Trench?
- Big Q: What is fashion?
- Big Q: What is the future of the book?
- Big Q: What is the future of travel?
- Big Q: Why are humans competitive?
- Big Q: Why does fashion change?
- Big Q: Why does health care in the United States cost so much?
- Big Q: How much longer will we use paper currency?
- Big Q: Is technology killing our ability to practice patience?
- Big Q: Who is the world's most powerful person?
- Big Q: Does good grammar still matter?
- Big Q: Is Internet access a right or a privilege?
- Big Q: Are we getting dumber?
Big Question: What makes a good citizen?
Curiosity contributor Susan Sherwood contemplated some of the key ingredients of good citizenry and found one of them to be the relationship of a person to his or her government.
Voting regularly? Following the law? Paying taxes? Participating in civic organizations? Yes, yes, yes and yes. Each can contribute to good citizenship. But can you be a good citizen if you don’t support the government? What if you’re critical of it? Let’s go back to the mid-20th century, when Robert H. Jackson was a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and chief prosecutor of surviving Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Trials.
Perhaps it was Jackson’s experience with war criminals that led him to state, in a 1950 judicial opinion, "It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." In his view, it was the duty of a good citizen to be aware of what the government was doing and to interject when those actions were immoral, unethical or unjust.
Being able to tell the government, "Hey, you’ve got it wrong," is in fact so important that it’s protected by the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment guarantees the right to freedom of speech, no matter what a citizen wants to complain about: war, poverty, crime, education, politics, human rights, social issues, economics or foreign policy. The government is not a mystical entity; it’s composed of people, and people are sometimes wrong. What’s to prevent a government from being misguided, greedy or evil if no one says, "Stop!"?
After hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York in November 2012, Mayor Bloomberg planned on holding the city’s marathon shortly afterward, in part to bring in revenue for hurricane relief. However, protests arose from good citizens everywhere, citing concerns over the death toll, housing, police availability and limited resources. Finally, two days before the race, the mayor canceled. Nature had created a situation in which there was no single, satisfactory solution. Recognizing this, the city government eventually changed course, submitting to citizens who had yelled, "STOP!," loud and clear.
Most Watched
First Video of a Giant...
16,109 views
Looking for the Giant ...
7,923 views
Discovering the Giant ...
7,124 views
N. Myhrvold: Science &...
6,198 views
Major Environmental Is...
4,862 views
Comments ( )