People were still wedded in those days to the comfortable believe in their own objectivity.  Truth was always presented sooner or later in neat clean packages by a solicitous providence. In science as in human relations everything was sharply defined.  There were waves and there were particles, there was right and there was wrong, reality and illusion, art and artlessness, freedom-loving democracies and imperialist dictatorships.  In plays and motion pictures one could tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys".  Children respected their elders, minded their manners, saluted the flag, took oaths of allegiance, worshipped their gods, and knew who they were.  People either obeyed the governments in peace and war or overthrew and replaced them with systems they considered more appropriate to the changing times.  But always there was a rigid structure, even when it brought a new way of life, with new doctrines, new ideals, and new slogans to replace the old.  In many ways it was a good time to be alive, for people knew all the answers, even if they were different.  They had not yet discovered that the answer depends on the question, and that reality sometimes has many faces and speaks with many voices.

The first step in finding an answer is to understand the question. And when we say, "What is the stewardess' velocity with respect to nothing?" we do not ourselves know what the question means.  We might as well look very earnest and ask, "What is her predestinality?"  We may even form a club consisting of people who incant this word periodically, throw their arms around each other, and insist that only they understand.  But when asked to explain what they mean, they will say, "It is self-evident," or define it in terms of other words which are equally obscure. ... Now there may be nothing wrong with belonging to such a club.  Its members may have something important or pleasant or useful to themselves; they may even be ahead of their time. But whatever it is, it probably cannot be communicated in the usual manner, through use of words.  They are employing an idea which they are unable to define operationally.  And the least one should ask is that they become aware that this is so.