Needless to say your question/statement is huge, deep and has many implications. Your desire for change and a better existence for the people of this globe is such that I am afraid to be too philosophical. But you have struck a very loud chord within me.
In the main I agree with you and I live by that agreement. I basically think that everything should be questioned. For the most part I believe we should persist with this stance our entire lives.
Do you recall that old Zen saying? 'First a mountain is a mountain. Then a mountain is NOT a mountain. Then the mountain is a mountain again'. The first state could be called the naive attitude. The mountain can be treated as a symbol for existence and the experience the individual has of existence. Soon the individual starts to question the existence of the mountain. The more he questions it the less it becomes the mountain it was. But the naive attitude also dissolves away. Finally the mountain ceases to exist. At that instant a change sets in as if like a flash of lightning. Suddenly the mountain is a mountain again. But now the 'student' sees it as it is. After this it is almost incorrect to keep questioning or doubting its veracity, its existence, its inspiration.
There are times when questioning is urgent. And there are times when questioning only punctures the life of the thing, the event, the experience, the intuition or instinct. Probably an alternation is recommended between questioning and acting or accepting. The same alternation is found in diastole and systole, in sunshine and rain; in giving and receiving.
Modern scientists have learned a lot about questioning Nature - especially at the subatomic level. What Nature 'is' tends to respond at the level of the question, and 'answers' in accordance with our method of questioning. We have to be careful that the question does not become a substitute for 'reality'. Then it can become a subtle form of escape from what 'instinct' already knows to be true.
But you are absolutely right that blind acceptance of the way things are now is totally unacceptable and we are at a point where many, many ways, practices, habits, methods and systems must be questioned deeply. While doing this it remains important not to sterilize the vital instincts and intutitions that guide the regular lives of each individual. You can question a thing to death. So a balancing act is required even during the deepest and most urgent questioning. Questioning can paralyze when it should only halt wrong or careless action temporarily. The better the question the clearer will a new path appear to be.
There are times when society becomes paralyzed for the opposite reason: because it has refused to allow any far-seeing or insightful individual to question the status quo. Usually people do not want comfort to revert to discomfort. That is the moment when the right question (or questions) posed at the right time by a very courageous individual, or group of people, can make the difference between success and failure, or tragedy and triumph.
I really do think this is a time for significant questions and questioning. It does seem like everything should be questioned. But what I face in my daily life is that there are certain things that I cannot question any more. I must simply persevere with daily action. I must do my part ecologically for example. If I let down my own role in that arena I am licensing others to also quit or not even get started.
Recently there is an attitude that has started to seep into my bones that is often positive and that I cannot account for. I have chosen not to question the well-being that accompanies this atttiude because it makes it easier for me to communicate and deal with others. It makes it easier for me to face adversity. I expect it will revert, but for the moment I find that by just accepting or embracing it - despite the state of the planet - it preserves this vital feeling of positive growth or well-being.
Yet, even with daily functions like the ones just mentioned, I find myself still questioning just about everything - always asking myself if there is not a better a way? My questions are always tempered by the intense drives and desires of others which I seem unable to influence - especially where profit is the main concern. So I find myself controlling my questions like a laser beam so that I don't burn out all the vital tissue that surrounds the offending area.
All these qualifications here should not dent the importance of your question. I agree with you. Nothing penetrates and nothing leavens consciousness like questions. But like anything - any state you can think of - there is always a balancing act of some kind that holds together the living fabric that must survive even the worst conditions, whether war, overpopulation, social pathology, greed, complacency, conceit, arrogance, etc.
Thanks for putting your thoughts out there. Your question deserves many pages of consideration.
B. Lyons