Donald Rumsfeld and his 'known unknowns' - Something for 'Michael G'

A commenter on this blog has criticised me for saying in my commenets that:

'his logical point about known unknowns etc. The BBC have made fun out of that over and over again when it was a perfectly sensible and rather good summation of the intelligence problem.'

 'Michael G' said:

'"Known unknowns" was idiotic at best, and for you not to realise that backs up Jaz's accurate point about your own bias.'

Hmmm, as recently as February this year I blogged this in a piece about BBC bias:

'When Donald Rumsfeld made 'that' speech in 2006 which included the passage

'There are known knowns; these are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don't know.'

The left had hysterics, 'this man is an idiot they screamed', 'what gibberish he talks'.

Of course what Donald Rumsfeld was saying was not gibberish but good sense; I presume the speech-writer thought it was some clever wordplay. Donald Rumsfeld was explaining that there are things we know, things we know exist but do not know all about and things about which we have no idea. '

However if Michael G won't listen to me and prefers the views of the left-wing media whose hatred of 'Neocons' and anyone linked with George W. Bush, that's his choice but how about listening to these guys as found in Wikipedia?

'

"[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know. ”

—Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

linguist Geoffrey Pullum - the quotation was "completely straightforward" and "impeccable, syntactically, semantically, logically, and rhetorically."

Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, who called it "in fact a brilliant distillation of quite a complex matter", and Australian economist and blogger John Quiggin, who wrote, "Although the language may be tortured, the basic point is both valid and important ... Having defended Rumsfeld, I’d point out that the considerations he refers to provide the case for being very cautious in going to war."

Italian economists Salvatore Modica and Aldo Rustichini provide an introduction to the economic literature on awareness and unawareness:
“A subject is certain of something when he knows that thing; he is uncertain when he does not know it, but he knows he does not: he is consciously uncertain. On the other hand, he is unaware of something when he does not know it, and he does not know he does not know, and so on ad infinitum: he does not perceive, does not have in mind, the object of knowledge. The opposite of unawareness is awareness.”

Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek extrapolates from these three categories a fourth, the unknown known, that which we don't know or intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know:
"If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the "unknown unknowns," that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns" - the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values. ”

Žižek also builds the idea of known unknown, and unknown knowns, into a lecture on The Reality of the Virtual.'

I wonder if Michael G has actually tried to read and understand Donald Rumsfeld's remarks or just takes the anti-Bush line? Maybe he doesn't realise that the 'known unknowns' concept was not a Donald Rumsfeld invention...

'The term was in use within the United States military establishment long before Rumsfeld's quote to the press in 2002. An early use of the term comes from a paper entitled "Clausewitz and Modern War Gaming: losing can be better than winning" by Raymond B. Furlong, Lieutenant General, USAF (Ret.) in the Air University Review, July-August 1984:

“To those things Clausewitz wrote about uncertainty and chance, I would add a few comments on unknown unknowns--those things that a commander doesn't even know he doesn't know. Participants in a war game would describe an unknown unknown as unfair, beyond the ground rules of the game. But real war does not follow ground rules, and I would urge that games be "unfair" by introducing unknown unknowns.”'

A very similar line of thought has been used by NASA and then there is Richard Epstein.

'... libertarian lawyer Richard Epstein wrote a well known article in the University of Chicago Law Review about the American labour law doctrine of employment at will (the idea that workers can be fired without warning or reason, unless their contract states terms that are better). In giving some of his reasons in defense of the contract at will, he wrote this:

“The contract at will is also a sensible private adaptation to the problem of imperfect information over time. In sharp contrast to the purchase of standard goods, an inspection of the job before acceptance is far less likely to guarantee its quality thereafter. The future is not clearly known. More important, employees, like employers, know what they do not know. They are not faced with a bolt from the blue, with an "unknown unknown." Rather they face a known unknown for which they can plan. The at-will contract is an essential part of that planning because it allows both sides to take a wait-and-see attitude to their relationship so that new and more accurate choices can be made on the strength of improved information.”'

In fact the phrase 'known unknowns' goes back much further:

'In old Persian literature, One of the poets (Ibn Yamin Faryumadi)(ابن یمین فریومدی) say there are four types of men:


آنکس که بداند و بداند که بداند

اسب خرد از گنبد گردون بجهاند


آنکس که بداند و نداند که بداند

بیدار کنیدش که بسی خفته نماند


آنکس که نداند و بداند که نداند

لنگان خرک خویش به منزل برساند


آنکس که نداند و نداند که نداند

در جهل مرکب ابدالدهر بماند


* One who knows and knows that he knows... This is a man of knowledge; get to know him!
* One who knows, but doesn't know that he knows... This is a man who's unaware, so bring it to his attention.
* One who doesn't know, but knows that he doesn't know... This is an illiterate man; teach him!
* One who doesn't know and doesn't know that he doesn't know... This is a dumb man; and would be dumb forever!'

Which category do those who call Donald Rumsfeld's comments 'idiotic' fall into?

The BBC never letting go

When Donald Rumsfeld made 'that' speech in 2006 which included the passage

'There are known knowns; these are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don't know.'

The left had hysterics, 'this man is an idiot they screamed', 'what gibberish he talks'.

Of course what Donald Rumsfeld was saying was not gibberish but good sense; I presume the speech-writer thought it was some clever wordplay. Donald Rumsfeld was explaining that there are things we know, things we know exist but do not know all about and things about which we have no idea.

The left-wing media has no interest in facts just in making fun of politicians with whom they disagree, so to this day any opportunity to make fun of Donald Rumsfeld. In this week's Weekly World Quiz the BBC include this question:

'Excerpts from the autobiography of ex-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have been leaked. In it, he admits having chosen some words badly. Which of the following is NOT by Mr Rumsfeld?
1. "Stuff happens"
2. "Old Europe"
3. "Extremist group of folks"'

And here is the results scoring screen:

They just cannot let go.
FYI,  I got the Brazilian question wrong.


Here is Donald Rumsfeld making that speech, judge for yourself - does he make sense?